This past weekend my wife and I accompanied our teenagers as we caught the StudentLife Tour 2005 in Baton Rouge. Shane & Shane led in God-centered worship, the AT2AP crew provided compelling drama, and David Nasser spoke. From end to end I enjoyed the weekend thoroughly, and so did our kids.

Shane & Shane’s grace saturated “Clean” CD gets a lot of play time in our car, so I looked forward to worshiping with them live. They did not disappoint. My son, who prefers a more punk sound, didn’t particularly care for the worship genre style, but my daughter is praying for him about that. She loved it.

When I heard a drama team would be a part of the weekend, I expected some cheep skits thrown in for comic relief. They surprised me with a rich plot performance that highlighted the weekends theme; “When love takes you in”. A troubled teen who had been tossed between foster homes his entire life broke into a art gallery, cracked the owner over the head, and robbed him at gun point. In court the judge pronounced the criminal guilty, but the gallery owner stepped in, dropped the charges, and adopted the boy as his son. The rest of the drama scenes, spattered through the weekend, followed the new family through their struggles and victories allegorically mirroring the Christian life. My son smiled and said the drama made up for the music.

I enjoyed everything, but David Nasser impressed me the most. He exploded the myth that teenagers won’t stand for expository preaching as he led us through Ephesians 2:1-10 in his three theologically thick talks. He kept the packed 1,700 seat auditorium on the edge of their seats with his edgy humor and doctrinally solid messages on Justification, Sanctification, and the Glory of God. Apparently, Nasser has not surrendered to “The Pelagian Captivity of the Church.” He presented a clear monergistic gospel and no emotionally manipulative invitations. Based on what I saw this weekend, I highly recommend StudentLife.

My friend Jeri Massi, under the pen name Grace Jovian, posted the first instalment of her new novel today. A Standard Christian, a sequel to Secret Radio, follows the life of Grace after leaving an Independent Baptist Bible College. Jeri’s prolific pen has produced riveting stories like Valkyries: Some Through the Fire and Valkyries: All Through the Blood, as well as several children’s books. Recently she has turned to self publishing to address a niche audience with this two part blog style offering.

The first, Secret Radio (now available in print) looked at the struggles of Grace while attending the fictitious “Greater Independent Baptist College” that possessed an uncanny resemblance to a particular Bible college I attended for a couple of years in the mid 80s. Her frank story telling worked as a faultfinder magnet within Independent Fundamental Baptist circles. Some people felt she crossed the line with her thick plot development. One critic went so far as to call it “linguistic porn” due to the mature audience subject matter of one of the sub-plots. Personally, I felt that she steered far clear of salaciousness and treated the scandal with grace.

In the opening scene of A Standard Christian we see the blossoming wild side of Grace. Jeri assures readers that missing the GIBC saga will not detract from following the ensuing narrative, but you may still want to order a print copy to get the full effect. Jeri will post daily episodes, Monday through Friday, for the next 13 weeks. I look forward to watching A Standard Christian unfold and seeing Grace mature in the coming days.

Lifeway Christian Resources, the publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, recently unveiled a new Sunday school theme: “Sunday School-The Original Small Group Experience.” The slogan has attracted some criticism from Adam Feldman who says “they just… don’t… get it. Do they?” This sparked an ensuing discussion on the emerging SBC leaders blog. I have to agree, at first glance the promotional phrase does seem a bit pretentious. Christian small groups pre-date the modern concept of Sunday School by roughly 1900 years. After all, what was Jesus and his motley crew of 12, other than a “small group?” Of course they didn’t call themselves a “small group” but neither did the early church call what they did “Sunday School” even though they gathered on the first day of the week for instruction – among other things. (btw I noticed the Wikipedia Sunday School entry needs help. ) Tangling over terminology probably doesn’t advance the conversation much. Whether we call it “Sunday School,” “cells,” “small groups,” or whatever, the focus ought to be on what we do and who we are, not just what we call ourselves.

Adam observes that the modern model of Sunday School often takes the form of “sit still while I instill.” I think he is right. I’ve often seen that myself. Adam adds, “in seminary, I learned it was normal/to be expected/to be sought after to have the larger Sunday school environment.” I had a different experience at NOBTS where my professor bemoaned the trend, in many SBC churches, to the master teacher and large class model of doing Sunday School. He suggested that class/group sizes should be small enough for casual and intense conversation. This echoed the suggestions coming out of Nashville, but in spite of that, the trend still persists. Why? I do not know, but I’m not sure we should blame Lifeway for it.

As far as I can tell, Lifeway has been trying to discourage the large group lecture style Sunday School for a very long time. Instead of seeing the new slogan as a cheap marketing tool, I see it as another step toward promoting something like the type of small group that many younger leaders are talking about. The material Lifeway produces lends itself to small groups. In order to use the material in large lecture class settings, the teacher has to disregard most of what comes in the leader pack. For example, I have the Youth “Family Bible Study” material here within arms reach. Looking at yesterdays session I notice that the suggestions for group time involve games, activities, case studies, and conversation starters – no lecture. One involved having a student empty a tube of toothpaste onto a trey and having the class work on getting all the paste back into the tube. This impossible feat served as the backdrop to open ended questions about the difficulty of taking back words spoken by an untamed tongue. (James 3:1-12)

I believe that Lifeway wants to produce resources to help churches facilitate small group interaction, innovative instruction, relationship building, outreach, and spiritual growth within active communities of faith. Printed resource material can only go so far – that doesn’t mean we ought not let our voices be heard and try to guide the conversation in a productive direction.

For example, one thing that I think would be helpful would be for churches to stop viewing Sunday School as an event. That might prove difficult as long as we hold onto the temporal day based title, “Sunday School.” I do not understand why they have not jettisoned that terminology long ago. I guess old language dies hard. We lost part of it when we transitioned from the “Sunday School Board” to “Lifeway Christian Resources” and as far as I can tell most of the material uses alternate words like “Bible Study” instead. I’ve heard Lifeway representatives remind folks that Sunday School doesn’t have to meet on Sunday. Saturday night, Tuesday morning, and Saturday night classes have been suggested for workable schedules. That’s a good idea, but I’m talking about something deeper. One difference I see in the two terms “Sunday School” vs “Small Group” is that you go to “Sunday School,” but you are a “Small Group.” How can we make that a real transition and not just words? I do not know exactly, but its worth pursuing and thinking about.

I doubt simply changing the name will suffice. Small groups need to break out of the one hour time slot and see themselves as an organic team on mission rather than just a group of people who meet once a week. Perhaps adding missions projects, mid-week interaction, and other things that foster integrated community building would lead toward this ideal. I’d love to hear other people’s ideas on this.

“Christian” radio station WORD-101.5 FM in Pittsburgh fired talk show host Marty Minto for discussing the recently deceased Pope’s final destiny. In an answer to a caller’s question, Minto expressed doubts concerning Pope John Paul II’s entrance into heaven. The three year running show, “Talking Truth with Marty Minto” asked, “Can You Handle The Truth?” From the sound of things the stations management answered with a “no.” The Pittsburgh Tribune Review reports the firing .

“As far as I’m concerned, I was doing what I’ve always done on the radio — look at events around the world from a biblical perspective,” said Minto. “I’ve always been willing to talk about controversial subjects.” Apparently, the biblical way of salvation proved too controversial for the Pittsburgh station who didn’t want to “alienate listeners” with references to John 3.

“I said the question of whether a person is born again is something personal, something between an individual and the Creator,” Minto said. “I believe it was a legitimate topic to discuss.” General manager Chuck Gratner disagreed.

In the days following the Pope’s demise, many rightly lauded the pontiffs’ “courageous stand against Communism, his bold defense of human dignity and human life, and his robust and substantial defense of truth in the face of postmodernism,” but most evangelicals covered their mouth’s when it came to the question of whether those good deeds could merit God’s favor. After all, if anyone could be justified by their own moral goodness, surely John Paul II would be a shoe-in. (Galatians 3:10-14) At least that’s what the theological silence seemed to be saying to millions as leading evangelical voices hit the mute button on the protestant reformation.

Minto said, “I made it clear that the discussion was not an attack on the character of the pope but, rather, a look at the teachings — not only of John Paul, but the Catholic Church in general.” Reformed protestants believe that God grants salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone. The Roman Catholic Church denounces that theological affirmation and anathematizes any one who holds to it. Its a sad day when a so-called “Christian” radio station deems the heart of the gospel as off limits for discussion.

This week reminds me of John Piper’s sermon Christ and Cancer.

Before I entered college I hardly gave a thought to cancer and terminal illness. But ever since those college days death by disease has walked beside me all the way. Two of my college acquaintances died of leukemia and cancer of the lymph glands before they were 22. At seminary I watched Jim Morgan, my teacher of systematic theology, shrivel up and die in less than a year of intestinal cancer. He was 36. In my graduate program in Germany my own “doctor-father,” Professor Goppelt, died suddenly just before I was finished. He was 62 – a massive coronary. Then I came to Bethel, the house of God! And I taught for six years and watched students, teachers, and administrators die of cancer: Sue Port, Paul Greely, Bob Bergerud, Ruth Ludeman, Graydon Held, Chet Lindsay, Mary Ellen Carlson—all Christians, all dead before their three score and ten were up. And now I’ve come to Bethlehem and Harvey Ring is gone. And you could multiply the list ten-fold.

What shall we say to these things? Something must be said because sickness and death is a threat to faith in the love and power of God. And I regard it as my primary responsibility as a pastor to nourish and strengthen faith in the love and power of God. There is no weapon like the word of God for warding off threats to faith. And so I want us to listen carefully today to the teaching of Scripture regarding Christ and cancer, the power and love of God over against the sickness of our bodies.

Let me encourage you to read the whole sermon. In a nutshell Piper gives his theology of suffering in six affirmations:

First, in this age all creation, including our bodies, has been subjected to futility and enslaved to corruption. Second, there is a new age coming when all those who endure to the end in faith will be set free from all pain and sickness. Third, Jesus Christ came and died to purchase our redemption, demonstrate its character as both spiritual and physical and give us a foretaste of it now. Fourth, God controls who gets sick and who gets well, and all His decisions are for the good of His children even if they are painful. Fifth, we should pray for God’s help both to heal and to strengthen faith while we are unhealed, and should depend on the Holy Spirit’s intercession when we don’t know which to pray for. Finally, we should always trust in the power and love of God even in the darkest hour of suffering.