Here's What You Missed - Awakening, September 12, 2012

If you weren't in Awakening last night, here is your quick recap of the night's events.

• Announcements: Money for Awakening Fest ($30) is due THIS SUNDAY! Please give the money to Miss Cheryl. See You At the Pole is two weeks away. I hope you are making plans to be there. Don't forget that Youth Alive is this Sunday at 5 p.m.
• Missions Trip: We are taking a missions trip to Pittsburgh in June 2013. Applications were distributed. Please take some time (a lot of time) to pray over the application and talk/pray with your parents about the trip. The cost is $350, but do not let money be the reason you don't go on the trip. Applications are due October 14. If you did not get an application, see Pastor Jonathan. We also watched a video of the trip in Pittsburgh last year.
• Bible Study: We continued our study "Life in 6 Words" with Our. This was a discussion of our role in the mutiny called sin and how all of us are responsible for sinning. Greg and Prop did an excellent job of explaining the concept of "federal headship."
• Next Week: We will continue to study "Life in 6 Words" with Sins. Our memory verse is Romans 3:23.

Can't wait to see you next week in Awakening!

The Greatest Story Ever Told, That's Hardly Ever Told

In our youth group service, we recently started going through Life in 6 Words from Dare2Share Ministries. This is a series on the Gospel in which Greg Stier and Propaganda take the letters of GOSPEL and use it to explain the Gospel. I have been praying about this series for some time and am looking forward to the awesome things that God is going to do through this study.

Here is the introductory video that is basis for the study. I recommend you watch it multiple times because it will shake you to the core every time you watch it.

I will be posting a review of the series shortly.

Goodbye, Maurice Sendak

       As many of you have probably heard, Maurice Sendak passed away yesterday. Mr. Sendak was a children's author, most famous for Where the Wild Things Are. He wrote many other books, some good, some bad, but none more powerful than Wild Things.

I am writing this because my son loves the work of Maurice Sendak. For the longest time, he had me read Where the Wild Things Are every night before bed. We read it so many times that he memorized the book. There was even a time when we borrowed the cartoon from the library and he watched it over and over. We played a game where I would start to recite the book (I had it memorized too) and he would finish the lines.

Mr. Sendak died as a result of complications from a stroke. I heard several interviews from him on NPR and I caught a very sad line. He was talking about a friend who believed in Heaven and hell and life after death. Mr. Sendak then went on to talk about how life was so hard for unbelievers like himself. It made me sad because I knew, from his own admission, that Maurice Sendak did not know Jesus and had not had his sins forgiven. That thought brought tears to my eyes.

Mr. Sendak, I want to thank you for the joy that your books brought to my little boy. I want to thank you for the wonderful memories that you have allowed me to have with my son as a result of your books. And I pray, that somewhere along your journey through life, someone shared the Gospel with you and you made a decision to accept the gift of salvation, even though you claimed otherwise. Mr. Sendak, you will be missed.

Book Review - Dug Down Deep by Joshua Harris

If I can be honest, I had little knowledge of Joshua Harris. My limited interaction with him was watching a group of students read I Kissed Dating Goodbye when I was in college. The mean-spirited part of me joked that they kissed dating goodbye because they weren’t going to get kissed anyway, so it was no big loss. I was vaguely aware of other books that he had written and I knew that he had a church relatively close to where I live, but that was it.

I had the opportunity to read Dug Down Deep: Building Your Life on Truths That Last and I am very glad that I did. This book is a combination of autobiography and entry-level theology text. Harris shares a number of stories from his life growing up and shows how each of these events led to him digging and building his life on the elements of the Christian faith. Given the “celebrity” status that Harris has, you would think that he either lived a completely perfect Christian life or that he was a reprobate sinner who experienced a miraculous conversion. Neither is the case. Harris had a fairly typical Christian life growing up, one that was, unfortunately, void of much doctrinal training. Throughout the text, he shares how he came to understand that doctrine was not dry and boring or a weapon to bludgeon others with. It was the key way that we come to know and experience God.

As I was reading the book, I found myself constantly stopping to share quotes from it on Facebook and Twitter. As I said above, it is an introduction to systematic theology, barely scratching the surface on a number of the elements. The ones that are covered include Jesus, the Bible, the Holy Spirit, salvation, and the Church. And while it is an entry-level book, there is enough meat to satisfy the reader and cause him to be hungry for the "meatier" texts that Harris references throughout.

Joshua Harris is an incredible writer. I found myself devouring the book and looking forward to when I could sit down to read it again. As a youth pastor, I am now contemplating how I can incorporate the ideas from the book into our weekly youth group Bible study. At the bare minimum, this book will definitely be found on the top of a recommended reading list.

It should be noted that a copy of Dug Down Deep: Building Your Life on Truths That Last was provided to me by Waterbrook Multnomah in exchange for a review. I was not required to give it a positive review, even though the book warranted one.

Shotgun Wedding to Jesus

Right now, I am taking a class from Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary called Personal Evangelism. For one of the assignments, we are required to read Share Jesus Without Fear. It's not a bad book and the information that I've read so far is quite interesting. That being said, the author, William Fay, shared this story and it struck me the wrong way.

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Fay said that he was driving home on night when he saw a horrible car accident. He pulled over and ran to the young man who was about to be loaded onto a helicopter and taken to the hospital. Here is the conversation he had with the driver:

I knelt by his head and whispered, "Are you a sinner?"

"Uhhhh."

"Do you believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross for you and rose again?"

"Uhhhh."

"Are you willing to surrender your life to Jesus Christ?"

"Uhhhh."

"Are you ready to invite Jesus Christ into your life and into your heart?"

"Uhhhh."

Fay goes on to say that he shared this story at one of his seminars a few months later and the grandmother of the young man (who died the next day) came up and thanked him because she believed that he was in Heaven.

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Now, I'm not one to blow someone up for sharing their faith because I do not do it nearly enough. I just don't think what happened here was appropriate. I give credit to Fay for getting out and sharing the Gospel, but the groanings of a dying young man hardly equate understanding and accepting the gift of salvation. I also think that he may have been giving the grandmother false hope that she will see her grandson in Heaven. Of course, only God knows the heart (good Christian cliche).

I entitled this post "Shotgun Wedding to Jesus" because I think too often we try to cram Jesus down the throat of individuals and don't give them the opportunity to make the decision of their own desire (or the nudging of the Holy Spirit). The person prays the Sinner's Prayer just so you will shut up and leave him alone. I think we are at our best when we ask the Lord to give us opportunities to share and understand that salvation is dependent upon Him, not anything that we do.

What are your thoughts?