Our Family With Our Thursday Night Hype Family

Here is the Shaffer family with our family from Thursday Night Hype. As our kids grow older, our entire family (rather than just me) is able to take part in serving the 'hood. We took this picture and others to give to those whom we are reaching out to that are in jail and prison.

Review of "Theological Implications of Hip-Hop Culture"

I just ordered William "Duce" Branch’s Masters Thesis off the internet and read it yesterday. For most people, his name doesn’t mean anything, but for those who know Holy Hip-Hop, you might know him better as “The Ambassador” from the Cross Movement. That’s right...An emcee from one of Christian Hip-Hop’s foremost, progressive groups earned his ThM from Dallas Theological Seminary, including composing a seventy-nine page thesis. It is appropriately titled, “Theological Implications of Hip-Hop culture.”

Although I was somewhat skeptical of its contributing value to scholarship with its generic title, Branch gradually won me over. I believe “Theological Implications of Hip-Hop Culture” lays a solid workable foundation for the development of mission theology within the context of Hip-Hop culture. Duce constructs a compelling case for Hip-Hop culture as a legitimate culture, rather than a passing fad or remote subculture as some might argue. As part of developing this case for Hip-Hop culture’s validity, Branch relies heavily upon Hip-Hop scholars such as Bakari Kitwana and Michael Dyson, and some of Marvin Mayer, writer of "Christianity Confronts Culture.” Furthermore, he keenly traces the historical development of Hip-Hop culture over the past forty years to support his assertion.

Another positive aspect of “Theological Implications….” is when Duce develops a Christian perspective of culture, he rightly roots his theology of Hip-Hop culture in the doctrine of creation, centering upon the implications of the cultural mandate, including the insights of Reformed theologians Abraham Kuyper and Herman Dooyeweerd. Moreover, Branch perceptively points out the value of Hip-Hop culture in relationship to the church. He makes an intriguing comparison between Hellenistic culture of the first century and Hip-Hop culture of 21st, which I would like to see further developed.

However, “Theological Implications….” covers too much territory and too many themes. Consequently in my humble opinion, it did not go quite deep enough (although it goes deeper than the majority of available literature that attempts to address a theology of Hip-Hop culture). Yet maybe this was Branch’s intention from the beginning. By pressing the reader to think through the many theological implications of hip-hop culture, those who take both urban ministry and theology seriously might feel obliged to further unpack the plethora of themes that Duce alludes to within his thesis.

Overall, William Branch does the church and its theological community an invaluable service by doing theology that intersects with hip-hop culture. Not only have I enjoyed listening to “The Ambassador” as a hip-hop artist, but I also enjoy reading “The Ambassador” as a theologian doing mission theology within the context of Hip-Hop and the church. I look forward to reading more of William Branch's mission-theological works in the future.

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?