I made a decision a few years ago to sit out of a number of discussions, not because I didn’t have an opinion, and not even because these issues weren’t worth discussing, but simply because being outspoken in certain discussions would probably keep me from being able to effectively participate in more important ones.

For example, Recently I was in a public dialogue with a popular Islamic imam. I really struggled with wanting to launch an all-out assault on Islam’s past and the true nature of the Koran. Who knows… I may have raised some great points that he could not have answered, or he may have given a very convincing rebuttal. But what kept running through my mind is that reaching Muslims would not start with lambasting them but befriending them, and befriending them starts with listening to them.

That means letting them speak on their own terms. If they want to affirm peace and the freedom of religion, I should let that stand. Regardless, it’s true for them at the moment and what they want to affirm. Perhaps someone else could show that this is inconsistent with the Koran and Islam’s past history, but in that moment that is irrelevant. The relationship I am entering is not with Islam’s past but with the individual Muslim. He wants to be peaceable; he wants to be seen as peaceable. I’ll accept that because all relationships begin with trust.

So what I chose to do that evening, and what I want always to do, is enter into a conversation where I can try to show them that Jesus is the only able Savior. They may be deluded as to their past history and the true nature of Islam, or perhaps they understand it much better than I do. Either way, the best posture, I believe, is listening, humility, trust and then a clear presentation of the Gospel.

This I know for sure. People will only listen to you when they feel like you have listened to them. Listening to them means understanding them on their own terms.

Yesterday I saw a prime example of what it means to be the church. Not attend the church. Not have a name on a roll at the church. Not drive by the church on the way to the golf course and yell at the crazy guys in orange vests who are trying to get you to pull into the church. I saw the Church in action.

If you were a part of our services this weekend, you know that Pastor J.D. continued in our “This is What the Heart Looks Like” series. Yesterday was commandment #7, “Thou Shalt Have Great Sex.” Or “Thou Shalt Not Wear Ankle Length Panties.” Or “Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery.” (really, any of the above could apply) You can catch that message here if you missed it.

It was a message that called for immediate application, and after the service I spoke with and prayed for a young lady who told me, “It’s time. I’ve been living with my boyfriend, this relationship is going nowhere, and it’s not what God wants for me. What do I do?”

There are plenty of next steps: Pray for her. Encourage her to have the conversation with him. Get in a small group so people can walk with her through this. Meet with one of our staff counselors.

But the practical reality of the conversation was, This girl has gotta have someplace to go.

And so I turned to my favorite social media outlet, The Twitter. Now normally, The Twitter is relatively quiet on Sunday afternoon. Many of our pastoral staff is in a coma on the couch. Most of you are doing something redeeming with your time, like eating lunch with friends or playing in the back yard with your kids or screaming at cars that are going really fast in circles around a track. And so Sunday afternoon is generally not the best time to put out a request like this on The Twitter:

After svc 2day, met girl who wants to move out from b’friend & do life God’s way. NEED: free/temp housing. Got ideas, church?

And oh boy, did you have ideas. By this morning, I’ve had a half-dozen offers of a free room, a free apartment, or an available couch. I have people who want to meet with this girl, befriend her, and help her get through this emotionally wrecking time. And as the week goes on, I have no doubt that the action of the church will strengthen the direction of the Spirit in this young lady’s life.

As a church, we must understand that it’s one thing to talk about life change. It’s quite a different change to provide environments and resources to help people make life change happen. I’m thankful for my church. I’m thankful for generous people that I’ve seen spring to action. And most of all, I’m thankful that Jesus changed one more life yesterday, and I got to watch it happen.

By the way, there will be more conversations like this one. If you can host or house someone else as situations like this come up, email me. I’m keepin’ a list!

By the way, Summit, we have a lot to thank God for. We are filled up at just about every campus, including a 2-week old N Raleigh campus running full in about 2 services. Special thanks to Daniel Simmons, campus pastor, and Matt Papa, worship leader, for leading us through these 1st explosive 2 weeks! Summiteers, stop and thank God for how He is blessing and using us in Raleigh-Durham!

The news clip:

The music video:

I don’t usually like to be around those kind of people. It’s not that I don’t believe in robust dialogue about truth in ministry. And it’s not that I think theologically-sloppy ministry is OK. It’s just that I recognize…

• The things I do see clearly in ministry are the result of a genuine work of grace God has done in my heart.  That recognition should not lead to judgmentalism, but to grace, patience with others, and a general spirit of acceptance.
• There was a time when I was not passionate about the things I am most passionate about now. That doesn’t mean there was nothing praiseworthy in my ministry then. I’m also grateful that God did not discard me as quickly as these ’small applauders’ seem ready to discard the ministries of others.
• I also realize I probably don’t have ministry figured out now nearly as well I think I do. Chances are my ministry has some pretty steep shortcomings in God’s eyes. I often think about this: What is greater, the gap between the person I am critiquing’s understanding of ministry and mine, or mine and God’s? Thus, if God is gracious to me, why wouldn’t I be gracious to others?
• Just because God has not shown someone the same grace He has shown to me (by revealing certain things about doctrine and ministry) does not mean He hasn’t shown them anything worth learning from them… God reveals some things more clearly to one than another, so that we can share with one another out of the grace He has given to each of us. The global church is Christ’s body, and we complete each other. He never gives everything to one member. In other words, He did not give us the graces He gave us so that we could be proud and look down on one another, but so that we could love and serve one another.
• Relationships matter. They don’t trump truth, of course, but I am willing to put up with some things I don’t exactly agree with because I recognize someone as a brother in Christ and I want to know and be a part of their lives and ministry. If I’m not, how will they ever see the things God has shown to me? I can only bless them if I know tham and am up close to them. People rarely listen to strangers or enemies.
• If we limit our praise and our fellowship to only those people who see things as clearly as we do, our circle will get progressively smaller and smaller and we’ll get  lonelier and lonelier in ministry, which will make us meaner and crabbier than we already are.
• I’d rather “assume the weaknesses and notice the strengths” than “notice the weaknesses and assume the strengths.” Real Christian encouragement is usually built on that principle. We often help others most not by beating them down in their failures, but by finding evidences of God’s grace in their lives and fanning them into flame.
• God has not called me to the judge of everyone else’s ministry. I don’t have the time, ability, or desire to be the judge. I’m more worried about the shortcomings in my own ministry to get consumed with those of others. I’m just not going to waste the precious time God gave me for ministry tearing down someone else’s.

Let me acknowledge that what I am saying is a little out-of-balance. There most certainly is a place for critique and the Gospel most definitely matters. We must contend for it. Where would we be without Athanasius, Luther, or Carl FH Henry? And we should be “big boys” enough to give and receive godly criticism (that is one of our core staff values at the Summit). But I just generally want to be a “large applauder” and a “small critic” rather than visa versa. I want to find evidences of grace in people’s lives and ministries and really celebrate those.

It is a great testimony to the Gospel, as it is done, of course, on any who have needs, but explicitly because of Jesus. They have a number of places where volunteers are needed, even if you’re not medically-skilled. They need prayer counselors, administrators, and people who will just sit and talk with worried patients. Pretty much anyone who wants to serve.

They also have a great awareness banquet coming up on Sept 19 in Bay 7 of the American Tobacco Campus in Downtown Durham. If you are interested in coming, and knowing about how you can be a part of this ministry financially, let them know here.

Our church is in ENTHUSIASTIC support of this ministry. They really are an answer to prayer. We have asked God to allow us as a church to love our city tangibly in the places where it is most hurting. But we know that we, as a church, can’t run all the ministries our city needs through our church offices. So we have prayed that God will raise up men and women of vision who can lead us into the community. This is an answer to that prayer. You’ll love it!

This is one of the many organizations that DurhamCares is helping to facilitate in our city. May their tribe increase!

Summit Cribs – North Raleigh from The Summit Church on Vimeo.

In addition to that, we opened 2 new services at our Brier Creek campus, in “the Bay,” which were also full. It’s setting up to be a great fall. Praise God!

Also, here’s a great story about the most unusual “guest experience” of the day. It’s from Danny Franks, our Brier Creek campus pastor:

This morning we had tons of first-time guests that showed up at all of our campuses.  One couple arrived at our Brier Creek Campus about 45 minutes after the service began.  Now, 45 minutes late is the norm for most of our covenant members, staff spouses, etc, but a little unusual for guests.  What follows is the story of  one family, whom I’ll call “Ken & Barbie,” since I haven’t gotten their permission to share it…yet:

Ken & Barbie were invited by friends from our brand new North Raleigh campus.  Because that campus has been in incubation stage here for the last few months, Ken & Barbie mistakenly showed up here at Brier Creek…but only after they’d gotten hopelessly lost.  After driving around the Brier Creek area for what seemed like an eternity, they finally stopped off at Wal Mart.

In desperation, Barbie walked up to the Customer Service Desk and asked the lady if she knew where the Summit Church was located.  Customer Service Lady had no idea.  Barbie asked her, “Would you mind making an announcement over the intercom?”

Stop.  Go back and read that again.  Drink it in.  And then know that Customer Service Lady DID IT.

“If anybody in the store knows the location of the Summit Church, would you please come to the Customer Service Desk?”

Now hold your horses…THAT’S not even the best part of the story.  THIS is the best part…FROM THE DRESSING ROOM, one of our covenant members yells out, “HEY! I know where the Summit is!  Let me get some clothes on and I’ll be up there!”

Ken & Barbie made a friend, all of Wal Mart knows about the Summit, and unfortunately there’s no word on whether our unidentified member made the purchase.

That is why I love being a part of this church, and a part of this community.  Where else can the Summit get a shout out on Wal Mart’s intercom?

Sam Walton would be proud.  Unidentified member, you rock.  And Ken & Barbie, I’d love to meet you.  Your story made my day.

Read Danny’s whole post here.

Sometimes the most conservative people are the most biblically and scholastically sound. They have studied Scripture and have studied skeptical scholarship. They make brilliant arguments for the way something in the Bible reads and how it’s been interpreted. I don’t go to them necessarily to know more about their personal beliefs. It’s the brilliance they bring to bear on the text that appeals to me. Of all the people I’ve read over the years, it’s their work that I keep on my desk. They’re all non-Catholics, but they’re believers, they document their books well, they write well, they’re scrupulously honest as scholars, and they don’t have a bias. Many of the skeptical non-believer biblical scholars have a terrible bias. To them, Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, so there’s no point in discussing it. I want someone to approach the text and tell me what it says, how the language worked.

If the prayers in Ephesians indicate to us what Paul appears to have most often prayed for his congregations, then the answer to that is “spiritual sight.” Twice in the book of Ephesians Paul bursts into prayer, praying

“that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, ¹⁸ having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the value… and the power…” (1:17)

and that

“you may have the strength to comprehend… the love of Christ.” (3:18-19)

Paul is in the middle of explaining some of the deepest doctrine and practical instruction found anywhere in the Bible, and as he does so he keeps praying that God would give the Ephesians eyes to see the glory and majesty of God, because real change comes from sight, not knowledge or behavioral adjustment.

What Paul is praying for is certainly accompanied by knowledge and results in behavioral change, but what he is asking for Ephesians 1 is more than either of those. Sight—seeing the majesty of God with the eyes of your heart and feeling the magnificence of His love–is what ultimately changes our hearts.

All true change—heart-level change that restructures our desires—begins with sight.

The goal of a lecture is that you leave with new information; the goal of a motivational speech is that you leave with new behavior. The goal of a sermon is that you leave worshipping God, having seen Him more clearly for who He is.

How many of the sermons that you hear are focused on sight, rather than information communication or behavior change?

We need Gospel-centered, Christ-exalting sermons and Spirit-induced regenerating power. The 1st should drive you to the text, the 2nd to your knees.

Here’s what I’ve found…

[21] “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ [22] But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother… or says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. (Matthew 5:21–22, ESV)

Jesus expands this from an act to a general attitude toward other people. It includes anger that has an intent to harm… whether physically, or emotionally or to verbally put them in their place. Jesus here also says that the murderous spirit includes insulting others… or to devalue them by putting them into a derogatory or diminutive category. 

The book of James in the Bible says that those people who exploit the poor and live in luxury while others around them suffer are guilty of murder:

[5:1] You rich…  Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. [5] You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. (James 5:1, 5 ESV)

The prophet Ezekiel talked about a failure to evangelize as a type of murder:

“See, oh son of man, I have made a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. [6] If the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, so that the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any one of them… his blood I will require at the watchman’s hand… [8] If I say to the wicked, O wicked one, you shall surely die, and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from his way, that wicked person shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. (Ezekiel 33:6-8 ESV)

Here’s my question for you. How do you think Christians (and other morally conscious people) most break the 6th commandment, “Thou shalt not murder?”