Dr. Wittmer finally enters the Blog World

My former professor and friend of mine from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, Dr. Michael Wittmer, has finally created his own blog site,appropriately named, Don't Stop Believing. You can access it here. The Blog site is named after his upcoming book, which provides a thoughtful, balanced critique of several influential authors from the emergent church.

Dr. Wittmer already has begun stirring the pot in his first post by pondering whether the influence of Plato on the Worldview of Christians played any part in the economies woes. My favorite line from this post occurs in his ending as he reiterates the importance of Jesus being the Lord of our Money.

"So let’s hear sermons on greed and the sin of excessive consumer debt. Let’s talk to each other about the forgotten value of thrift—not just so we can protect our own nest egg, but as a practical way to love our neighbor. We may end up with less, but we will flourish more."

Another post coming from Wittmer provides links to a couple of critiquing articles that he wrote which addresses the theological deficiencies of the emergent church (while at the same time commending them for their Jesus lifestyle). I especially enjoyed the one from Western Theological Seminary's journal where he compared J. Gresham Machen’s critique of yesterday's theological liberalism to certain emergent author's beliefs of today.

Thanks Mike for joining the blog world. Your voice needs to be heard.

About David "Day-Day" Witherspoon

It grieves me to tell all of you that one of UTM’s most faithful students, David “Day-Day” Witherspoon, was gunned down on the streets of inner-city Grand Rapids Friday afternoon. Because we were close friends with his extended family (his grandmother was our next door neighbor), Sherilyn and I had known David since he was a toddler running around in diapers in our neighborhood. Throughout his childhood, Day-Day faithfully attended our ministry programs, including cross-trainers, tutoring, Berean Baptist church’s Wednesday youth night, the Rock, and Thursday Night Hype. What’s more, David braved campouts throughout the wilderness of Michigan, took part in several sleep-overs at our house, and enjoyed KAA sports camp. Now at the age of sixteen, he has left this earth and joined his Redeemer, Jesus Christ.

At this time, we do not know all the details with the shooting but make no mistake, Day-Day was not a trouble-maker and did not have police record. In fact, David was one of the nicest, kindest students that I’ve had the privilege to know who didn’t have an enemy in the world because he treated everyone with respect. In fact, because he was well-liked by just about everyone, David hung out with people from all walks of life, not only did he often spend time with his peers at church, but he also at times hung out with gang-members. Unfortunately, as in Day-Day’s case, if you hang out with the wrong person in the ‘hood, it could cost you your life. Nevertheless, Day-Day was a follower of Jesus who loved God and loved others. He was much more ready to meet Jesus than those gang members that the bullets were meant for.

Although Sherilyn and I have lost count as to all of our students who have been shot and killed on the streets of Grand Rapids, this one hurts the most. We are still in shock and find ourselves going from crying, to numbness, and then to anger. However, we are clinging to our Savior Jesus Christ in this tragic ordeal. We know that God is good and we continue to trust Him through all of this, even when we don’t understand why such a senseless tragedy could take place.

Please pray for our students who are involved in UTM through the ROCK and Thursday Night Hype. Most of them were very close to Day-Day. On Friday evening Sherilyn and I took fourteen of Day-Day’s friends who attend Thursday Night Hype out to Denny’s to eat and spend time listening, loving, and comforting them. Even during such a sad occasion, it was encouraging to witness the maturity of several or our students leading a prayer meeting at the restaurant and comforting each other through this horrific tragedy. On Saturday, when I shared at the ROCK about Day-Day’s life and devotion to God, I challenged almost 100 of our students to get right with God because of life’s shortness. Several of them responded to the message and our staff and student leaders spent the rest of the evening counseling and praying with about two dozen of our students. One of the positive outcomes of this meeting was that it has restrained several of Day-Day’s friends and relatives from taking revenge on the alleged suspect. One of our student leaders, Davien Fizer has been particularly helpful in talking down several of our male students. In closing, pray for David’s twin sister Danielle. She is taking it pretty hard because her twin brother had always been one of her best friends. Pray for David’s mother, Nyree as well. Although she is a strong woman, it has devastated her beyond comprehension.

For those who desire to know more information about Day-Day’s murder, here and here are some of the links to articles from the Grand Rapids Press.

Thank you so much for supporting Urban Transformation Ministries as we continue to serve Jesus and the inner-city in all of these circumstances. Please uplift us in your prayers.

By the way, I will be the preacher/comforter/speaker at Day-Day's funeral, which will be held at Berean Baptist church. However, the times of his visitation and funeral is still pending.

Joel

Update of the funeral:

Last week was the most difficult time that we have experienced in all of our years doing urban ministry. As you know, David “Day-Day” Witherspoon was shot and killed on the streets of Grand Rapids on September 26th, 2008. Day-Day was a long-time active member of UTM programs such as Thursday Night Hype and the ROCK, in partnership with Berean Baptist church. Over the past week, Sherilyn and I spent numerous amount of difficult hours counseling many of our students who were grieving as well as talking down several of our male students who wanted revenge. Sherilyn, Jim Bartels (who is Berean’s Jr. High youth pastor) and I organized the funeral with the Witherspoon family. Because of our close relationship to the Witherspoons (we lived next door to Day-Day’s Grandmother for eleven years), they asked me to preach at Day-Day’s funeral and committal service. Over 1,200 people attended the funeral at Berean Baptist, half of whom were urban high school students from Creston and young college age adults. Since people from all over the city packed out the church beyond its capacity, they had to set up two large overflow rooms to accommodate the standing-only crowd. Besides sharing several fond memories of Day-Day, I also spoke words of comfort from Psalms 23 and preached the gospel message. I was amazed at God’s sufficient grace, especially during this time, as I am still grieving. I can truly confirm God’s words when he says to the apostle Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” Continue praying for the many students that are affected by this tragedy. While our students within Thursday Night Hype and the ROCK continue to struggle with the pain of losing a close friend, our student leaders are stepping up and reaching out to their peers with the love of Christ. We find that while most inner-city students feel uncomfortable opening up to a counselor with whom they have no relationship, they will open up to their peers and adults when there is a relationship of trust already present. This means that there is much follow-up for Urban Transformation Ministries to do among the many students and their families who are hurting.

Despite such a horrific tragedy, we were encouraged by the pro-active, generous response from Berean Baptist church. Hosting a funeral of this magnitude takes a lot of help and we were amazed at how quickly the church organized over one hundred of its members to assist us in so many different ways. In fact, several who attended the funeral, especially from the Witherspoon family, commented that they’d never experienced a church that was so helpful and generous. Through the programs of UTM such as the ROCK and Thursday Night Hype together with the active partnership of Berean Baptist church, we are thrilled to help extend Berean Baptist Church’s reputation as a neighborhood church who actively loves its community.

However, Urban Transformation Ministries finds itself in a difficult situation. Even as God is opening up doors into the lives of several hundred more at-risk inner-city youth and their families, UTM is limited by what it can do because of the lack of adequate funding. While several other urban ministry organizations of comparable size employ between five to ten staff members, UTM can only financially compensate me as its executive director. We cannot continue to operate this way or I will burn out. Please pray and take action. If you are not a regular financial donor, please build UTM into your monthly budget. Or please talk to the appropriate pastors, boards or committees so that UTM is placed into your church’s missions or outreach budget.

Thank you again for praying “in the Spirit on all occasions, with all kinds of prayers and requests” for the Witherspoon family, our inner-city students, as well as for our family.

Serving Jesus in the hood’




Joel Shaffer, Executive Director
Urban Transformation Ministries

Piper's View of Piety..."Should Produce a Passion for Social Justice and Practical Mercy "

Here's yet another reason why I love John Piper. Yesterday morning I clicked onto the blog "Desiring God" for my daily dose of John Piper. On this day, Piper summarizes one of his sermons from a few years back about what true piety should produce in us, that is "a passion for social justice and practical mercy." Preaching from Isaiah 58, he lists five needs that Isaiah and Jesus are passionately concerned about. (1) the need for freedom from bondage and oppression (2) the need for food (3) the need for housing (4) the need for clothing (5) the need for respect. The longer version of this sermon is even better, where he makes assertions such as "Piety that does not produce a passion for God-exalting social justice and practical mercy is worthless." and "I want to remind us as a church that we have been saved for the sake of God-exalting good works. We have been saved not merely to avoid evil, but to do good. Therefore the people of Christ should not be known primarily for what we don’t do, but what we do do."

Two months ago, I blogged here about a distorted piety being a fallacy that prevents today's evangelical churches from embracing its God-given responsibility to the poor. Since so many of these churches are children of the enlightenment (modernity) with their pie-in-the-sky dispensationalism, their church-growth/marketing pragmatism, their soul-saving dualism, their idol of consumerism, and of course their misplaced pietism, I've sort of wrote off the church in America (although my obedience to Christ and my calling has kept me within the church). Because Piper is such a towering, influential figure among fundamental and conservative evangelical pastors, maybe pietism in the evangelical church will begin to be restored to its proper place, which is producing a passion for social justice and practical mercy.

The best book on Mission Theology....

Yes, I am going to make a claim, which I know is purely subjective. C.H. Wright's magnum opus, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible's Grand Narrative, is by far the best, most comprehensive Mission Theology work that I have read to date. In my opinion, it supersedes such celebrated books on mission theology such as John Piper's "Let the Nations be Glad," David Bosch's "Transforming Mission," Lesslie Newbigin's "The Open Secret."

Don't get me wrong. These books by Piper, Bosch, and Newbigin are incredible masterpieces in their own right. I personally have been blessed by Piper's Doxology of Mission, Bosch's historical development of mission from the New Testament times to the post-modern, and Newbigin's emphasis on a Trinitarian nature of Mission. However, the breadth of C.H. Wright's narrative development of mission, from Genesis to Revelation, is simply amazing. Since Wright is also an O.T. Scholar (having written books such as "God's People in God's Land: Family, Land, and Property in the Old Testament," "Walking in the Ways of the Lord: The Ethical Authority of the Old Testament," "Old Testament Ethics for the People of God," "Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament," ), he brings to light themes such as the Exodus, the call of Abraham, Year of Jubilee, the land, to show how the narrative missionally unfolds. Furthermore, his Biblical articulation of the relationship between evangelism and social action is the best that I have read and heard, even so that several from a group of fundamental-baptist (GARBC) pastors in their discussion of this book were compelled to admit that their previous thinking about mission was distorted and they were trying to figure out how their churches might embrace both evangelism and social responsibility (such as poverty issues). Yes, pigs are now flying in Grand Rapids!!!

One of these days, I may attempt to articulate a detailed review of this book, but for now, let me link you to several sites that I believe will wet your appetite to digest this book.

To hear an audio of Dr. Wright give a summary narrative of Mission of God and answer tough questions such as the relationship between evangelism and social responsibility within God's mission and God's sovereign purposes in judgment, listen here.

To follow Dr. Scot McKnight's Jesus Creed discussion on this book, click here, here, here, and here.

To read a excerpt from C.H. Wright that helps summarize what this book is about, including the missional nature of the Bible and a mission-centered theology of the cross, click here.

Improving the Words of St. Francis

“Preach the gospel always. If necessary use words”. Urban legend has it that the source of this profound little saying was St. Francis of Assisi. Yet it finds a powerful affinity among younger evangelical twenty and thirty somethings in today’s culture. Quoted by younger adult Christians on facebook and Blogs everywhere, this quip is firmly entrenched in the worldview of an entire generation of American Christians. And understandably so. With such looming hostility towards Christians in general, many evangelicals under forty believe that the integrity of Jesus is at stake and therefore self-consciously have become “deed-based,” emphasizing social action duties such as feeding the homeless and building houses for the poor to counter this hostility.

This antagonism towards Christians has a political underpinning. Since media types and political commentators have wrongly generalized Christian evangelicals and fundamentalists as a religious right voting block intent on imposing a Christian Theocracy on the rest of the country, the same people have also confused aggressive evangelism as a recruiting tool for the evangelical’s political agenda.1 Yet I can understand their misjudgment. We Christians often make Jesus look like a politician who is running for office, dispersing pamphlets and literature, knocking on doors, and holding large rallies, all in the name of Jesus!

As a college student rebelling against my fundamentalist-Baptist upbringing, I had my fill of this type of evangelism, designed to mass-produce as many Christians as possible in the shortest amount of time. Something seemed terribly wrong with the methods that our spiritual forefathers taught us, including handing out tracts at restaurants to waiters and waitresses who didn’t want them and going door-to-door calling/witnessing to people who really had no desire to talk with strangers about their spiritual destiny. In addition, we were encouraged to bring as many people possible to Christian concerts and youth rallies where we heard passionate stories, designed to scare people into heaven-such as the heart-breaking account of a teenage girl who did not give her life to Christ in time, but instead died in a car wreck, which sent her to hell. “Today is the day of Salvation,” the evangelist would cry out. Next, scores of teenagers, manipulatively fraught with fear, rushed down the aisles to make sure they were going to heaven when they died. They had promoted a packaged, fire insurance for the future life as the essence of the Christian faith. Just as bothersome were the gospel presentations that I was taught. Romans Road, Four Spiritual Laws, the EE questions, and many others did not do justice for the gospel that I was slowly rediscovering. Rather these presentations reduced the gospel to a set of dry propositions that only seemed to pay lip service to the greatest story ever told.2

Fast forward twenty years later and I wonder if we’ve swung the pendulum to the other side. In lieu of past damaging misconduct by the Jerry Falwell’s, the Pat Robertson’s, and the James Dobson’s in the public square, it appears as if younger generations of Christians have self-consciously gagged themselves from speaking the name of Jesus in public. For instance, lets examine Rob Bell’s public interaction in a panel discussion at the “Seeds of Compassion” interfaith conference this past April. While Rob Bell displayed authenticity combined with his immaculate story-telling ability, he purposely avoided using the J word in a faith environment where Jesus is not a dirty word to the vast majority of people. Even as the Muslim scholar referred to teachings of the Koran and the Sikh holy man cited ancient Hindu wisdom, Rob Bell’s moving story about why we should forgive climaxed with, “Because it is the right thing to do!” Although a very true statement, the forgiveness that Jesus offers (which allows us to forgive each other and even forgive our enemies) is so much more than the shallow moralism that Rob alludes to in the discussion, which even most atheists could claim. As a result, the generic genuineness of Rob Bell’s interfaith dialogue did little to enhance the reputation and uniqueness of Jesus Christ. When I brought up these arguments on the blogosphere, almost every one who defended Rob did so based on not wanting to offend those who had written off Christianity because of the negative reputation of its followers.

Considering this situation as well as many other conversations with my fellow Christians, I am beginning to believe that my generation and younger have developed a shame complex of their fellow Christian brothers and sisters and have lost confidence in the word of God, the living (Jesus) but especially the written (the Bible). Maybe this is why we so readily embrace the supposed words of St. Francis “Preach the gospel always, if necessary use words” as our modus operandi of mission? Whatever the reason, its time we get back to using our words to proclaim the gospel along side of our actions. Just as there is something terribly wrong with a gospel that only proclaims words, there is also something inherently wrong with the “Preach the gospel, if necessary use words” way of thinking. It presupposes that proclamation is just an option of the gospel, whereas Romans 10:14 pictures the apostle Paul passionately posing the question “how can they hear without someone preaching to them?” Even as the gospel travels through relationships (as opposed to impersonal methods such as door-to-door witnessing, handing out tracts, and manipulating people at concerts and rallies), the gospel must be communicated through our words so that people can respond with repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.

So I have a proposal that will make this statement from St. Francis more in line with the Biblical narrative. Lets replace the “if” with “when.” Then it will state, “Preach the gospel always. When necessary, use words.” By substituting “when” with “if,” suddenly our words are no longer just an option, but a significant aspect of our gospel witness. Moreover, lets not forget that our radical sacrificial love of the poor and needy as well as our holy living (Read James 1:27) will distinguish us from so called Christians whose actions give credence to the stereotype of a loud-mouthed bigoted fundamentalist-evangelical. Therefore, with the power of the Holy Spirit, we can ungag ourselves and then tell the gospel story with confidence and clarity as an obedient response to God’s grace.

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1To get a feel for the roots of fundamentalists and evangelicals, read George M. Marsdent's Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co, 1991). By explaining their socio-religious history in the 19th and 20th centuries, one can understand why there is a tendency by fundamentalists and evangelicals to attempt to turn back the American social clock to the previous generation. This is their primary reason for engaging in the social aspects of politics, not to build a Christian Theocracy as many contemporary, paranoid political writers would have everyone believe.
2This statement does not mean that I am against propositional statements. Throughout all of scripture, its narrative makes propositional declarations. One example is found in the first statement of Genesis. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Since about 78% of the entire cannon is narrative, shouldn't we Christians attempt to master the art of story telling, especially the gospel?

Fundamental/Evangelical Fallicies Part 2: Pietism

Keeping with the “isms,” the second fallacy that keeps the evangelical church from embracing their God-given responsibility to the poor is Pietism. This may seem unlikely, since aspects of pietism within the church of America during the 19th century actually inspired Christians to serve the poor and take on injustices such as slavery. Nevertheless, in the 20th century, when the diabolical twins of modernity-reason and science, were at the zenith of their dominance within Western civilization, the American church responded by adding some traditional dispensationalism (which cares little for the social world of today) and some platonic dualism (which treats the physical world as separate and subordinate to the spiritual) to their piety. Before we identify pietism's potential poison of today, let us explore a little of the historical context of this religious phenomenon.

The roots of Pietism go all the way back to seventeenth century Germany when certain church leaders such as Philipp Jakob Spener and August Hermann Francke, tired of cold, stifling, faith of the Lutheran church, began to emphasize pietistic activities such as Bible study, prayer, and religious experiences as a way of reigniting a passion for Jesus Christ. For the next couple hundred years, pietism spread throughout Europe and America, influencing a variety of the protestant groups such as the Mennonites, Moravians, Brethren, Covenant, Puritans, and Methodism.

Fast forward to the early twenty-first century, pietism in its most popular form, mutated into a Purpose-Driven-Life formula, emphasizing five purposes that drives a Christian. According to best-selling author and pastor, Rick Warren, our five purposes in life are worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry, and mission. Regrettably, Warren did not look to Genesis 1 and 2 to discover who we are as humans and what purposes God assigned the first humans as a foundation to PDL. He might have discovered the multi-dimensions of imago Dei and the creation mandates given to God’s image bearers. Maybe Warren would have viewed this earth as more than a “dress rehearsal” for heaven, which provides very little motivation to help the poor here and now. Maybe Warren would have realized earlier our God-given responsibility to the poor, which finds its roots in the cultural mandate. Even with its emphasis on fellowship, this form of pietism leads to an individualistic, otherworldly gospel that divorces loving God from loving our neighbor.

For instance, growing up in several fundamentalist-Baptist churches, my spiritual formation revolved around piety activities such as studying, reading, and memorizing the Bible, praying, fellowshipping, and evangelism. Never once was I ever encouraged to reach out to the poor. Never once did our youth group ever serve at a soup kitchen or homeless shelter, nor did I hear anything taught from the Bible that mentioned the Christian’s responsibility to help the poor. Yes, I understand that today’s fundamental and evangelical churches do try to include a service project to a soup kitchen now and then and maybe a short-term mission trip that reminds them of how blessed they are here in America. But by in large, the pietistic practices of prayer (including all-night prayer meetings), singing praise and worship songs in church or at Passion worship events, Bible study, revivals, and evangelism that takes place today are not inextricably practiced together with sacrificially loving the poor and oppressed. Hence, the body of Christ appears to be primarily a mouth without any legs and arms.

Thankfully, in the case of Rick Warren a trip to Johannesburg, South Africa caused him to rethink his purposes. After visiting some of the shantytowns and connecting with churches that were housing widows and orphans from AIDS victims, Warren began to reexamine the scriptures in light of the poor and oppressed. “I found 2000 verses on the poor. How did I miss that? I went to Bible college, two seminaries, and I got a doctorate. How did I miss God’s compassion for the poor? I was not seeing all of God’s purposes.” Now am I holding up Rick Warren as the prototype example for evangelicals to follow? No and Yes. I prefer that he communicate a more robust gospel, taking the foundation of creation more seriously (read Wittmer’s Heaven is a Place on Earth) and calling more attention to the devastating consequences of the fall and our depravity as humans (read C. Plantiga’s Not the Way it’s Supposed to be). This leads to a larger view of redemption (including people and all creation), with a response of repentance and belief in Christ (rather than Warren’s “whispering a prayer that will change your life” of “receiving and believing”). Why do I even mention Warren’s view of the gospel? Since he is on the front-lines attempting to equip an army of Christians from all over the world to help solve global poverty and hunger, a PDL surface view of sin, depravity, and evil will never get at the root causes of poverty. Without addressing complex structural systems of evil as well as the deep-seated sin within the hearts everyone, including the poor, the oppressed, and the oppressors, all of our efforts to make a dent in the battle against global hunger and poverty amounts to be as Ballington Booth once said, like trying to “bail the ocean with a thimble.”

Nevertheless, we also need to commend what Rick Warren is doing as well. For instance, by putting the majority of his millions that he made from the sales of Purpose-Driven-Life into charitable foundations that address global poverty and hunger issues, he is living out the apostle Peter’s command to “Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.” Our pagan culture is taking notice, having a difficult time arguing against all of the good that Rick Warren and Saddleback church are doing for the poor and oppressed. This can only lead to enhancing the reputation of Jesus Christ. 21st century piety is a mixed bag, but can overcome its faults by embracing a full-bodied gospel of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration which can only lead to the Lordship of Christ in every aspect and arena of our lives. May our sacrificial service to the poor and oppressed also compel non-Christians to pronounce, "Soli Deo Gloria!"

Poster Boy for Grand Rapids Theological Seminary

Can you believe it? The seminary that almost dismissed me for bad grades and taking too long to complete my degree (it took me 14 years) has me on their web page. You can find it here. Actually, I feel really good associating myself with GRTS. They are in the process of developing an urban ministry emphasis with their intercultural studies program, tapping into two very highly reputable and qualified teachers (from urban Grand Rapids) in Dr. Rik Stevenson from City Hope Ministries and Reggie Smith from Roosevelt Park CRC. Their knowledge and experience of doing ministry in the 'hood is second to none.

Moreover, GRTS is putting their money where their mouth is. They are offering a 32 hour tuition free Masters degree in Ministry leadership to inner-city pastors/ministry practitioners with 4 or more years of full time inner-city ministry experience (12 at a time, cohort style). In the past, I've heard people complain and even make snide remarks about the lack of theological competence among inner-city pastors (think of all the storefront ministries in urban communities that come and go). However, there are many of us inner-city ministry practitioners who fight tooth and nail to raise funds not only to take care of our family needs, but also to help with needs in the community. Therefore, attending seminary is not even on the radar screen. I know if I had this opportunity ten years ago, it would have relieved much of our family's financial stress over the past several years while I paid about 2000 a year to take one seminary class per semester. I believe this program could go a long way in helping mature ministries in urban Grand Rapids and throughout the Midwest. Thank you GRTS for tangibly modeling to other schools what it means "to act justly and to love mercy."