This morning I had the opportunity to go with a friend of mine from church to downtown Birmingham to minister to some homeless guys.  My friend has a ministry where he meets a group of guys downtown on Sunday mornings early in order to feed, encourage, and pray for them.  I had heard stories from him about the cool things that God is doing through this ministry so I decided to come check it out.

To be honest, I was kind of worried about going.  This was definitely a big step out of my comfort zone of ministering to students through small groups and preaching the Word.  The nervousness gave way to comfort and enjoyment when I arrived downtown.  The hospitality and openness of these guys to share their hearts, stories, and lives with me really blew me away.

I was struck with sorrow after hearing the stories of the journey which led these men to the streets. These were people who had been abandoned by the family and friends which cared about them prior to their struggles financially or with some form of addiction that led them to the streets.  They had been abandoned by the ones they loved and some of them had lived driven by a controlling addiction which took from them everything that they had.  These were genuinely broken people in desperate need of the love and gospel of Jesus Christ.

It was refreshing to minister to broken people who are so appreciative of your willingness to spend some time with them to hear their stories.  I feel like if Jesus lived in Birmingham He would be found not in the megachurch pulpit but sitting on the edge of the fountain in Five Points South loving on the broken.  My prayer is that God would break my heart and the hearts of His church to get out of our comfort zones and love the broken.

I had a few minutes of time to kill today at a local bookstore and wanted to pick up a book that I could read that I would not be tempted to buy.  I ended up selecting Your Best Life Now by Joel Osteen.  I was able in the few minutes I had to get through his first of seven steps for achieving the best life you could imagine.  Step number one is entitled: Enlarge Your Vision. 

I know that this book was not intended to be a theological work but when someone constantly refers to “God” there is clearly some ideas about the characteristics of this being that will in turn be communicated.  The “God” that Osteen describes I am assuming is intended to be the God of the Holy Bible considering the authors position as a pastor of a large Christian church.  I was not entirely sure that this was true, however, since Osteen found it convenient to not cite the chapter and verse of scripture when he quoted “God’s words.”  This is scary because the Bible could be used to justify many things when context is not an issue or concern. 

The picture of God that was gathered in the first step for achieving Your Best Life Now is a picture of God that is very different than the picture that the Bible presents when taken in context.  God was presented as someone who is waiting to bless you in whatever your dream is.  God is an ally that we can claim for success financially, physically, or emotionally.  Joel went on to recount stories of his personal experiences of being in a packed parking lot at a mall and claiming that God would provide him a parking spot on the front row and seeing it come to pass.  He went on to describe many other blessings and benefits that he has received due to having “the favor of God.”  Osteen’s God is not just a genie through which all blessings flow at the whim and imagination of one who holds His favor, but He is also a just God.  This justice is not justice that is presented in a biblical theology where God has a right to judge actions and motives based on His standards of right and wrong.  Osteen’s God’s justice is more like a big brother God who will watch the back of the favored ones and judge those who hurt them or get in their way.  This God should not be a God with a capital G like the God of the Bible, but rather should be a god with a little g since this is a deity created by the desires of man rather than coming from the revelation of the scripture of who God is and what He is like.  

Osteen goes on to address the topic of faith.  Faith in the first step to a better life is defined as faith in oneself and your ability to improve or succeed.  Faith is based not in the work of Jesus Christ, who somehow does not get noted at all for the first 50 pages of the pastor’s book, in His death, burial, and resurrection but rather in the work of imagining the possibilities of your future potential.  This faith is not a faith of scripture.  It is a faith of positive thoughts in positive dreams of a life empowered by a genie god who exists for your personal fulfillment.

The most scary thing to me about this theology that comes out not only in Osteen’s bestselling books but also in his frequent television broadcasts is that people are being sold a lie.  They are being convinced that God exists for them and them alone.  The God of scripture is a glorious and incomprehensible God who has the power to create, judge, and to do as He pleases.  All of creation is subject to Him not the other way around as prosperity preachers like Osteen would lead you to believe.  God is the one who is to be worshiped, glorified, and made much of.  It is not the other way around.  Let us not buy into smooth talk, perfect smiles, and bestselling books who present a god made in the image of and to fulfill the delights of men.

I finally got a chance to read Zach Hunter’s book Be the Change: Your Guide to Freeing Slaves and Changing the World. This came highly recommended from a youth pastor friend of mine who was amazed by Zach Hunter after hearing him speak at a youth pastor conference.

There are several things that struck me throughout this book. First, the passion and the platform that God has blessed this student who is writing books about the unpopular topic of calling Christians to social justice and speaking all of the country at the age of 15. Secondly, I think that Zach communicates with a passion that is evident to students and calling them to a vision that God can use them where they are to impact the world for His glory.

Zach had a very interesting statement with regard to the question of preaching a “social gospel” and focusing on fulfilling the needs of others versus preaching the gospel to others. He said:

“Compassion is not some alternate gospel. Compassion is the overflow of the gospel – the Good News of Christ’s sacrifice. Compassion says that we have embraced the relationship with God through Christ. It’s not that we have to earn our salvation by doing good things, but compassion and service flow out of us because we are filled with God’s love. If we don’t take care of orphans and widows, if we don’t care for the poor and hurting, how can we say we belong to Jesus?”

This book is a call for students to embrace a holistic gospel that preaches the gospel and does not end with preaching but is followed up with action. Action to become the voice of the voiceless and to embrace the least of these in Jesus’ name.

This book was such an encouragement and a challenge to me personally to continue to embrace big dreams for God and His glory and to be willing to reach out to the least of these. 

I have been personally studying and focusing on being intentional to build spiritual disciplines into my life and schedule.  One of the books that I am reading on this topic is Richard Foster’s A Celebration of Discipline. Foster had a great statement on the chapter regarding meditation that I think is an accurate commentary on American Christianity.  He writes:

“The history of religion is the story of an almost desperate scramble to have a king, a mediator, a priest, a pastor, a go-between. In this way we do not need to go to God ourselves.  Such an approach saves us from the need to change, for to be in the presence of God is to change. We do not need to observe Western culture very closely to realize that we are captivated by the religion of the mediator.”

Foster is correct in suggesting that it is the tendency in the American church to rely on the pastor or spiritual leader as the mediator between God and the people of God.  This means that we have a bunch of Christians walking around waiting to be fed not by the power of the Holy Spirit through the Word of God but through the words of a pastor.  This is building a church that is full of spiritual infants who wait for the food of the Word on Sundays and then starve the rest of the week.  We need to be a group of Christians who seek God through His Word daily through spiritual disciplines.  God, make us a people desperate to seek You and to be changed by You!

If you are a person who frequents Christian bookstores like myself, you may have noticed a new sign beside some specific titles in LifeWay Christian Stores.  This new sign reads as follows:

“READ WITH DISCERNMENT. This book may contain thoughts, ideas, or concepts that could be considered inconsistent with historical evangelical theology. Therefore, we encourage you to read it with extra discernment. For important background information and additional insight related to this book, please review the Author Briefing and related content at www.lifewaystores.com/readwithdiscernment “

This sign encourages Christian readers to read with their eyes open and through the lens of discerning truth for themselves.  This is a very wise statement and should, in my opinion, be handed out to everyone who purchases any book besides the Word of God from a Christian bookstore.  

These signs were, however, not placed next to all the books in the store but rather were placed strategically next to books by authors who are considered part of the Emergent Church including Donald Miller, Rob Bell, and Brian McLaren.  This is very interesting considering the many other books that also twist theology and minimize the Gospel.  I am not Emergent and do not embrace the idea of reforming the message of the Gospel, but I do think that LifeWay is going in a good direction by warning people to not be blind sheep that fall into the pit of bad theology.