What is Vocation?

Stephen J. Nichols offers a concise (31 pages) and lucid biblical explanation of vocation in the “Basics of the Faith” booklet, What is Vocation? (2010, P&R Publishing).

Nichols briefly explains the history of the notion of vocation (from the Latin word vocare, “calling”). In the Middle Ages, the idea of “calling” moved away from how God calls each person made in His image to participate in work for His glory and toward a very particular thing: exclusively church work. “Priests, nuns, monks—they each had a calling. Everyone else in medieval culture, from merchants to peasants, from nobles to knights, simply worked.”

But the Reformers recaptured the idea of calling for the everyman. “To Luther, all work and all the roles that we play were potentially holy callings, which could be fulfilled for the glory of God alone.” Johann Sebastian Bach would sign his musical compositions with two sets of initials – JSB and SDG (“Soli Deo Gloria”). Bach knew that “all work—all types of work, not just the work done in the service of the church—was a calling.”

That means that a doctor, a lawyer, a businessperson, a homemaker, a student, a janitor, a landscaper, a millworker, a mechanic, an engineer, a teacher, a (fill in the blank here!) are all participating in God’s calling on their lives if they do their work for the glory of God.

But there is a problem that we see in twenty-first century evangelicalism: More often than not, evangelicals still define “calling” or “God-glorifying work” as only that which is church-related and/or evangelistic. Sure, we can talk about Christians in the marketplace glorifying God with their work, but what we really mean is that they are “called” to use their secular work as a means for evangelism or (worse) for financing the work of those in “full time ministry,” like pastors and missionaries.

I heard this attitude the other day as I shared with a couple of my ministry peers a passage from 1 Corinthians 15. This magnificent chapter talking about the importance of the resurrection ends with a wonderful affirmation of our work in this present life and how it matters, lasting into the next age after Christians are resurrected.

Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. (1 Cor 15:58)

I said to my two ministry friends that this affirms that what Christians do in this life, whether it be composing a song, writing a novel, designing a building (or whatever!, as long as it is the “work of the Lord”) is not labor done “in vain.” God will take these things into the next age of resurrection life.

They looked at me sideways. No, they insisted, “the work of the Lord” is evangelism – sharing the good news of the resurrection with people. This work is what we should “give ourselves fully to.”

I appreciate their focus on evangelism. Yes, I affirm that everything that we do is a witness to the Kingdom of God and to the King who is ruling in our lives, and that we are to give ourselves fully to the work of proclaiming that Jesus is the Lord of all things.

But without knowing it, these friends (who I deeply respect) had disparaged work in and of itself as a legitimate means for bringing the Kingdom of God to bear in this world. Certainly proclaiming the Kingdom through articulating the gospel to people is something we are all called to do. But doing "Kingdom work" is more than that. It includes everything that we do to bring God's will on earth as it is in heaven. Everything. Certainly included as a subset of this everything is the actual articulation of the atonement found in Christ. But another subset of this is working to bring justice in the world. Or reconciling people who are in conflict. Or giving a cup of cold water in the name of the Lord. Or creating a cultural artifact, like a painting or a song. Or simply serving others through doing our work with excellence.

Upon reflecting on that conversation, I wondered if my friends were reversing the Reformation’s teaching, heading back to the age that said that only church work is the “work of the Lord,” that the only work that really counts for the Kingdom of God is evangelism. As they disciple Christians, are they teaching in subtle yet harmful ways that the only “real” work for a Christian is evangelism, that a person’s pursuit of a career calling outside of vocational ministry was (in the words of Stephen J. Nichols) “settling for something lesser,” that any other work is not as important as a pastor’s or missionary’s work? Were they not sending signals that if people pursue a career outside vocational ministry that the only real reason to do so is to use that career as a platform for evangelism? Were they not implicitly stating that work, in and of itself, is not important?

Nichols does a great job of explaining the biblical teaching on vocation within the story of “Creation-Fall-Redemption.” The “creation mandate” or “cultural mandate” was established when God placed Adam and Eve as his vice-regents on earth, to “have dominion over” the creation and to “work” or “cultivate” it. Nichols says, “This theological framework raises work to a whole new horizon of understanding. As we think it through, we begin to see that in our work we are in service of the King, making work both a duty and a wonderful privilege.”

But the Fall warps the purpose of work and the way we work. Because sin runs through everything like a cancer, it damages our calling. We work not in service to and glory of the King, but in service to our own desires and for our own glory (Why is it that we seek the promotion or the recognition award at work? Why is it that we buy the latest technological gadget, drive the slickest car, or dress in the clothes that we do? Why is it that, as Nichols points out, “in our consumer culture we have come to attach greater value to those who produce and consume more than those who produce or consume less”?).

The Redemption found in Christ is the key to re-establishing work as God intended it. In the Incarnation of God in Christ, Nichols writes, “we see Christ as fully and truly human, as well as fully and truly divine.” Jesus was a son, a brother, a person living under the Roman Empire, and a carpenter. “Christ demonstrates the value and integrity of the roles for us, and the value and integrity of work. But more than this, Christ through his redemptive work undoes what Adam did in the fall. And he restores to us the ability and the capacity to be image-bearers as God intended us to be.”

We evangelicals appropriately focus on how we are made in the image of Christ the Redeemer – thus our emphasis on evangelism and mission. But before Redemption there was Creation. While being a Christian is no less than participating in the work of evangelism and mission, it is also so much more. We are created in the image of the Creator and Redeemer God, which means that the Gospel of the Kingdom has as much to say about our work as creators and culture-makers as it does about our work as missionaries and evangelists.

Since Christians are agents of Redemption in the world, Nichols offers us helpful practical guidelines for “how not to work” and “how to work.” He walks the reader through Ephesians 6:5-9, where we are commanded to “serve wholeheartedly, as serving the Lord, not men.” He also helps us reconcile the fact that we get our paychecks from our work. “Culturally, we have by and large attached work to a paycheck…But paychecks are not the sole factor in legitimizing work. And work done for a paycheck is not the only type of work there is.”

Can we establish in our minds the idea that God calls us to work? Can we begin to read our Bibles without medieval notions that the only “work for the Lord” is ministry-related (church, missions, evangelism)?

If so, we can hear God’s calling to his people in a whole new, breathtaking way. Verses like Psalm 90:17 take on incredible significance:

“May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us;

establish the work of our hands for us—yes, establish the work of our hands!”

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Blogger Labels: Vocation

Why Pastors are Suffering Burn-Out

G. Jeffrey MacDonald, in an op-ed published today in the New York Times, gives good insight into why pastors are feeling like they are losing their calling: “congregational pressure to forsake one’s highest calling.”

The pastoral vocation is to help people grow spiritually, resist their lowest impulses and adopt higher, more compassionate ways. But churchgoers increasingly want pastors to soothe and entertain them. It’s apparent in the theater-style seating and giant projection screens in churches and in mission trips that involve more sightseeing than listening to the local people.

Pastors are often placed between a rock and a hard place: They know what they should be doing for their congregations, but few in the congregations want that. And like so many American institutions, “success” is defined by numbers. If attendance goes down, then you are failing. Never mind the fact that in a consumerist age, people may not want to attend a church that challenges them too much.

The trend toward consumer-driven religion has been gaining momentum for half a century. Consider that in 1955 only 15 percent of Americans said they no longer adhered to the faith of their childhood, according to a Gallup poll. By 2008, 44 percent had switched their religious affiliation at least once, or dropped it altogether, the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found. Americans now sample, dabble and move on when a religious leader fails to satisfy for any reason.

In this transformation, clergy have seen their job descriptions rewritten. They’re no longer expected to offer moral counsel in pastoral care sessions or to deliver sermons that make the comfortable uneasy…

…Congregations that make such demands seem not to realize that most clergy don’t sign up to be soothsayers or entertainers. Pastors believe they’re called to shape lives for the better, and that involves helping people learn to do what’s right in life, even when what’s right is also difficult. When they’re being true to their calling, pastors urge Christians to do the hard work of reconciliation with one another before receiving communion. They lead people to share in the suffering of others, including people they would rather ignore, by experiencing tough circumstances — say, in a shelter, a prison or a nursing home — and seeking relief together with those in need. At their courageous best, clergy lead where people aren’t asking to go, because that’s how the range of issues that concern them expands, and how a holy community gets formed.

I’d add that in the many ministries I’ve been involved with, the congregants haven’t taken kindly to challenges to their lifestyles (especially in suburban, affluent churches), or challenges to their political ideologies (especially when they’ve equated what Glenn Beck and the rest of the Fox News Channel propagate with Christian doctrine), or calls for their families to live sacrificially for the sake of others (especially when they’ve bought into the “American Dream” and believe that, in order to be good parents, they must give their children everything that they want to be happy).

It’s enough to cause a pastor to lose heart.

Evangelicals' Disdain for Institutions

"Christians need to learn to love institutions again, and they won't get very far in transforming society unless they do."

It is an ongoing tension I feel.

As I discuss my vision for ministry with good-hearted evangelical Christians, they are suspicious of my embrace of the University as a God-given institution. I explain to them that as a campus minister, I am called to be a blessing not only to the college students that I interact with, but also to the institutions themselves.

For a long time, evangelicals have been trained to see cultural institutions as the devil's domain, that evangelicals need to separate themselves from them. Parents of students heading to state universities openly display their anxiety: They worry about how that godless institution will destroy the faith of their child.

Campus ministers for a long time operated under a "save and protect" paradigm. They were asked to reach out to students trapped in these secular humanistic institutions to save them from the studies that they are engaged in. The idea that one can be academically engaged on a secular campus was skoffed at; the only thing that a campus minister should do is provide safe haven from the godlessness on campus through a Christian fellowship group, training believers to disdain the subjects that the school is seeking to teach them. The campus ministry provided a counter-culture that had as its ultimate priority getting people out of this godless world and on their way to heaven, while protecting believers from the sinful world in the meantime.

Certainly there is a need to help Christian students to discern that which is contrary to God's will and that which aligns with it. But that is different from having a blanket disdain for institutions.

David Naugle, professor of philosophy at Dallas Baptist University and author of wonderful books like Worldview: The History of a Concept and Reordered Love, Reordered Lives, has written a great little piece on our need to re-embrace institutions: "Habits of the heart—individual AND institutional."

There has been a growing recognition recently among evangelical Christians of the part institutions play in culture and cultural change. One example is political philosopher Jonathan Chaplin, who in an April 2010 article titled “Loving Faithful Institutions” wrote that despite prevalent skepticism regarding institutions, and though “dynamic relational networks” are all the rage, “Christians … need to learn to love institutions again, and they won’t get very far in transforming society unless they do.”

Similarly, James Davison Hunter in his much-discussed volume To Change The World (Oxford 2010) has asserted that while ideas in the hearts and minds of individuals are very important, “without understanding the nature, workings, and power of the institutions in which those ideas are generated and managed, one only understands half of what is going on in a culture.” Thus Hunter states, “It is better to think of culture as a thing … manufactured not by lone individuals but rather by institutions and the elites who lead them."

Is such an emphasis on institutions biblical? The word “institution” is rarely used in English translations of Scripture. For example, the New American Standard uses the word only once for the Greek expression anthropine ktisei in I Peter 2:13-14.

Other biblical teachings, along with some sanctified, sociological human wisdom, will undoubtedly influence our understanding of the role of institutions in human life and cultural change. But one question keeps coming to my mind, and it is this: should the focus of Christians be on major and minor league institutions, or on grassroots individuals, as the swing factors in culture and cultural change? I keep coming back to the—“Well, of course, it’s both”—answer.

See the rest of this article here.

The Missional Church... simple

ht: Steve Lutz

Ministering to Shrinking Enclaves

"A looming crisis for all American evangelical churches is that they cannot thrive outside of the shrinking enclaves of conservative and traditional people and culture.

We have not created the new ministry and communication... models that will flourish and grow in the coming post-Christian very secular Western world.

Our vision should be to develop campus ministries, new churches, Christian education/discipleship systems that are effective in those fields in North America."

- Tim Keller

AMEN!

"Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?" - Can't wait for this book!

Advance praise for John Fea's book, due out this February:

In his latest book, Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?: A Historical Introduction, John Fea confronts the culture wars head-on. With polemicists on all sides wanting to claim the Founding Fathers (and founding era) for themselves, the blogosphere and talk radio are filled with a contentious “he said; she said” back-and-forth, leaving thoughtful listeners more confused than ever. For that befuddled person, Fea offers help. He challenges his readers to think like historians, and presents them with the facts they need to weigh the evidence for themselves. He does an excellent job of both explaining the complexity of the issues and putting them into context. Particularly enlightening are case studies of the religious beliefs and practices of seven founding fathers—three undoubtedly devout and orthodox in their faith, while the other four are questionable in regard to one and/or the other. Fea’s suggestions for further reading will be especially useful for readers who want to delve even deeper into the topic. Those who are ready to move past simplistic answers will be well-served by this thought-provoking work.

-Mary V. Thompson, Research Historian at George Washington's Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens, and author of In the Hands of a Good Providence: Religion in the Life of George Washington (University of Virginia Press, 2008).

Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?: A Historical Introduction will be available in February with Westminster/John Knox Press.

Missional: Sent to "Where?"

We are not sent to a "place" but to be the "alternative" in the place we are

In his essay "Evangelism and Discipleship," found in the book The Word That Redescribes the World: The Bible and Discipleship, Walter Brueggemann does an excellent job of giving the biblical, theological, and ecclesiastical realities of how God calls and sends his people. Evangelism and mission as going hand-in-hand: when God calls, he sends.

But to where is God sending us?

Brueggemann wisely points out, “it is clear that the sending is not to another place on the assumption that some places have already been ‘won over’ and other places remain to be ‘taken.’ That, of course, was the old assumption of mission that was characteristically ‘foreign’ mission, as it was uncritically assumed that the home base was ‘secure’ for the Gospel” (p. 103).

This is an important paradigm shift going on in American Christianity. Many of us are seeing our ministry goal as helping each person in our ministries discover their particular giftings, talents, and vocational callings so that they can (as Brueggemann says) “be dispatched as alternative in every place where anti-creation powers rule, dispatched there to talk the talk and walk the walk” (p. 103).

We are to be culture-shapers in this place. We are to bring God's blessing to this place. We are to seek universal flourishing for everyone (Shalom) in this place. We are to overcome injustice wherever we see it, including right here in our place. We are to live as an alternative community, displaying to the world what it looks like when God's way rules, not lording over people but living as Jesus did - through service and sacrifice.

That is the "walk." And when people ask us for the story of why we live in such hope, we should be ready to answer them, telling them that God's Kingdom has come near them.

Missional: To both "Talk" and "Walk"

The Paradigm of "Call" and "Send" from Jesus to His Followers

This model of God calling and then sending people to do his will of "blessing" to bring Shalom into God's creation continues from the old Testament into its fulfillment in Jesus Christ.

Jesus’ call to people in the gospels was to “follow me.” But Jesus also warned them, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34). In other words, “following” cannot be just an add-on, a means for blessing to our current lifestyles. Jesus is demanding that his followers leave the lives that the world offers as the “good life,” and replace it with what God has determined to be the good life.

Brueggemann states, “It is clear that Jesus enacts a major claim upon people’s lives that places their lives in crisis, the same sovereign claim that is so uncompromising in the narratives of Abraham and Moses” (The Word That Redescribes the World: The Bible and Discipleship, p. 95).

To become a follower of Jesus is to honestly assess the broken, unjust, and oppressive systems of the world and how I personally have capitulated to these systems and have embraced and contributed to their destructive power in the lives of others and of God’s good creation.

But that is not all. To be a follower of Jesus also means to decide, often through a pool of sweat and tears, to no longer be a part of that and to instead follow the ways of the sovereign King, Jesus Christ. Each one of us is in our own “Ur,” and God is calling us to “go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land that I will show you.”

Brueggemann writes, “God means for us to disengage from the postures, habits, and assumptions that define the world of power and injustice that is so devoid of mercy and compassion in every area of life” (p. 95).

This is the radical life into which Christ is calling his people. He wants me, as a leader of a missional Christian community, to direct these people into “an alternative life in the world” (p. 99).

This life is marked, in Brueggemann’s words, by both “talk” and “walk.” Our “talk” is the proclamation of the gospel that Jesus commanded his disciples to proclaim: “The kingdom of God has come near to you.”

This, of course, is not the gospel that most American churches are proclaiming. They, instead, have focused on many other things. My particular church background proclaimed a gospel of individual salvation from eternal damnation and a promise of heaven after one dies.

The gospel of the Kingdom is much more holistic than this truncated gospel. It proclaims that God’s original intention for this world will not be thwarted. It proclaims that through Christ, all things will be restored. It offers people the opportunity to actually be used by God to bring healing to this broken world, with the hopeful anticipation that one day God will bring it all to culmination.

Our “talk,” then, exists alongside our “walk.”

Missional: Who God Calls He Sends

A look at the Moses Paradigm of "Called and Sent"

Walter Brueggemann, in an essay entitled "Evangelism and Discipleship" in the book The Word That Redescribes the World: The Bible and Discipleship explains that the paradigm for a missional community is that God calls and sends. God calls people into relationship with the Godhead, and then sends us on a mission to “go” into a an intentional life that sets aside our purposes and agendas for the sake of God’s.

When Moses is confronted by God, “YHWH issues a series of first-person resolves, all concerning what YHWH intends to do in the face of Pharaonic oppression” (Brueggemann, p. 97).

God says,
“I have seen the misery of my people… I am concerned about their suffering… I have come down to rescue them” (Exodus 3:7-9).

But Brueggemann points out that YHWH does not then say, “Therefore, I will go to Pharaoh.” No, instead (and surprisingly) God says, “So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt” (verse 10).

God’s modus operandi is to call humans to himself and then to send those humans to do his mission.

Today's called ones (that is, those that I lead in my ministry) have been sent by God into the world as “a community of Shalom.”

Gospel ministry, in this framework, is more holistic than what we’ve seen in North America in the 20th Century. The left side of the Christian church focused mainly on economic justice through social action, while the right side focused mainly on individualistic evangelism and personal ethics. The gospel is not “either-or,” but “both-and” these. When one side of this holistic gospel is emphasized over the other, the gospel is truncated.

As Brueggemann states, “The old quarrel between evangelism and social action is a cheap, uniformed argument. It is precisely the talk of the evangel that matches the walk of action in the world on behalf of the new governance that is proclaimed in the evangel.” (p. 104)

Next: Jesus and His followers

Missional: To be Called and to be Sent

A look at the Abrahamic Paradigm of "Called and Sent"

For my application to Fuller Seminary's D.Min. program, I was given the task to reflect on a chapter from The Word That Redescribes the World: The Bible and Discipleship by Walter Brueggemann.

Brueggemann does an excellent job articulating that the God that calls people to follow him also sends them on mission. God calls individuals and communities to love him and to obey his governance over all things, and then sends these individuals and communities to proclaim the Kingdom of God.

As I reflect on what Brueggemann has written, I am deeply encouraged to create a missional community – filled with people who have heard the call and have obeyed the command to go – that will proclaim to the world through our “walk” and our “talk” that God is King, and, therefore, life as we have known it (with all its brokenness, injustice, and oppressive regimes) can now be transformed into the flourishing that God intends for his Creation.

Brueggemann looks at Abraham and Moses in the Old Testament and Jesus and his early followers in the New Testament to demonstrate how God operates through this “Call and Send” blueprint. Today, we'll look at Abraham.

Abraham is the paradigm of God’s missional call and missional mandate to humans. God called Abraham away from his settled life in Ur. “The LORD had said to Abram, ‘Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you’” (Genesis 12:1). Brueggemann points out that with this command to go, “Abraham is propelled into an orbit of reality that completely preempts his life, and removes him completely from any purpose or agenda he may have entertained for himself before that moment” (p. 93).

Abraham’s call immediately was followed by being sent by God on his mission. Not just any mission, but, as Brueggemann states, “The sending of Abraham (and Sarah) is perhaps the overarching missional dispatch in all of Scripture” (p. 96). The dispatch: “Through you all peoples on earth will be blessed” (Genesis 12:3).

Brueggemann states that Abraham’s call and mission to be a “blessing” is central to understanding God’s mission in this world. “Blessing is that the world should be generous, abundant, and fruitful, bespeaking effectiveness in generative fertility, material abundance, and this-worldly prosperity. Perhaps the best way to speak of this mandate is to think of ‘shalom’ in the broadest scope. Israel’s life is to make the world work better according to the intention of the creator. That is the immense mission given to this one man and his family!” (p. 96).

God’s intention for the world is for Shalom. I have long loved Cornelius Plantinga’s definition of Shalom: “We call it peace, but it means far more than mere peace of mind or a cease-fire between enemies. In the Bible, shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness, and delight…, the webbing together of God, humans, and all creation in justice, fulfillment, and delight. Shalom, in other words, is the way things ought to be.” (Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: The Breviary of Sin, p. 10)

Abraham’s mission flows through the People of God in the Old Testament, is brought to fulfillment in Jesus Christ and thus becomes the mission of today’s People of God, the church. Abraham’s call and mission in Genesis 12 is the hinge of God’s mission, “so that the general condition of curse in the world is turned to a general condition of blessing, life, and well-being.” This, then, is the mission of all those who are “Abraham’s seed” (Romans 9:8), i.e., the people of who name Christ as Lord.

As a pastor, my work needs to align with this Abrahamic paradigm – calling people into relationship with God and into his mission to “go” into a new way of life, one that completely preempts the normal American life – an intentional life that sets aside our purposes and agendas for the sake of God’s. As a community, we are called to God’s mission of bringing Shalom into every nook and cranny of his creation, doing our part in reversing the curse so that every person can experience God’s blessing.

Breaking Up with LeBron

As the old song goes, breaking up is hard to do. But we must do it. We must move on.

And here's a way to do it and help the needy while you're at it.

Thanks to a campaign called "Break Up With LeBron," starting Wednesday, July 14th, we can take our old LeBron gear to all Yours Truly restaurants, and they will be sent to homeless shelters in Miami.

Everybody who does will be given a one-of-a-kind "It’s not me, it’s you" break up with LeBron tee shirt.

You can purchase the "It’s not me, it’s you" break up t-shirt through the BreakUpWithLeBron.com website, and all proceeds will go to my favorite Christian ministry in Cleveland: The City Mission.

As they say over at BreakUpWithLeBron, "Its time to get over this. Let’s stand proud and give back."

The good folks over at StoneKap Productions have produced this video to help us break up with LeBron. Good job, guys!

Watch the Video that the Cavaliers Showed LeBron James

More Than a Player.

The Cavs wanted to capture the "HOME" theme for LeBron James with this video they showed him yesterday during their turn to pitch their team to him.

Michael Youssef: Confusing Americans with Christians

Michael Youssef

"Make no mistake about it: the moral character of a nation, as expressed in its policies and laws, can evoke God's response. I don't mean that our heavenly Father would send fire and brimstone from heaven in response to a nation that embraces ungodly laws and policies. But He can and will withdraw His protection from a people who once declared Him as their Lord and then become rebellious and an immoral affront to Him." - Michael Youssef

In a commentary at OneNewsNow.com (from Donald Wildmon's American Family News Network), Michael Youssef seeks to answer the question, "Can there be a Christian nation?"

As I read Youssef's column, it struck me that Youssef is confused about the difference between the United States of America and the Christian Nation that is comprised of Bible-believing, Jesus-following Christians, no matter what country they live in.

At one point, Youssef says, “A country, or even a culture, cannot be Christian — only individuals can be Christians.” But then he negates that statement by making the case that America is, in fact, a Christian nation, rooted in Christianity, founded by Christians, and that all the citizens of America need to repent and get back to God. To do this, he is initiating "GODSAVEOURCOUNTRY.COM" to return America (and all Americans) to its Christian roots so as to ensure America's security since God "can and will withdraw His protection from a people who once declared Him as their Lord."

He later makes this caveat: “Let me be absolutely clear, America is not ‘the new Israel.’” And then says, “but the lessons we learn from Israel of old can be of immense importance today.”

I agree with this statement whole-heartedly. But he and I apply these “lessons” that we learn from Israel in different ways. Youssef applies them directly to the nation of the United States – “We are being made aware once again of His (God’s) desire for this generation of Americans to return to Him and to the faith of our Founding Fathers.” In other words, today's Americans are like the Israelites who were thrown into exile - we have turned away from the God that founded our nation.

I disagree with this way of applying Israel's history to our contemporary setting. I believe that the Bible wants us to not apply the lessons of Israel to any contemporary political state, but only to the contemporary People of God – that is, Christians. Today’s followers of Christ are a “holy nation;” it is not limited by any geographical or political boundary – see 1 Peter 2:9.

Here is the weakness of what Youssef is attempting to do:

He is not making a clear differentiation between Bible-believing, Jesus-following Christians and the American populace at large. In other words, he implies that all Americans are back-slidden Christians, needing to return to who they really are. He says,

“As believers, we should know and believe deeply that God desires for our leaders and judges to repent for shedding the blood of the unborn. A loving heavenly Father is waiting for them to repent for approving and sanctioning sins that are abominations to Him. God desires for His children to repent from the spirit of materialism and placing our hope in possessions.

“The Lord's desire for His people is to stop serving Him in a half-hearted manner. He longs for His people to thirst and hunger for righteousness and not for ease and comfort. God continuously calls us to Himself.”

About whom is Youssef speaking? If he wants Christians (who happen to be citizens of the United States) to repent of being lax in our battle to protect the oppressed (i.e., the unborn) and to repent of our capitulating to the capitalistic materialism of American culture, then I would want to say, “Amen!”

But this is not what Youssef is saying. He is saying that the United States, as a whole, is a Christian nation, needing to repent and return to God. He believes that since the United States, as an entire nation, is experiencing “economic woes and national disasters,” and a weakened national security, then this is evidence that America’s relationship with God is off track. While he may say that he doesn't see America as “the new Israel,” his way of applying the Old Testament to America certainly betrays that statement.

Youssef is improperly equating the United States with the true “Christian Nation,” that is, the people of God who follow the Lord of lords and King of kings.

On this Independence Day weekend, we Christians can be proud citizens of the United States. But we can do this without equating our nation with Israel. As good citizens, we should vote for good laws that reflect God’s creative order, we should advocate for justice where we see injustice, we should pray for the common good of all citizens (whether they be Christian or not), and we should seek to be light in the darkness of a secular nation.

As Christians, we will continue to pray for God’s kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven, by the means of the One we follow, Jesus Christ, who originally brought his Kingdom into this world through service and suffering.

As God's chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, on July 4 and every day, we will declare the praises of him who called us out of darkness into his wonderful light.

And we will invite our fellow Americans to become members of God's true Christian Nation - the Universal Church - so that they can do so as well.

My New Ministry: Reaching College Students at Stark State College and Kent State-Stark

Today, July 1, I am moving my CCO college outreach ministry to a more local place, the campus that contains Stark State College and Kent State University-Stark.

God has had this campus on my heart for a long time: a desire to see students at these two schools meet Jesus and join in His cause to bring redemption to the world. There are a lot of students at these schools (9,400 at Stark State and 4,000 at KSU-Stark) with limited Christian influence on campus.

After much prayer–seeking God’s guidance, and for a door to open as an opportunity to serve–I have accepted the position of Pastor for College Students and Young Adults at Jackson Friends Church.

This means I will remain on staff with CCO and continue to raise my financial support from people who want to see college students’ lives changed through the gospel proclamation that I will provide at Stark State and KSU-Stark.

Please pray for our family, especially for our kids, Trey (11), Joel (10) and Kaira (10), who have to transition to a new church after several years of enjoying the children’s ministry at The Chapel.

Linda and I have been deeply involved at The Chapel as well. I have led an adult community, helped with the children’s ministry, and also worked in local missions. Linda has worked in women’s ministry and has been a friend and spiritual helper for some women there. We will miss The Chapel!

One more concern is that we live in Lake Township, and many of our community connections have been through our kid’s participation in Lake schools and Linda’s Physical Therapy practice here. Please pray that the transition to Jackson Township will not hinder our connections in Lake, and that we will have new connections with people in Jackson.

Bob and Linda with Trey, Kaira, and Joel

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