I have had a fast and furious past few weeks. From a nice extended weekend at the lake to a week with 200 children at Children’s Camp to this week which has been full of meetings, it seems as if it never slows down! That being said, I love so much being a pastor that even though my schedule is full, I couldn’t be happier! Tracy and I were talking the other day about how unique it is that each of us is getting to fulfill our dreams for our lives. She is a stay at home mom and I’m a lead Pastor at an amazing church which is being used by God to take the gospel to the world. What a blessing!

Coming up this week, however, is a couple of very exciting events. We start our new sermon series this week entitled “Oasis”. Just as an oasis appears in the midst of vast desert, so to Christ appears out of the midst of our depravity and offers us hope in a hopeless world. I’m excited about the new series. On top of the exciting series, the good folks who design our stage for each series have built a 10 foot waterfall which looks incredible! I’ll try and post pictures in the upcoming weeks once the stage design is complete.

Beyond that we start VBS next week. Last year we had over 200 children and this year we are praying for 400! We’ll see how God blesses our prayers and how God uses our VBS to draw children to Himself.

Finally, below is a picture a friend took of my wife and girls as we played with fireworks last week at the lake. I thought it was particularly good so I thought I would post it.

The other day I posted a good example of theology gone horribly wrong. Today, though, I want to put up a video that is wonderfully right. This is good stuff. Louie Giglio is one of my favorite preachers in American right now. He is a wonderful communicator who does a phenomenal job of making much of God and pointing people to Christ. As an aside note, it was announced yesterday that he and Worship leader Chris Tomlin are going to plant a church together in the Atlanta area. Talk about a dynamite tandem!

Anyway, you need to watch this short clip from a Giglio message about God’s wonderful work in creation. A couple of folks from Frederick pointed me in this direction and I’m really glad that they did.

Also known as bad theology captured on tape. If you’ve ever wanted to see a good example of bad theology, this from a recent meeting in Lakeland, FL is a perfect example of theology run amok.

HT: MMI

We are in the middle of our new series entitled “life: living as the body”. This week we’ll be preaching on Romans 12 and I will be preaching on the importance of worshiping together. As part of my message I have been grappling with a working definition of worship. I’d love to have input from those of you who attend Frederick and those of you who do not. I’ll insert my working definition below and you feel free to critique it and offer your definitions as well.

“Worship is a sacrificial expression of our love for, and dedication to, God which seeks to reflect His glory and proclaim His truth.”

Tom Ascol emailed me the other day with the information regarding this year’s Founders Conference lineup. I’ll have to be honest that I’m very impressed. Whether you are Reformed or not, this conference can be one that you would enjoy.

The lineup of speakers includes men like Voddie Baucham, Don Whitney, Tom Nettles and Ed Stetzer. That has got to be one of the more eclectic lineups found in SBC life today.

You may want to run over and take a look at the conference website. You can do so by clicking here.

**DISCLAIMER** This is an occasional series in which I offer some heartfelt cries to pastors in regards to issues that I see that are crippling the work of the gospel and the effectiveness of the church. These are areas that are particularly close to my heart. These articles are not intended to be academic treatises, but rather a reflection of current concerns that I am dealing with.

I couldn’t sleep last night. It was a difficult night of tossing and turning until almost 3am before I finally drifted off to sleep. I occasionally have nights like this, and when I do I try to read. As a general rule I try to read a few newspapers each day (Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times and the St. Joseph News-Press) to make sure that I am current with the climate of our culture. I grabbed my laptop, turned it on and turned to the sites for these papers. As I was perusing the Post website I noticed an article by Melissa Etheridge, the rock star, who has become even more well known for her lesbian lifestyle and activism for homosexual couples to have the right to adopt. I read the article that she wrote about her  “Awakening at Easter” and my heart broke. In the article Etheridge details a typical midwestern upbringing in which she attended church with her parents only about 45 minutes from where I live here in St. Joseph. Unfortunately, however, as she spoke about their times at church during the Easter holiday she doesn’t speak of a pastor who clarified the risen Savior and the purpose of His resurrection instead, in her own words, what she heard was:

“Jesus was crucified on the cross and put into the tomb and rose from the dead three days later, now go find some eggs that a bunny left in the yard.”

I sat back, after I read her quote, and I struggled with frustration and sorrow. To think that her experience in celebration of the risen Savior was devalued to some lesson about Jesus and the Easter bunny is truly disheartening. To be honest, it could certainly be true that as a young child she simply missed the point, but unfortunately I would not be surprised if this depiction were accurate, understanding the state of the modern church.

It is vital that we pastors lead churches that communicate in modern, effective ways the truth of the Gospel. I believe in the importance of contextualization and the need for understandable application.  If, however, in an effort to make the message understandable we somehow lose the message itself than we have nothing of value to offer those who are listening.

It may be encouraging and convenient to encourage our people with thoughts that they should believe in themselves and that they should know that God wants them to triumph. It certainly may be convenient, but the problem is that it is not biblical. Instead of teaching our people that convenient message, we should teach our people to believe in God, rather than themselves, and the fact that He can triumph for us, rather than our ability to triumph for Him. Instead of getting people to our churches with a good time and throwing Jesus at them in some fashion, Jesus must become the center of all that we do. Our hope for our culture is not a large number of people who believe in the power of what they can do but rather a group of people who are broken by what they cannot do and are dependent upon God for what He can do.

It is frustrating to me to hear Etheridge’s personal testimony of the unfaithfulness of her church. It is even more frustrating when I turn on my own tv and see the pastors who are misleading their own people just as successfully by teaching them that God wants them to prosper and to be happy and that God would never allow them to suffer. It is a ridiculous perversion of the gospel. The kind of theology that exalts those values will cause our people to scratch their head in wonder when they see that God can’t even maintain His own standard with His Son, whom scripture tells us was “slain before the foundation of the earth.” So much for prosperity, comfort and ease I guess?

No, we do not need to make our people comfortable, happy and thankful for how easy their faith is. We must challenge them, encourage them and attack every thought that would exalt man over God. So, in this short plea, Pastor please hear me beg you not to lose the gospel! Contextualize the message, make ready the application and by all means prepare to communicate His word creatively, but please, please don’t lose the gospel. The lives of your people depend on it.

What an amazing Easter service (or couple of services as it were)! Our music is always dynamic but Chad and the Worship Team really outdid themselves this weekend. The choir special was particularly powerful. I also really enjoyed having baptism in the 2nd service. It was special, I thought, to see a visual reminder of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus on the day in which we celebrate His resurrection! Although worship is generally one of my favorite things to be a part of, it seemed so much more vivid this morning, to me at least, as we worshipped together and thought intentionally of the resurrection and the life that was purchased for us on the cross.

The second service was also a bit of a challenge. It really seemed like spiritual warfare was at work when our cameras quit working halfway through the message and then my voice went out and I got a killer headache partway through the service. The message of forgiveness that can be found at the foot of the cross seemed to be one which Satan wanted silenced, but thankfully we serve a risen Savior who has conquered Satan and sin!

It was very exciting to see all the people that were with us today. Both services were almost completely full and, in what I think is an incredible blessing, we surpassed 1,000 in attendance for the first time ever at Frederick Boulevard! Wow! I can’t tell you how excited I am as I watch what God is doing among our church. It is a lot fun to be a part of this. It’s also humbling, to be honest with you, to think about God’s sovereignty as He blesses us in spite of our shortcomings. God grace is so good.

After the service the Fries family took off for the metropolis of DeKalb, MO (pop. 250) and enjoyed hanging out with Tracy’s family for the day. It was nice to take an afternoon off and relax with family this afternoon. We took a picture of my girls that I thought was very good. I posted it below.

All in all it has been a good Easter. What a privilege we have to worship the resurrection of our Savior! I hope your day was blessed as well.