Letters to the next President – Andy Stanley
In a previous article I lauded Rick Warren’s political posture, which to me, is most preferable to that of the Christian Right or the Emergent Christian Left. Blame my centrist leanings, wanting the best of both sides and rejecting their faults, but there must be a way for the church to speak for God without descending into the arena and feeding our opponents to the lions. If you wonder what all this has to do with the price of fish, fish being the title of this post, well, i have just happened upon one other laudable example of Christian leadership’s participation in the political process, this time involving Andy Stanley .
Andy Stanley pastors the giga Northpoint church in Atlanta, Georgia. Andy and his crowd have always been innovative but their latest endeavour is spot on. Andy has just preached a series on leadership entitled Letters to the Next President, which we shall be examining forthwith. Alongside the messages which, America being America, the candidates will no doubt watch or be briefed about, is a website www.letterstothenextpresident.com where anyone can log on and write their own letters to the next president.
It’s a thoroughly non partisan initiative enabling every Tom, Dick and ‘Harriet’ to express their heart to the next President irrespective of his political stripe, or theirs for that matter. Andy is adopting the biblical format of religious leaders speaking words of counsel to political leaders and he is also allowing the people to have their say. Not only can you write, you can also read what others are writing.
Here is a sampling of the letters: Read more
Rick Warren, McCain and Obama – the candidates and the pastor
One of the interesting outcomes of the McCain / Obama ‘debate’ is the new respect Rick Warren has gained. His friends have rejoiced. Those who previously looked at him askance sportingly admit that he did rather well, and grudgingly concede that he might indeed turn out to be the right kind of evangelical voice in an American political life soured by the Christian right and assiduously courted by worrisome emergent strains.
I for one salute his courage, if it had turned out badly, his critics would have had a field day. His approach is certainly preferable to that of the 70 odd Christian leaders who called for a vote for McCain in a desperate bid to have a ‘Christian’ president. As it is to the calls of the other group seeking to get Obama elected. Surely it must be an abuse of ecclesiastical authority that influence gained in the kingdom be employed for partisan politicking. Politics and religion have always made strange bedfellows, as I commented in a previous post.
What we need Read more
And God invented laughter
Friends, THIS is funny.
The Todd Bentley saga – my two penny worth
This article dates back to August 2008. Pease click here for my last article on Todd Bentley: The rape of the church – the Todd Bentley quagmire
I guess I could add my two penny worth to the Todd Bentley saga, every other person and their dog having had a say. I blogged on this yesterday, in french, but in my meditations and prayer today, i came to a realisation.
As far as I can remember I have never prayed for Todd Bentley.
As a matter of fact, how many of us did? And I am not talking about his detractors, i mean those who, without necessarily being doctrinal bedfellows or enamoured of his style, believed that God truly was moving in Lakeland. Many talked about it, marveled at the healings, some took the trip there, even from Europe, but how many thought about the dangers facing anyone with that degree of exposure to adulation, to criticism and to the media? How many, in so doing, prayed?
A significant amount of venom has been heaped on Todd Bentley over the past few months. I wonder what kind of spiritual impact or pressure that might have on a person. Many have had to deal with confusion, disorientation and depression as a result of word curses. And there is no curse as potent as that of a Christian convinced of being in the right and of divine approval in his crusade against ‘error’. It justifies hatred and verbal injury. We too easily ally with the devil to bring down a brother. There are certainly spiritual dynamics at play that we must not be too quick to ignore.
Yet is any of this reason enough? I believe not. It is the weakness in us that brings us down, it is the unresolved issues in Todd Bentley’s life that brought him to this point and he alone bears the responsibility for those. Christ said the prince of this world comes but he has nothing in me. It is what the devil finds in us that engages him and yields to him. And sadly he finds much in ministers in these times. Immorality has gangrened our pulpits and divorce with no explanations given is all the rage; and the very same without missing a beat continue to preach a righteous Saviour to a bemused flock. This must change.
Yet as i prayed this morning and meditated, i did begin to wonder if things might have turned out differently had the church at large mounted a prayer watch, (at least the section of the church that truly felt that Todd Bentley was an instrument of God to trigger a move of God in Lakeland), and had we covered his ‘humanity’ in prayer rather than marveling at his ‘spirituality’ ?
Should the gospel make you happy?
I responded to this question on aother blog and thought to share my response :
“Absolutely, more than happiness, delight, tremendous unquenchable joy. The whole Person of God, of Christ, redemption, being reconciled to the only, amazing, living God. the whole thing is thrilling beyond imagining when it truly sinks in. We, i believe still have many doors of revelation to have opened to us that we may plunge deeply into the heart of God, and grasp the fact that these things are not just nice, they are true, this is reality.
And when I commune with Him in prayer, and I realise that this is He, the Creator and Sustainer of all, and I have met Him, I am in relationship with Him, it terrifies me as much as it makes me cry as much as it fills me with uproarious laughter and unending joy. And the mere thought of Jesus causes tears of gratitude to well up in my eyes, tears of joy, joy unspeakable and full of glory.
Does the gospel make you happy? Decidedly yes.”
Billy Graham – a consistent witness
The TED (Technology, Education, Design) talks furnish a steady offering of insightful, thoughtful, sometimes humorous, often liberal perspectives on life, technology, the present and future and how they all tie together. True, much of it will not square soundly with a biblical perspective on life, but there are babies there that can, and must be salvaged from the bathwater. Much to my joy and surprise i found a TED talk by the Reverend Billy Graham. What a change it makes to the current emergent, evangelical liberal, avoid mentioning Jesus, make everybody happy waffle so prevalent in some post-modern ‘christian’ circles today.
No Bible thumping, loud histrionics of the Pentecostal kind either, just a lot of grace, a lot of love, and a clear articulation of the human need for God, and the revelation of Him that is found in Christ Jesus. A man who before such an audience does not succumb to the contemporary fashion of fuzzing truth to to the point of making it unrecognisable is a giant who must be lauded. And in an era where preachers are continually being caught, do forgive the crudeness, with their pants down, still more kudos to one believes it and lives it.
Enjoy this video, and pray for the next generation of Billy Grahams.
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