“Packaging” the Good News of Christ

In the marketing world, packaging is the “science, art, and technology of enclosing or protecting products for distribution, storage, sale, and use.”

I am sometimes hesitant to apply business principles and metaphors to the church, because I think that can lead to unhealthy practices, but in this case, the parallel easily applies. When it comes to evangelism or sharing our faith with others, all Christians, consciously or otherwise, take part in the process of packaging. We store our beliefs in a certain “package” which we can then share with others.

Unfortunately, on the whole, I think Christians have a major problem with packaging, and often fall into one of two problem areas:

The Not-So-Good News Package

(1) Honestly, I think some Christians don’t want the Kingdom of God to be as large or expansive as God Himself does. Of course, they will affirm that God loves all people and that Christ died for all, but by their actions they suggest that God’s grace is really only intended for the good, moral, “churchy” people. And so, perhaps to reinforce this idea, or to make the inherently appealing Good News a little less appealing, they wrap it up in a package of arrogance, self-righteousness, and hypocrisy. 

And sure enough, people of the world—those who are lost in sin and desperately need what the church is “selling”—take one look at the Not-So-Good News package and easily decide it’s not for them.

The “Better” News Package

(2) Some Christians have just the opposite problem though. Unlike the first group, they really, really want everyone to hear the Good News and accept the grace that God offers, made possible by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. But here’s the problem: Jesus and his disciples actually taught a lot of demanding, exclusive, hard-to-obey ideas, and a lot of the people in the world (and in the church!) don’t want to follow those teachings. So these good-hearted people, wanting to be as appealing to as many people as possible, water down the teachings of Jesus here and there and leave out some of the most objectionable material.

And for some people in the world, this Better News package (“better” because it involves little moral correction or personal sacrifice) looks really good, but when they buy it, they end up settling for a substitute rather than the real thing (which, when you think about it, isn’t good news after all).

The Solution

If we want to be faithful Christians, we need to avoid either extreme. To put it another way, Jesus was characterized by grace and truth (John 1.14), and so our presentation of the gospel should be too. The Not-So-Good News package emphasizes truth at the expense of grace, while the “Better” News package emphasizes grace at the expense of truth. Neither of these alternatives are acceptable. Instead, we need to “package” the Good News as Jesus Himself did—with grace and mercy and love, but also with clear teaching on the personal sacrifice required by real discipleship. 

Some people will look at that package and snatch it up immediately, while others will leave it on the shelf. But that shouldn’t surprise us—they did the same thing with Jesus. Ultimately, as a follower of Jesus, it is not my task to present Christianity in a way that tastes good to others. Rather, it is my task to present it faithfully, and let others decide if they want to swallow it or spit it out.

The Best Lesson I’ve Taught On Integrity

We’ll come back to our study of sin in Genesis 3, but I wanted to have a change of pace today.

One of the foundational lessons I’ve learned from my years of youth ministry is this: regardless of what I teach to my students in Bible class, the loudest message they hear from me is the one I proclaim by the way I live my life on a daily basis.

And that’s not really a ground-breaking observation—we have common sayings in our culture that illustrate that our actions matter more than our claims or words (“Do as I say, not as I do”, “Don’t talk the talk if you can’t walk the walk”)—but a recent event hammered this home to me more so than ever before.

Every summer our youth group spends a week at Green Valley Bible Camp, and I work as a counselor. Green Valley is a great place with a lot of fun and meaningful activities, and one of the long-standing camp traditions is that on Friday afternoons, there is an All-Star softball game between the men counselors and the senior boy campers.* The All-Star game is kind of a big deal, especially for the campers, for whom it serves as some sort of coming-of-age rite of passage and an opportunity to talk trash to yours truly all year. 

Anyway, in this year’s game, the campers shot out to a significant early lead while the counselors struggled mightily. We hit very poorly for the first couple of innings, but finally we got a bit of a rally going: down several runs, we managed to score a couple and then had runners on second and third with two outs. 

[On the senior softball field at Green Valley, there is a big tree in foul ground down the third base line, with a large branch that reaches out over fair territory. The ground rules that we played with this year (sometimes they change from year to year depending on who the umpires are) were that any ball that hit the branch was automatically foul.]

The next hitter got up and hit a towering shot down the third base line that just barely nicked a few leaves from the overhanging branch. It didn’t alter the flight of the ball in anyway, and neither umpire was able to tell that it had hit the branch at all. It soared into the outfield past the left fielder; both runners would have easily scored, and we would have been right back in the game.

Except…

I was the third base coach at the time, and since I was standing right by the overhanging branch, I could easily see and hear that the ball had hit it. I let the umpire know, and it was ruled a foul ball. On the next pitch, the batter popped out to the pitcher. The rally ended, and we never really challenged again in the game. We ended up losing 10-4, and I will now get to hear taunts from my students for the next year about how they beat us. So, it was kind of a bummer.

Except…

One of my students was playing shortstop for the campers team, and witnessed all that had happened. He was keenly aware of how big of a hit that would have been for us and how it could have changed the game. Since that moment (almost three weeks ago now), he has brought it up about six times and has talked about how awesome it was that I spoke up and told the truth regardless of the fact that it hurt my team.

I did some figuring, and I think I’ve taught the youth group about 700-800 times during my years at Farmington. And probably dozens of times, I have taught about the importance of honesty and integrity, either as the focus of a lesson, or mentioned it in passing. But it became clear to me that none of those lessons made as much of an impression on this particular as a simple action that I did at camp without thinking. Regardless of what I teach to my students in Bible class, the loudest message they hear from me is the one I proclaim by the way I live my life on a daily basis.

I’m not sharing this story so that I can be the hero. I am not a hero; I make a lot of mistakes, and there are definitely times when I fail as an example. I share it because it illustrates how important it is that we as parents, youth ministers, church leaders, etc. back up the things that we teach by the way that we live. I shudder to think what would’ve happened if I had kept my mouth shut and let the incorrect call stand—would this student have ever listened to me again when I talked about honesty and integrity, or would he have tuned me out since my actions wouldn’t have matched up with my teaching?

But by God’s grace, that’s not what happened. Instead, I was able to take advantage of an opportunity to teach a better lesson on integrity than all of those which I had spent hours and hours preparing.

*Here, “senior” doesn’t necessarily mean “senior in high school” (though some of them are), but rather is just the oldest of three divisions that the campers are split into. Usually the campers in the senior division are all high school kids. There are also All-Star games between the women counselors and the senior girl campers, and games for the younger kids as well, but those aren’t pertinent to the story I am telling.

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Destroying the Works of Satan

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to speak at a youth rally and my topic was the purpose of the church. I talked about how the church is God’s vehicle for saving the world today (through the preaching of the gospel), for influencing the world and trying to make it a better place (through service), and equipping Christians for those first two tasks (through education and discipleship).

And those are all pretty standard ideas—we hear about those things a lot when we talk about what the church should do. But the church has another important purpose that is often neglected in such discussions: the mission of the church is to oppose and destroy the works of Satan.

In 1 John 3.8, John said that Jesus came to earth so that “He might destroy the works of the devil.” In Ephesians 6.12, Paul says that our struggle as Christians is not against flesh and blood, but against the forces of darkness. 

These verses make it clear that as the church, we are a part of a spiritual battle against Satan and his influence. Moral corruption and sin are the works of the Devil (and we focus on things like that a lot),  but so are things like disease, starvation, poverty, terrorism, and racism. 

When you look at all the sad and messed up stuff that happens in our world—do you think God likes that stuff? Of course not! Children starving to death in the developing world, or innocent people being killed because of racial wars, or bombs going off at marathon finish lines—those are works of Satan, and when we take part in efforts to fight against those things, we are fulfilling the purpose of the church in opposing and destroying the works of the Devil. 

To me, realizing that when we fight against evil, we’re part of a cosmic struggle and are fighting against Satan himself gives us a whole new level of motivation for doing it. The decisions we make each and every day are important because we have the opportunity to stand up against evil. 

A cosmic struggle against evil: think about that the next time one of your friends tells a racist joke—are you going to sit there and laugh at the works of Satan, or realizing that God loves all people regardless of race and that racism comes from Satan, are you going to speak up and put a stop to it? 

Or the next time you have an opportunity to give to people, maybe people living on the other side of the world who have less than you do—are you going to be willing to use what you have to fight against the works of Satan like poverty and starvation, or are you going to hold onto those things so you can continue to pursue the idolatry of the “American dream”?

Studies show that a whole bunch of teens leave the church after high school, and I think a big reason for that is because it just doesn’t seem like the work of the church is all that important. After all, if we narrow down what church is to only a couple hours of activity a week, of course its importance is going to be diminished. But when we realize the cosmic nature of the struggle we are involved in—saving the world, serving the world, training Christians to do those things, and opposing the works of Satan—we see that the church is absolutely a cause worth giving our lives to.

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Wanted: Role Players in the Body of Christ

Joe Kleine was one of the best basketball players in Arkansas Razorback history. An All-Conference Selection in 1984 and 1985, and Kleine also played on the 1984 Gold Medal U.S. Olympic team. In a game against the 2nd-ranked Houston Cougars in 1984, Kleine led the Razorbacks to victory, snapping Houston’s 31-game conference winning streak and outscoring future Hall of Famer Hakeem Olajawon 22-10. During his career at Arkansas, Kleine averaged 18 points per game—more than Michael Jordan averaged during his career at the University of North Carolina. 

But, after completing his collegiate career and joining the NBA in 1985, Kleine went from being a stand out all-star to an average, back-up, role player. In the late 80s and early 90s, Kleine played for the Boston Celtics. While he was there, he was overshadowed by a number of very famous and very good players—Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Reggie Lewis, and Robert Parrish. Parrish in particular overshadowed Kleine, because Parrish played the exact position that Kleine did—center. Robert Parrish is considered by basketball experts to be one of the greatest centers who has ever played the game, so Joe Kleine got to be Parrish’s backup. 

It's not easy being a backup, a second teamer. Backups are called things like “substitutes” and “bench-warmers” and “role players”. Backups don’t get to play on the Dream Team; they don’t get to play in All-Star games. Their basketball cards aren’t worth very much, and they don’t get to make many commercials. It would seem that being a backup isn’t a very important job.

Nothing could be further from the truth, however. Consider the following description of Joe Kleine from an article by a Celtic sportswriter a few years back: 

“He is what he is. And he knows exactly what that is—the backup center on an NBA team. Every NBA team would love to have Kleine be what he is, which, in addition to being a competent NBA center, includes being a first-rate person.” 

The article goes on to quote one of Kleine’s former coaches: 

“When we had him here, Joe was our lug. Now, he’s your lug. But you know what? He’s a good lug, I wish we still had him.”

Why is Joe Kleine, a second-string backup center, the kind of player that every coach wants on his team? Why is he the kind of player that coaches don’t want to give up? Because he is willing to accept the role he is given, and give his best performing that role, even if it is not exciting or glamorous. 

Paul talked about role players in 1 Corinthians 12.14-18: 

“Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ it would not for that reason cease to be a part of the body. And if the ear should say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ it would not for that reason cease to be a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact, God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as He wanted them to be.” 

We don’t each fill the same role, but Paul goes on to tell us that we each have a role to fill. Moreover, he tells us that God bestows an extra measure of honor upon those who fill roles that seem unglamorous: 

“The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don't need you!’ And the head cannot say to the feet, ‘I don’t need you!’ On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think of as less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.”

Just as role players are an integral part of any NBA team, they are also indispensable within the church. Unfortunately, this is often a difficult lesson for Christians to learn. Even some of Jesus’ apostles struggled with this concept—in Mark 10, James and John asked to sit at the right and left hand of Jesus so that they could receive special recognition. This request was made because they did not understand the role that God had given them. In Mark 10.43-45, Jesus explained to them that “whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”

Are you willing to be a role player in the Body of Christ? Because that’s the kind of player that God is looking for on His team.

Friday Summary Report, February 15

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, but I have read some good articles lately that I would like to share with you:

(1) This article, “Top 10 Reasons our Kids Leave Church”, has been talked about a lot over the last few days, but it is an important one. The author makes some outstanding observations. One of his important points is about the church always trying to be “relevant” (notice the quotation marks). The church should always be relevant because the Gospel is relevant, but we have to be careful of trying to be trendy, (which is what churches often try to be instead). Being relevant is crucial; being trendy is lame.

(2) This post is now a month old, but is hilarious: it stereotypes youth ministers based on the type of facial hair they sport (or don’t).

(3) Here is an excellent post and video for parents on how to teach priorities to your children using a family calendar. Don’t be alarmed by the attention-grabbing title of the post—this is an excellent and practical idea for Christian families. Listen to the video all the way through, as some of the best stuff is his discussion on priorities leading to identity and the realization that sometimes living according to our values will come with consequences.

(4) This post I wrote on Hashtag Media has gotten some attention. If you haven’t yet gone to check out the good work these guys are doing, please do so.

The Example of Josiah: Serving God Without Hope of Reward

King Josiah Cleansing the Land of Idols, by William Hole

A while back, I wrote a research paper on King Josiah, and ever since then he has been one of my favorite Bible characters.

Josiah came to power in the Southern Kingdom of Judah around 640 BC. This is a long time after the time of David and Solomon: the kingdom had been divided for almost 300 years, the Northern Kingdom of Israel has already been conquered by Assyria, and the Southern kingdom isn’t too far behind—a long series of mostly unfaithful kings (including Josiah’s father, Amon) have led Judah away from God, and before long, Babylon will begin to conquer them.

This is the situation when Josiah comes to power at the age of 8. Even though he’s young, and even though he had a wicked father, the Bible tells us that in 2 Kings 2.22 that Josiah was a good and faithful king: 

“He did right in the sight of the LORD and walked in all the way of his father David, nor did he turn aside to the right or to the left.”

According to 2 Kings 22, in the 18th year of his reign, Josiah begins a project to repair and restore the Temple, and during the construction project, the book of the law is found. Scholars and commentators disagree on exactly what this means, but basically, the Law of Moses has been found—either the entire Torah (the books of Genesis through Deuteronomy), or at the very least, the Book of Deuteronomy on its own. Either way, what this means is that the Law of Moses, the covenant that God made with His people and the laws He gave them to follow, has been found and is read to King Josiah for the first time. It shows just how bad things had gotten under Josiah’s wicked father that Josiah apparently hadn’t been exposed to the Law before now!

A covenant is an agreement or a promise made between two parties. In God's covenant with the Israelites, God promised to be their God and protect them, and in return, the people were to be faithful and obedient to God’s commands. When Josiah hears the words of the Law, he tears his clothes because he realizes how unfaithful Judah has been—they haven’t followed the commands of the Law of Moses, and they’ve worshipped gods other than Jehovah. In short, they haven’t kept up their part of the bargain.

So Josiah sends to Huldah the prophetess to inquire of the LORD—what does God say about the situation? Huldah responds in 2 Kings 22.15-20, but it isn’t good news:

“‘Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: ‘Tell the man who sent you to me, Thus says the LORD, Behold, I will bring disaster upon this place and upon its inhabitants, all the words of the book that the king of Judah has read. Because they have forsaken me and have made offerings to other gods, that they might provoke me to anger with all the work of their hands, therefore my wrath will be kindled against this place, and it will not be quenched.  

But to the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the LORD, thus shall you say to him, Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Regarding the words that you have heard, because your heart was penitent, and you humbled yourself before the LORD, when you heard how I spoke against this place and against its inhabitants, that they should become a desolation and a curse, and you have torn your clothes and wept before me, I also have heard you, declares the LORD. 

Therefore, behold, I will gather you to your fathers, and you shall be gathered to your grave in peace, and your eyes shall not see all the disaster that I will bring upon this place.’’ 

And they brought back word to the king.”

So basically, God says that for all their wickedness, the people of Judah will be punished, but because Josiah humbled himself before God, he won’t have to witness the destruction of his country and will die before it happens.

Put yourself in the place of Josiah: what do you do next? No matter what you do, it’s too late for Judah and they’re going to be punished for their past sins after he dies. It seems like whatever he does doesn’t matter, because the same negative consequence will happen either way. What will Josiah do next?

And this is why Josiah is one of my favorite Bible characters, and why he is such a good example for us: even when he knows that there’s no reward coming his way, he still does the right thing because of his devotion to God.

In 2 Kings 23, Josiah goes out and reads the Book of the Law in front of all the people and along with them, reestablishes the covenant with God. Then, he sets about in a systematic way to make things right. He goes throughout Judah and even into the northern territory of Israel and does away with unauthorized worship practices, destroying idols and pagan altars and getting rid of idolatrous priests. He removes the mediums and spiritists from the land as well, and also re-institutes the Passover feast:

“For no such Passover had been kept since the days of the judges who judged Israel, or during all the days of the kings of Israel or of the kings of Judah. But in the eighteenth year of King Josiah this Passover was kept to the LORD in Jerusalem.”

Josiah does all of this despite the knowledge that Judah is going to be punished no matter what, and sure enough, after Josiah is killed in a battle against Egypt, Judah is quickly overthrown.

•    •    •

Josiah’s life underscores how important it is to serve God because we love Him, not because we’re hoping to get something for doing so. I think a lot of times people get the idea that as Christians, we spend our lives doing good things for God and that He then pays us back by letting us go to heaven.

To be clear, the Bible does speak of heaven as a reward and the hope of heaven should help to motivate us to keep going, especially when times get rough. But if the only reason you’re serving God is so He’ll pay you back with heaven, then you really have the wrong perspective on things. Serving God will seem like a chore and, before long, you’ll trick yourself into thinking that God owes you something, when He really doesn’t at all.

Guts Enough Not To Fight Back: Jackie Robinson

Jackie steals home against Yogi Berra and the Yankees in the 1955 World Series.

As a general rule in college and professional sports, teams retire the jersey numbers of the all-time greats who played for them. For example, no Chicago Bull can wear number 23, because that was Michael Jordan’s number and it has been retired. No New York Yankee can wear number 3, because that was Babe Ruth’s number and it has been retired. If you play Major League Baseball, regardless of what team you play for, you can’t wear the number 42, because that was Jackie Robinson’s number, and it is the only number to be retired by Major League Baseball.*

Sixty-five years ago yesterday, on April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson donned that number 42 Brooklyn Dodgers jersey and appeared in his first regular season Major League game, breaking baseball’s racial color barrier.**

Robinson’s Hall of Fame career and handled himself on and off the field opened doors for other black athletes in professional sports (and ultimately many other fields as well), and it has been said that only Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. accomplished more for the American Civil Rights Movement than did Jackie Robinson.

Before he signed a contract to play for the Dodgers, Robinson was called into the office of Team President and General Manager Branch Rickey. To give him a taste of what it would be like to be the only black player in the Big Leagues, Rickey spent three hours taunting and insulting Robinson, calling him every racial slur he could think of. Rickey then told Robinson that this is what he would face every day on the field, and that if he wanted it to work out, he would have to promise not to fight back or respond to insults of any kind for the first three years of his career.

Robinson, who possessed a fiery temperament and was very outspoken, was put of by this and asked, incredulously, “Mr. Rickey, are you looking for a player who is afraid to fight back?”

Branch Rickey replied, “No, I want someone with guts enough not to fight back.”

After some deliberation, Robinson agreed to Rickey’s terms, and he lived up to them on the field. When opposing baserunners tried to spike him when sliding into second base, he didn’t fight back. When fans and players yelled and cursed at him and even questioned his very humanity, he showed them how wrong they were by taking the moral high ground.

He had the guts not to fight back.

What Branch Rickey told Jackie Robinson reminds me of Jesus’ words in The Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:

“But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.”

The world tells us to stand up for ourselves when we are treated unjustly. It tells us to have the courage to fight back and not let others push us around. On the other hand, Jesus tells us to have the courage to show that we are different from the world because we don’t fight back, and He tells us to forgive others when they mistreat us.

Jesus wants followers with guts enough not to fight back.

•   •   •

* Yesterday, to commemorate the anniversary of Robinson’s first game as a Dodger, this prohibition was temporarily lifted as representatives from each Major League team wore number 42 in his honor.
**Contrary to popular belief, Robinson was not the first African-American to play in the Major Leagues. That honor goes to Moses Fleetwood Walker, who played for the Toledo Blue Stockings in 1884. Regardless of this, Robinson was the first African-American to play Major League Baseball in the 20th century, and it was his breaking of baseball’s color barrier that led to the permanent integration of the Major Leagues.