Tag: church

Pokemon Go and Evangelism

How will you handle kids coming to church? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I happen to be an apologist as readers know, but I also enjoy playing Pokemon. My wife and I are eagerly looking forward to Sun and Moon coming out in November. Not only that, we’ve found some of our neighbors are also devout Christians and play the game. Unfortunately, they’re also moving away soon, but we’ve enjoyed their company for now.

Recently, a new version came out for smart phones called Pokemon Go. This would have been every child’s dream when Pokemon came out years ago. It’s going out into the world and catching Pokemon on an electronic device. What on Earth does this have to do with evangelism?

It has a number of things to do with it. First off, in order to get supplies and a few extra experience points, players have to stop at places called Pokestops. These are well-known locations like libraries and post offices and other landmarks in a town. Oh! Practically every church you come across will also be a Pokestop and you have to get right up next to it in order to get the bonus. Not only that, if you wait just a few minutes, you can get that bonus again.

Second, there are also gyms you can battle at. These are also located at landmarks including, yep, some of the churches. Not every church has a gym, but some do, and players from each of the three teams in the game seek to come and take control of the gyms and that will mean that they are indeed coming to the churches.

To see how this all works, my neighbor and I decided we would go out into town. My wife came along as his wife was working and we went all over town stopping at Pokestops and battling gyms. On the way, we had a number of good conversations and fun times together.

In fact, this Saturday before the podcast, my wife and I are thinking of going out to a park nearby for a Pokemon Go event. Yes. You’re going to have players coming from the Atlanta area all to a park where we will meet each other and interact playing a game. We will be out around noon in warm weather at a park as will many others.

You know parents how you’ve been wanting a reason for your children to get outside? It has come. In fact, your younger children who can’t drive will need you. Take this chance to spend time with your children!

Still, I mainly want to write about churches. What I recommend you do is have someone from your church download the game and look and see. Is your church a Pokestop? If it is, take advantage of this situation. I would like to emphasize some thought over at The Wardrobe Door and some I’ve thought of on my own.

First off, if you have someone at your church who knows Pokemon well, put them to use! Get them out there and have them meeting people that come by. If you want to, set up something outside your church during the week that will indicate your church is a Pokestop and welcome kids to your church.

This could include having bottles of water or small snacks that you can give out to the children. Let them know what kind of church your place is and that will make an impression on the parents. Let them come in and enjoy wi-fi and air conditioning and this can be a good chance to talk to the parents.

Second, allow people to have their events at your church. Host a Pokemon Go event at your church on the weekdays and have kids from all over come by. If you do this, don’t make it a trap by having a sermon preached. Instead, let them come and just enjoy themselves. Try to focus on the parents as well if they stay. If not, let the kids from your church be there who are playing and have them form the friendships that can get the children in the door.

Third, host other kinds of events. Have a tournament around the card games. Have a tournament around the regular games. Be the church that when Sun and Moon comes out, you will be ready.

Fourth, try having some giveaways. Some churches are doing this and you could let people fill out an entry form once a day when they come by for a Pokestop and let them have a chance to win a prize. It doesn’t have to be a big one, but feeling like they won something for going by the church can be an incentive.

In fact, if you want to know if people are coming to the church, just look at some of the material already put out.

https://twitter.com/harryizard/status/750750701043712001

https://twitter.com/coffey_joe/status/750758365207212032

https://twitter.com/doopypaws/status/750886143911014400

 

https://twitter.com/My_9_cats_and_I/status/751076371263172608

https://twitter.com/sofieballgame/status/751070260992716800

Not all of these I shared due to language on some, but pay attention. You have people who even can’t stand religion going to a church to collect Pokeballs. If you have an apologist at your church, now is a time to use them when they show up. This will especially also help show your church that Christians don’t cut themselves off from everything. The Gospel is not opposed to fun after all.

I can already anticipate some objections. Some of you will be saying that we don’t need this to do evangelism. That’s true. We don’t, but you know what? We have it. Why not take advantage of it? Why not use it? If this is a way that we can get to spread the Gospel to people who are coming to our church, why not go ahead and do that?

I also hear it being said that the message should be enough to draw people to the church. Yeah. Keep that up. How’s that been working for you? It will be a draw if you’re dealing with people who are Christians who already love the message. You’re not. What you’re dealing with are people who are lost many times and now have a reason to go to church.

Consider raising children. Parents want to raise their children to eat well and study in school. It should be that being healthy and having a successful career is enough of a draw, but it isn’t. Usually, we’ll give incentives and punishments to help children do these tasks until they come to appreciate them on their own. Wait until your children value health or a successful career on their own and you’ll be waiting awhile. Give them incentive and they’ll start doing it.

Some have also complained about dangers of Pokemon Go, such as there are some people hijacking it to rob victims. Yes. Believe it or not, technology can be misused. By that standard, that Bible you have at your church is misused by the cults, so you’d better not use it. Some people are misusing Pokemon Go. You can be the church that uses it well.

Some people are concerned that you will draw them in and then use bait and switch with the Gospel. I have a problem when it comes to many Christian movies in that they think they have to shove the Gospel explicitly down your throats. They don’t. Those of you who care about friendship evangelism should like this idea. Get to know the people as people who come by and give them time. Do encourage them and if you see an opportunity, you can talk about it, but I wouldn’t be confrontational in this case. Just be there and if they have questions, answer them. Let your church be the church that everyone in town is talking about.

Speaking of talking about it, what makes me think this will happen. Look at the above tweets. When was the last time you had people tweeting so much about going to church who likely are not Christians? You want to pass up this opportunity?

Also along those lines, please don’t come up with cheesy catch phrase about Pokemon and turn it into Jesus and please don’t try to come up with a Christian version of the game that you can play. Just use the game as it is because when Christians try to copy things like this, they end up for the most part just looking ridiculous. That turns people away.

Some people think that Pokemon Go is being used as a lure in this case. The point is that Pokemon Go is already a lure. The people are already coming and they can’t just drive by at 45 MPH and get the bonuses. They have to make a deliberate stop. If they’re there, talk to them. Take advantage of it.

There are many people talking about so many events in the world that are important. We are talking about the Dallas shooting and we are talking about the Presidential election, but many of us are talking about Pokemon Go. That last one can greatly be used by evangelism. Take advantage of the opportunity. We finally have people we want to reach coming to church. I can only imagine what the Apostle Paul would do if he found a way to get people to come to church of their own accord. What would he do once they got there?

Also, your young people who don’t think they contribute to the church sometimes? They can have a sense of contribution just by playing a game and just by hanging out with others playing a game. Give them an idea that they are significant. Let them help out. You can have it that the kids talk to the kids while the parents talk to the parents. Use this opportunity to tell them about your church and then when in the church, tell them about Jesus.

As for me and my wife, we’re going to be enjoying our game, but I certainly hope churches use this opportunity. You have children coming to your door. Are you going to drive them away, or are you going to be there waiting for them in preparation for getting them there on Sunday morning to give them the Gospel?

In Christ,
Nick Peters

 

Book Plunge: Political Church

What do I think of Jonathan Leeman’s book published by IVP? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

It’s said that there are two things that should never be talked about and that’s politics and religion. If so, then Jonathan Leeman has stepped into dangerous waters by writing this book. Churches can often have their own share of squabbles and religion can have a bad reputation today with new atheist soundbites running throughout our culture. Now you tie that in with politics, which comes from the word poly, meaning many, and ticks, referring to blood-sucking organisms.

Leeman points out that politics is unavoidable and we all come into the arena of debate with gods. The difference is the Christian comes with a big one and the secularist comes with several little gods that aren’t metaphysical claims and thus pass the muster. It could be then that when we argue on the grounds of appeal to conscience, we’re setting ourselves up for trouble. Whose conscience will win the day? If we say our conscience is tied to our God, then our opinion will be cast aside in the end and the more “objective” person will be the ones whose gods aren’t so readily apparent.

Leeman wants us to see what the making of covenants means for us today and that politics has been with us from the beginning. As soon as you have relationships going on, you have politics. People have to learn to live orderly in a society somehow. Unfortunately, we’ve often gone with a more pragmatic approach instead of an approach rooted in truth.

Leeman also brings this to how it affects our Christian relationships and I think this is the most important part of the book. This gets to the doctrine of forgiveness. What does it mean to forgive and how does that relate to politics? Forgiveness is in fact all about our relationships with one another and much of the material here can be quite convicting, especially if you have a hard time forgiving someone.

The book also comes from an approach that I think is gently Calvinistic and presuppositional, but the good part is if you don’t agree with that perspective, you can still accept the conclusion which is where many of us will end up about God being necessary for the good society. I found myself disagreeing with how Leeman reached some conclusions, but I agreed with the conclusions. I suspect many readers would be in the same boat.

Also, I thought criticisms of the New Perspective on Paul were not that strong. I don’t think they offer anything that would go against justification in the sense that we usually see it. The difference is more about what it means to be justified. I myself lean towards the New Perspective and I did not see the problems that I think Leeman thinks he sees.

Still, this is a good book to read and certainly thorough. It’s difficult to think about how a book could be more thorough on the topic. The experiential aspects are also quite helpful as you can learn to see forgiveness in a whole new light and really think about how you relate to your fellow man.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Why They Don’t Go To Church

Why are there people identified as Nones? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

My wife and I had a trip this morning and when I turned the car on, it was on talk radio, which I normally prefer to listen to because I really don’t care for most of the music today. We live in Tennessee and we’re still in the Bible Belt so we heard a conversation about nones and most people calling in to this local show were talking about material that would not have any interest to the nones. The nones are people who when asked to give a religion say none. It does not necessarily mean they are atheists. It just means that they do not choose to identify with any religion and the whole discussion on the show was based on a statement that only 18% of people attend church weekly.

Before too long, callers were calling in to argue over when the Sabbath was and verses were being misapplied left and right. Then we had the caller calling in to talk about salvation being only in Jesus. Okay. I agree with that, but that says squat about the nones. In fact, as I listened, I realized that this was the problem. Imagine going to someone who is a none and telling them salvation is found only in Jesus Christ. They might first wonder what you’re talking about with salvation and then if anything you’ll be told that they’re happy you found something that works for you, but it just doesn’t work for them.

Or picture the lady who called in and wanted to talk about sodomy some and how our nation is under judgment. (I use the term sodomy also because that is what she used.) Do I think homosexual activity is a sin. Yes. But here’s the problem. You go up to someone today who is a younger person and you tell them that homosexual behavior is wrong. Why? If all you have is “The Bible says so” then they will just be “So much more reason to not trust the Bible.” You could also get told about eating shrimp or mixed clothing or something of that sort. (In fact, this lady speaking had no problem with speaking about Old Testament Law and covenants as if there was a one-to-one parallel.)

But what about the Bible? Well if you tell them that the Bible is the Word of God, they’ll want to know why. What reason can you give? God says so? That’s entirely circular. If you point to your personal testimony, well many of the nones will be glad to tell you a personal testimony of how they went to church growing up and it just doesn’t work for them. Outside of the nones, I can show you plenty of Mormons who have a personal testimony. Do you accept their testimony that the Book of Mormon is the Word of God?

The problem is we’re not reaching the nones because they don’t really think they have something that we can provide for them and we have made church one of the last places that they want to go to. Many of you might be familiar with the work of Michael Patton from Credo House. He wound up getting addicted to pain killers and went to rehab and found that church would be a lot better if it was like that. People were open and honest and able to admit their failures. No one would bother trying to look good around everyone else because hey, if you’re in rehab, you already have some issues and you know it’s a safe place. Why don’t they do that in church?

Because church is not a safe place and so many Christians seem to think that if they are true Christians, they will show they do not have any major problems in their lives.

Church is also seen as a place that’s really pretty boring, and how many of us can relate. How many times is it that nagging can be called preaching? Why is it that the word “preach” has such a negative connotation to it? Frankly, if we think about something that we would want to do for entertainment, most of us would not go and sit down and listen to somebody speak for about half an hour. It’s just not something that we do. Add in especially that you don’t want to go and hear someone talk about how you’re supposedly doing everything wrong in life. Most sermons you hear at church are things you’ve also heard before if you grew up in the church. Church becomes a habit or a routine and you go mainly because some people are there that you like hanging out with.

Let’s also hit the big one. The question of truth is no longer discussed. Christianity has been reduced to an ethical system, as if Jesus just came to show us how to love one another and that was it, which entirely misses the point of the cross. Oh wait. The cross was just so we could go to Heaven when we die, which entirely bypasses any idea of “What am I supposed to do in the meantime?” We act as if the Christian life is just being a good person. You don’t need Christianity for that. The Greek and Roman teachers of the time of Jesus could have taught you how to live a life of virtue. Was Jesus highly advanced in His teaching? Absolutely, but most Romans, Greeks, and Jews were not going around in the first century struggling with an internal sin problem. They knew they weren’t perfect, but they had systems set in place already.

Absent from the church is any notion that Christianity is, you know, true. It’s completely foreign to our thinking to consider that we believe that a man came who was fully God in nature, lived among us and taught the Kingdom of God, died on a cross, and then rose again in a new and glorified body. We somehow forget that this is not just Star Wars happening long long ago in a galaxy far far away. We claim that these are events of history, and yet we have no reason normally for why we say that they are history beyond “The Bible says so” and when we got to why the Bible should be taken seriously, there is nothing. In fact, we seem to treat it like a virtue if we believe for no reason. After all, that is what faith really is.

Well no, that’s not what faith is. Faith is more trust in that which has been shown to be reliable. Believing for the sake of believing is not a virtue. It would not be a virtue to marry someone without having any reason for thinking they’re marriage material. It would not be a virtue to hire someone to watch your kids without any reason to think that they’re competent. It would not be virtue to send your child to a college without any reason to think that it’s a good college for them. Yet here we take an even more important decision, such as our eternal reality and say “But in this case, it is a virtue.”

Believe it or not, the nones don’t want to check their brains at the door and they think they have to. They think that if you are going to be a Christian, it means you have to have a prudish attitude towards sexual matters just because the Bible says so. It means that you have to be someone who opposes science because the Bible says so. It means you are a closed-minded bigot because the Bible says you have to be right. Most of them already believe it makes perfect sense to remove the gender requirement for marriage and since many supports the transgender movement, they really don’t even place much stock in gender anyway. Why should they take you seriously?

And this is where the church has failed. We have not kept up our intellectual standards. We have in fact fallen into the individualism of our culture and we are doing evangelism in the 21st century as if we were living in the 1950’s where all you had to do was go and say what the Bible said and speak about the love of God and give your personal testimony and that was enough. It’s not. I’d say they treat the Bible about as seriously as a newspaper, but most of them would trust a newspaper more. Why should they believe the Bible? Haven’t you read the Wikipedia entry on the Bible?

When we forsook our intellectual convictions, we ultimately turned the church into a self-help therapy session. In fact, listen to a lot of Contemporary Christian music today. A lot of it is therapy. It’s meant to build us up and help us feel better about ourselves instead of inviting us into the grandeur of God. This is just as much our individualism. Now of course the Bible itself says radical things about who we are in Christ, but the focus is the in Christ. The focus is not us. If I want to feel better about myself, I can just go to a therapist today. I don’t need to go to church.

This is also why the Sabbath debate was so concerning to hear. The nones do not care about when we observe the Sabbath. They do not care about it any more than we care about finer points of Muslim doctrine. If we want to look at how salvation is found in Christ, the nones don’t care about that either. They don’t see any need for salvation because hey, what kind of God would judge you so much? Isn’t God love? Most people really have no idea what to do with these people because they have not studied the issues and have no idea how they can reach people on these kinds of issues.

Most of us also are not doing the work. I have written about how we have an escapist mentality with my main example being a woman in a small group who said “I’m saved and my children are saved so let’s just wait for Jesus to come.” Yes. That is entirely what the Great Commission is all about. Get yourself and those you love taken care of and who cares about the rest of the world? Note also the emphasis on getting saved. The emphasis is on God forgiving you. The emphasis is not on spreading the message of the Kingdom of God and proclaiming that Jesus is Lord.

We all realize that if we want to witness to people in another culture, we need to learn the language and customs and such of that culture so we can speak to them. What we have not realized is our neighbor is often that other culture. You have totally different worldviews residing here in America. How are you going to do that evangelism? You might actually have to learn what your neighbor believes and why they do. Believe it or not, you could also bear to learn what you believe and why you do. Have you ever thought about why you believe what you believe? If you haven’t taken the time to think about why you believe what you believe, why should anyone else take such time?

The nones are a sign that we have failed in our intellectual mission in the West. We have abandoned the rich heritage of the church before us and come up with a church that is all about me and does not provide anything the nones think that they need. They have better things to do on a Sunday morning and throughout the week than waste time in their eyes on religion. They are good people in their eyes and need nothing more. If the church wants to reach the nones, the church will have to learn to be the church. We must return to our intellectual heritage. This does not mean we forsake our ethical principles, but we don’t have them floating in air. We back them with why we believe this and make our stand.

The Kingdom of God requires it.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

So You Want To Be A Pastor

What will it take to get you ready for ministry? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Recently, I seem to be running into men who want to be pastors. Now this is certainly a noble ambition to have, but I want to make sure that they are ready. You see, I have met far too many pastors that were “called to preach” (Which is a term I don’t support anyway, but oh well) and I can’t help but wish that when God had “called” them that He had actually given them the ability to preach. These preachers never really grow in their knowledge of God at all and don’t wrestle with the text and don’t read the best material on what they’re speaking about. For these kinds of people, if you have passion, well God will work through your passion and make sure you get it all right.

No. It’s work. It takes work. Here are some steps I recommend.

First off, if you are to be a man of the book, you must be a man of many books. The Bible is a complex book to understand on its own. Don’t be someone who thinks you’re the only one who has received any guidance from the Holy Spirit in reading the text. Remember that many people went before you who engaged with the text and you can read them and save yourself several years where you would have been reinventing the wheel. You should also read your modern brothers and sisters today so that you can know what is being said today and what the big issues of the day people are wrestling with are.

Second, you will need to learn many other skills. If you want to lead a church, you will need good administrative skills from how to handle long and boring meetings to how to balance a budget. You will also need to learn counseling for the many people who come to you with some form of distress. You will need to learn subjects like church history so you can know the history of your belief system. Naturally, you will need to learn apologetics as well and in the growing age of skepticism, I cannot stress enough just how important it is to learn apologetics. If you cannot answer objections to the Christian faith and give a reason why you should believe the claims of Christianity, you will end up producing many apostates and these apostates will tend to reproduce themselves easily in the age of the internet.

Third, you will need to know how to manage your own time. You have to have time for the meetings and such of a church, time for your personal study for your own edification, time for study for the preparation of a sermon, time for your own family life, time for your own downtime so you can avoid burnout, and then be available for sudden 3 A.M. calls when a member of your church has a loved one in the hospital. If you cannot handle this, then you should not go into the field.

Finally, remember the work you do, you do for God. Please watch what you say. I see pastors make major blunders in sermons and it’s quite frankly embarrassing. Try to preach a sermon that can hit as many people in the audience as possible. We tend to have pastors speaking on the lowest level possible. I think this is quite wrong. Don’t aim above their heads, but aim to make them reach up a little bit at least. I have been in more than enough sermons where I’ve been sitting there wondering what I’d do for some fun on my Sunday down time when I got home. Why? It’s because it’s all stuff I’ve heard before. Make sure some of this is good doctrine too. Your church needs to know what we believe and why we believe and what difference it makes. It needs more than just being a good person. Morality is important for a Christian, but it is not the whole deal.

Please make sure if you want to be a pastor that you are ready. You are leading the flock of God and that is not a responsibility to be taken lightly as those of us who teach will be judged more strictly in the end.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Winning The Marriage Battle

Are we taking the proper steps to win the battle for marriage? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I have a friend who is very interested in the marriage debate. Now I watch this subject to, though it is not my main theme, and I have my own opinions on it, but I tend to try not to argue about it. Still, I am quite interested in sexual ethics because like many men, I have an interest in sex. That has only increased since I’ve got married. I see more and more every day why it is that this is so important to a marriage. I also sadly see that many marriages are ending in divorce. Now to be fair, people like Shaunti Feldhahn have made convincing arguments that the divorce rate is not as bad as we think it is, but I think she would agree that it is still bad and it is especially tragic when Christian marriages end in divorce.

Another sad aspect is some of you are hearing me talk about divorce and wondering what this has to do with the modern marriage debate.

Christians have had a time fighting for things that they want if they think that they benefit from them. Sure. We’ll fight to keep Duck Dynasty on the air. We like that show. Sure. We’ll go to support Chick-Fil-A because we like Chick-Fil-A. Now of course, I’m not saying all who participated in these events were Christians and I am not saying all Christians participated in them, but Christians no doubt made up a sizable number of the people who did that. You would think that if Christians claimed they got any benefit out of anything, that it would be marriage, and that marriage would be worth fighting for.

Sadly, it doesn’t look like it is. As soon as Christians win a battle, off they go to do their own thing and don’t carry any of the momentum to the next battle. We have our chicken sandwich and we have our TV show. Why should we trouble ourselves more? Dare I say it, but the reason the marriage debate has gone downhill on the Christian side in our time is because the Christians have not been honoring marriage like they should.

To do this, we must start with what most of us already agree with the culture on. Sex is awesome. Let’s start there.

Sex is indeed awesome, but frankly, the Christian church does not do a good job of talking about it. To this day, I remember being at a Silver Ring Thing service at a church and the associate pastor got up to talk to the teenagers there about waiting until marriage for sex. Good point. I agree. From there on, the pastor went on to talk about the topic and I was listening as a young college man.

And I was bored.

Pastor. If you are talking about sex, and a college guy is in the audience and getting bored, you are doing something wrong. I could just as easily say if anyone is getting bored, you are doing something wrong.

Here’s in fact what was said. It was said that if you have sex before marriage, you will be doing it for selfish reasons. I can agree with this. In fact, for even sex within marriage, I think we often have mixed motives. There is usually some self-interest involved with all that we do. I’d like to think that my motives are always pure when I do something nice for my wife, but I’d be lying if I said that they were. The problem was the pastor then gave us reasons to not have sex before marriage, such as getting an STD, an unplanned pregnancy, or the shame one might have on a future wedding night.

Sorry, but those sound like selfish reasons also.

There was hardly anything said about the joys of sex in marriage. Lip service was paid to it. That was all.

Excuse me, but I think the joy of sex deserves more than a quick blurb of lip service.

One would especially think the men among us would be wanting to celebrate this just as much. Of course, we all know that it takes two to tango, so I would advise women to keep in mind that if you want your husband to celebrate your marriage, it’s good to make sure that he knows that you are celebrating him. Please a man here and chances are you will find he is bending over backwards more often than not to make you happy. Men are really very easy to please.

Unfortunately, the world looks at what they see in movies and TV and says “It looks like this way of sex is a lot more fun.” On the face of it, one can understand it. You have variety and you don’t have to rely on one person forever and you can have whole new experiences. Marriage often is depicted in negative terms and from that point on, you’re stuck with just one person for life so you’d better make the most of it and if that person doesn’t want to do anything with you, you’re sunk.

If we are going to show the reality, we will have to show that sex in marriage is the greatest path to joy in reality.

For starters, we need more sermons in churches on sex. Once a year is not cutting it because the world is getting its message out there every day and it’s accepted as the norm. Even in the church, you can find people who are living together before marriage and engaging in pre-marital sex and it’s seen as acceptable. They’ve fully received the message of the world. What we want to show is that a sexual relationship built on a promise of mutual trust and continuously learning about how to love one person is far better than anything else. It is better to dive into the ocean of one instead of the many shallow pools of many. It is better to be in a relationship where trust is the foundation and there is already acceptance rather than earning it.

For instance, too often in cohabitation, it can be a test for marriage. Each person thinks they have to measure up in order to get a lifelong commitment. Our old adage is that you wouldn’t buy a car without taking it for a test drive. That sounds reasonable. It does until you ask one question.

Which person is the driver and which person is the car?

You see, if you take a car for a spin and it doesn’t please you enough, you take it back to the lot. The car does not have hurt feelings. The car does not feel unworthy. The car doesn’t care one way or another. A person is not like that. This is especially so with women who are really the ones making themselves the most vulnerable. They are the ones who are the most emotionally connected on average to the sex act.

Do you really think it’s proper to treat a person like a car? If you enter the sexual relationship that nervous thinking you’re being tested, you really aren’t going to be doing your best. In fact, most couples would tell you that even if you do wait, which you should, your first time is not going to be the best time you’ve ever had. Why should it be? It should be a memorable and special time, but it won’t be the best. You’re just learning. You’re just now starting to get used to how each other’s bodies work and just starting to explore them for the first time. Things can be good, but you should expect that they will get better.

And with trust, you know there is no pressure. This person is not going to reject you. Honor marriage right and you’ll know they won’t because they have a covenant. When I meet couples who are struggling in their marriage, I tend to talk to the guys because it’s much easier for me to counsel a fellow man. I always point them to the covenant. You made a lifelong promise to that woman when you married her. You are to honor it.

Do you get one person? Yes. That is a person you know will be there. You don’t have to go to sleep wondering if the person will still be there when you wake up. You don’t have to be worried about the sexual history of that person. It is someone you know. Love builds up sex and sex builds up love. It is a beautiful circle and it extends in marriage. Your marriage will build up your sex life if you do it right and if you do your sex life right, it will build up your marriage. This is a circle where you two keep blessing and celebrating one another and things get better and better.

And then, marriage is the ultimate place for when children come along. Should you have a child, the child is in an environment built on love where there is a mother and a father waiting. It does not have to be a disaster if a woman gets pregnant. It can instead be something to celebrate. The love you two share can then be passed on so the child can grow up in love. While the love you and your spouse have is sexual, you can be sure that if that love is consistently being shared, that love will pour out and reach beyond itself. Ladies. For the most part, if you want to fill up your husband’s love tank, there is never a return receipt on sex. Your husband will be overflowing if you are consistent. Remember that it is said that just like pizza, bad sex is good sex. You won’t go wrong affirming a man like this.

Why does this matter? Because the ultimate way to win the marriage battle is for us to celebrate our marriages ourselves. The world should be looking at the Christian church with envy wondering how it is we have such good sex lives. It should not be something we’re hesitant to talk about. Of course, some matters should be private, but that you have joy in your marriage should not be private. That should be something worth sharing and let the rest of the world draw its own conclusions about why the two of you are so happy.

Also, this is not to say sex is the only important part of marriage. It certainly is not, but it is an important part and one the Bible speaks about often, which means we should speak about it often as well. Those wanting good sex should also be doing as much as they can good in a marriage and again, like the circle, good sex will help make that easier. When we find that marriage is something worth honoring for ourselves, we’ll give the rest of the world reason to honor it as well.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

What Good Are Our Churches?

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. I’ve been following closely the debate concerning my father-in-law, Mike Licona, and Norman Geisler. As I checked Mike’s facebook today, he wrote about being in South Africa and how after he gave a talk at a church on “Who Did Jesus Think He Was?” 37 came forward wanting to start an apologetics group.

Average church in America?

“Apologetics? Do I need to apologize for being a Christian?”

A lot of time and money is spent building new churches for people to go to. Many new churches can sadly start over reasons such as not being able to decide what color the carpet should have been in the old church. Of course, there are some that reach a specific group which is highly understandable, such as Korean churches. Many of us don’t speak Korean and we should be thankful for those who do starting churches provided they’re in line with orthodoxy.

But as I thought about that church in South Africa, I think about what’s going on in America I thought “Do we really need more churches?”

I just went to Google maps and had no trouble finding a church within a mile of where I live. If I expand the search, I can find many more churches very easily. Does anyone really think the problem that we have in America is that we just lack churches for people to go to?

Seriously. How many churches do you pass by on your average commute to and from the workplace? How many times are you saying “I really wish there was a church here in our area.”? Of course, what you could be saying is “I wish there was a good church in my area.” It’s like looking in the fridge and saying “There’s nothing to eat.” There usually is, but usually what you see in the fridge is not providing the desire that you have.

Could it be that the real problem is that we do not use the churches that we have? Too often in churches, we have pastors who are simply ignorant of the Bible and then produce a group of people who are also ignorant of the Bible. These churches are prey for groups like the Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, or the New Atheists.

Study is a dirty word to the average person today. I was tempted to say the average layman, but even pastors can often pride themselves on their ignorance. They may not know what they’re talking about, but by golly, they have passion and they can count on the Holy Spirit to take that passion and override their ignorance.

How many people really think the Holy Spirit honors having to do the work for someone because they didn’t want to take the time to do it for themselves?

Something that we need to learn in the church is this. No matter how passionate you feel about a belief, that does not make that belief right. Of course, you could be entirely right, but do not think you are right just because you have a lot of passion.

I just got done recently reading Tim LaHaye’s “Rapture Under Attack” where he says that the reason the pre-trib position is spreading and growing is because it is just the teaching of the Bible and the Holy Spirit is blessing it!

Okay. Sure. That’s a possibility.

However, I also suspect I could read a post-trib author who would say “While this view has not been as popular, we do see it on the rise today because the Holy Spirit is showing people that it is in the Scriptures and giving it His blessing.”

Anyone can claim the Holy Spirit for their belief system. Anyone can say the success of the teaching spreading is because of the Holy Spirit. They could in turn say the reason a true teaching is not spreading is because of the hardness of the hearts of men. Whichever way you go, you can come up with a reason why a teaching is spreading or not spreading.

What needs to be done by everyone on every side of every debate is to focus on the reasons for why your view is true whether it is spreading or not. Let us keep in mind Mormonism has been on the rise throughout the world now and the Mormons would point to their message being true as the reason for that spread. They would say the Holy Spirit is confirming it by the burning in the bosom.

I do not doubt Mormonism is spreading. I do not doubt that Mormons feel something very strongly. I do doubt that it is the Holy Spirit. I am not a believer in Mormonism simply because I do not think the facts support Mormonism.

Facts. You know, maybe that’s what we need to get back to. Maybe we need to get to truth. It seems too often in our churches we are trying to get people to a feeling rather than to a mindset. We want people to feel Christianity is true. We don’t want them to think about why it is. We want people to feel the love of God. We don’t want them to think about what the love of God means. (That is no simple doctrine!) We want people to feel good about themselves. We don’t want them to think about what it means that they carry the image of God and what it means when they are told that they are sinners.

Of course, I am not against feelings, but feelings are to be in response to something. We have our beliefs based on our feelings when our feelings are based on our beliefs. If one is given good reasons for believing Jesus rose from the dead and one realizes they can understand and articulate those reasons and feel great as a result, praise God! If they have the reasons and can articulate it and are just not a feely type and don’t feel what the first person feels, praise God just as much!

And wouldn’t it be great to have churches doing that more than just being support groups? Now again, don’t misunderstand. Churches do need to be providing support. Members do need to be caring for one another. However, the church is not meant to be your local branch of Weight Watchers or Alcoholics Anonymous. I have no problem with churches letting such groups use their buildings. That’s fine. The church is meant to be more however. The church can help you diet. The church can help you maintain sobriety. The church is meant to do more. The church alone is the only organization that can teach forgiveness of sins through the God-man Jesus Christ.

When the church becomes just a social club, we have lost the point of it. It has become all about us instead of being all about God. What we need is the foundation of good theology rooted in Scripture and Christian thought throughout the ages and then from that foundation we can draw support for one another.

Let us also remember worship is not meant to be something just to make us feel good about ourselves. I really wish the church would return more to the classic hymns of the past. When I was growing up, I remember they sounded slow and boring, but now that I am older, I realize the rich depth that is within those songs that I have missed.

There are some songs sung in churches today that I will sit down during. I think some are outright wrong. Many are just shallow. A good worship service is seen as one where we leave feeling good, but we are not the ones who are to judge if a worship service is good. The service is not for us. It is for God. We often forget that we are worshiping Him. We are not putting on a concert.

The church has all that it needs today to be a powerful force. In America, we should be a country having a massive influence on the world scene with Christian witness. What do we have? We have a media that celebrates sex outside of marriage, abortion as the law of the land, homosexual advocates pushing for marriage, the idea that we need to be tolerant of Islam, Joyce Meyer and Joel O’Steen being seen as great Christian literature, political correctness being a reigning ideology, a church afraid to “offend” anyone, and the greatest threat to a church often seen as being when a new Harry Potter book comes out. (Which by the way, I thoroughly love the series for all concerned)

We have the most access. The internet can be found in the majority of homes today and while there’s a lot of junk on it, there’s also a lot of good stuff for those who will take the time to look. We have a huge number of ministries here with numerous educational resources. We have television and radio shows dedicated to the spread of the gospel. We have libraries and bookstores where people can find books to study. We also have enough wealth here to finance several ministries. We should be on the forefront in evangelism and Christian witness.

We are not.

And the solution is not to build more churches.

The solution is to use the churches we have built by filling them with Christians who know the Scriptures and can teach them accurately. We need songs that will edify and enrich our theological lives. We need to be aware with the media of our age and how to use it and how to interact with it. We need to be involved in government activities instead of running from them using our power as Christians to limit abortion, same-sex marriage, and other such practices. We need to be educating our youth and teaching them how to think. We need to be again establishing real Universities and Seminaries where Christian thinking can be spread.

Can we do it? Well we can. There is no doubt about that. We have the means to do so. It is not a question of can. It is a question of will. Will we do so?

I pray we will, for if we do not, it might not just be the case that in America, the next generation does not know of Christianity. It could be that there might not even be a next generation due to an America that fell away from its heritage in faith and lost its identity altogether. There might not be a nation to pass on to our descendants.

The choice is yours and mine where we go from here.