GospelDelta.com

I’m not going to lie, when I first heard that we were having a girl, a small tinge of disappointment hit me; I’d really been hoping for a boy.  I know, turn me in for the jerk-of-the-year award.  It wasn’t that I didn’t want a girl, it was just that I didn’t know how I would relate to, or help raise a sex that preferred tea parties to a rugby match.

It was easy to imagine how I would bring up a boy.  Strict discipline mixed with love and honor, lessons of wilderness survival, famous battles, endless wrestling matches and instruction in being a gentleman.  A girl on the other hand?  The idea terrified me.  Pictures of puberty, boy band concerts, awkward dad moments and an embarrassed/annoyed daughter helped convince me that I wasn’t cut out for the task of raising a daughter.

Part of my misunderstanding came from being raised as an only child, growing up around boys via various sports teams, then attending a military academy with a 6:1 guy to girl ratio.  Let’s just say, while I appreciated the opposite sex, I knew very little about them other than they confused me and smelled nice.

Then my daughter was born and my theories were immediately tossed out the hospital window.  She was beautiful, and I quickly took to being her father.  She was mine and I was hers.  My heart melted inside me the first time I held her and later, when she said “Dada!” and held out her arms to hug me.  The fears I once had about not being able to love a girl as much evaporated as I became the ridiculously proud parent I’d always mocked.

Now, my daughter is still just a toddler, so I know that I have many, many lessons still to learn (a fact that nearly kept me from writing this post in the first place).  The teenage years still loom ahead like a storm on the horizon taunting me…with tongue piercings and glittery lip gloss.  But, even with only a short time under my belt, my daughter has taught me some incredibly important lessons that I never would have picked up had she not blessed my wife and me with her presence.

1) Men are born to protect. Regardless of whether it has gone out of fashion in today’s society, deep in the heart of every man is a desire to protect his loved ones.  To make sure that they feel safe when you’re around, like the calming presence of a strong lion protecting the rest of the pride.  Though I’m sure that this instinct is there with boys as well, the strong conviction I have to protect my daughter is greater than nearly anything I’ve felt in my life.  It isn’t a feeling that has to be worked up, it’s just there, like cement, daring someone to move it.

Taking on the protector role means carrying yourself a bit differently.  Rather than wandering aimlessly down any dark alley, I now am more aware of my surroundings and where I am taking my baby.  I also find myself a bit less sympathetic when other people’s reckless actions invade my daughter’s life.  I used to work out mostly for vanity; I wanted to look good.  Now, I work out knowing that I could be the sole person standing between an intruder and my wife and child.  And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the time I’ve spent developing intimidation tactics for future boyfriends.  Good luck Johnny brace-face.

2) Girls keep a man’s heart from growing too hard. Perhaps it’s because I went to a military academy, or spent too much time watching “Gladiator,” but I realized after the birth of my daughter that my heart had grown a bit hard.  My compassion, patience and grace were all lacking.  I firmly believed that “second place was the first loser,”  “Pain was just weakness leaving the body,” etc.  I had great pride in the discipline and efficiency through which I ran my life and home.  These tough-guy attitudes suddenly seemed a bit ridiculous as I would look into the eyes of an innocent little girl content with blowing bubbles, chasing butterflies and eating copious amounts of cheese.

It’s not that I have now become a bumbling mess of emotion and softness since the birth of my daughter, but I have allowed myself to accept that not everything in life is simply a resource that must be dedicated to some ultimate victory.  If we don’t get all of our chores done it’s not the end of the world.  My car used to be spotless, now it has crushed cheerios and toys strewn about the back seat…who cares!  With a child in one’s life, schedules and plans become much more flimsy.  When my daughter cries I don’t try to numb the pain with a motivational talk, I just hug her.  She’s kept my heart clean.

3) Every girl is some man’s daughter - There is no doubt that certain levels of sexism still remain alive in our culture today.  Until I had a daughter I gave the idea very little thought.  It had no direct impact on me, and I tried my best to be respectful to women, so why should I care?  Raising a daughter and beginning to think about her future has caused me to reconsider my views on sexism, the glass ceiling, even the role of women in the advertising and entertainment industries.  I’m sure most guys are like I was, giving a sigh and roll of the eyes when HR begins their annual training on sexual harassment, but things are a little different when the victim could someday be your daughter.

I once heard a lecture concerning America’s sex-saturated society.  The gentleman discussed pornography, sexual addiction and abuse, but one comment caused the whole audience to go startlingly silent.  “Every time you choose to view pornography, attend a strip club, solicit a prostitute, or in any other way, treat a woman like a piece of flesh rather than a person, remember one thing:  That girl is some man’s daughter.”  Men sat silently, the ones with daughters trembled at the idea of some man treating their daughter with such disrespect.  Women aren’t just peers, co-workers, friends…they’re daughters.

4) Slow Down – The other day my friend and I were walking to the library with my girl.  She just learned to walk a few months ago so she was a bit sporadic.  Speeding up, giggling, slowing down, stopping to pick up a stray leaf.  As we watched her take in the world around her, my friend commented, “Wouldn’t it be awesome if a walk to the library was this much fun?”  I chuckled for a moment, but realized this was one of the true blessings having a small child in my life brought to the table.  The reminder to slow down and enjoy the small, seemingly insignificant moments of life.  The ones that I had previously tried to fast forward or multi-task my way through.

I once heard a friend’s mom tell her kids before leaving on a long trip overseas, “Wherever you are, there you are.“  The sage words have stuck with me for years as they reveal a life philosophy which refuses to take a moment for granted.  How often do we talk to our friends while trying to check our e-mail on our iPhone, or let our minds think about the rest of the day’s errands as a loved one tries to connect with us?  Children live life much differently; they take their time, fully engaging one task at a time, not too concerned with what lies ahead or behind.  Maybe we could learn a thing or two from them.

5) Living for someone else -

“No man has ever risen to the real stature of spiritual manhood until he has found that it is finer to serve somebody else than it is to serve himself.” – Woodrow Wilson

Marriage is the first lesson most of us receive in learning to live for someone other than ourselves.  And just when we start to think we might have that lesson down, children shatter all our notions of self-righteousness.  Waking up at all hours of the night, changing diapers, feeding, cleaning…all these things are necessary parts of raising a healthy child, and they have been pivotal in forcing me to abandon some of my selfish habits.  My daughter could care less about my well-thought-out schedule or whether or not I have a flight early the next morning.  She continually challenges me to love her regardless of convenience.

I wrote previously that one of the greatest tests of manhood is whether or not one has learned to abandon their life in the service of another.  This idea makes some people’s skin crawl, but thus far it’s been one of the truest indicators of real manhood I’ve been able to find.  It doesn’t take much effort to be selfish.  In fact, it’s one of the most natural ways for us to live.  Children plop into our lives as miniature insurgents, waging war with our lifestyle of “me first.”  My daughter has opened my eyes to the beautiful struggle parents face in giving their lives to their children.  It isn’t comfortable, and often times it flat out hurts, but it builds a depth of character that can only be understood by others who have traveled a similar path.

For years men have been raising daughters into young women.  It used to scare me, it still scares me, but I’ll give my life away in pursuit of it any day.

HT: AF

From StudentLife.com:

This is a video we (Student Life) produced for a free youth minister event called Refuge. It was conceived as a satire for what I consider to be an unhealthy “rock star” culture that has been growing inside Christendom, as well as an encouragement for the unheralded heroes on the front lines of ministry. Our friends at the event seemed to get a kick out of it. Shot by Taylor Robinson and George Wiley, with video post by Jason Poole and audio by Eric Chapman and Nate Dregger. The role of Ignatius is played by our friend Josh Keefer.

Drew Goodmanson – Pastor at Kaleo Church in San Diego

Download the PDF of the Practical Missional Ecclesiology Workshop.

James Harleman – Pastor at Mars Hill Church (Lake City)

Jonathan Dodson – Pastor at Austin City Life

Spirit-Led Ecclesiology: Following the Spirit Through Church-Planting

Download

Session 1:

Session 2:

Session 3:

The Life-Shaping Power of Story: God’s and Ours – Dan Taylor

The single best way of conceiving of faith and the life of faith is by seeing it as a story in which you are a character.

Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting – Robert McKee

Robert McKee’s Story Seminar

Donald Miller – “Story” (mp3)

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years – Donald Miller

STORY Conference – Chicago – October 2009

STORY is a first-of-its-kind experience for communicators of the Gospel – the greatest story ever told. It will be held on Wednesday, October 28 at the Paramount Theater in Aurora, Illinois. Speakers include Donald Miller, Nancy Beach, Dave Gibbons, Ed Young, Stacy Spencer, Chris Seay and Mike Foster. A day of workshops will follow on October 29 at nearby Orchard Valley Community Church, featuring illustrators, designers, scholars, authors and communications experts.

The Story of God – Soma Communities

The Story of God – Northshore Baptish Church
– Shout out to my boy Jonathan Alexander at NSB, who walked me through his Story of God theology when I was a brand new Christian.

Here’s a 17-part series of blog posts by CJ Mahaney that have been put together into a single document for download.

For more on this topic (especially for those in ministry), here’s a great resource:

Death by Ministry – Mark Driscoll

-Jonathan Edwards, Religious Affections (Yale) 2:110.

HT: Miscellanies

Religion and The Gospel (adapted from Tim Keller) – click HERE to download

VIDEOS:

Jesus vs. Religion – Mark Driscoll

Two Enemies of the Gospel – Mark Driscoll

The Pastor As Scholar

A Personal Journey

April 23, 2009

John Piper

Read |  Listen |   Watch |   Download Audio

The Scholar As Pastor

April 23, 2009

D. A. Carson

Listen |   Watch |   Download Audio

Discussion with Piper and Carson

The Pastor As Scholar and the Scholar As Pastor

April 23, 2009

Listen |   Watch |   Download Audio

Official TGC09 Program (download pdf)

Tim Keller – The Grand Demythologizer: The Gospel and Idolatry

John Piper – Feed the Flame of God’s Gift: Unashamed Courage in the Gospel

Phil Ryken – The Pattern of Sound Words

Mark Driscoll – Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth

K. Edward Copeland – Shadowlands: Pitfalls and Parodies of Gospel-Centered Ministry

Bryan Chapell – Preach the Word!

Ajith Fernando – Gospel-Faithful Mission in the New Christendom

Panel Discussion

AUDIO
VIDEO

Ligon Duncan – Finishing Well

Don Carson – That By All Means I Might Win Some: Faithfulness and Flexibility in Gospel Proclamation

Joshua Harris – Ministering in a Church-Hopping Society

C. J. Mahaney – The Pastor’s Charge

Thabiti Anyabwile – The Decline of African-American Theology

Steven Chin – Working Faithfully Under a Senior Pastor

Buster Brown – Preaching in a Christianized Culture

Graham Cole – Homosexuality and the Bible: Texts, Hermeneutics, and Pastoral Wisdom

K. Edward Copeland and Charlie Dates – Mentoring Younger Pastors

Crawford Loritts – Staying Faithful, Staying Relevant: The Use and Abuse of Polemical Preaching

Colin Smith – Transformational Expository Preaching

Jeff Louie – Gospel and Community: Definitions and Crucial Issues

Erwin Lutzer – Finishing Well in Life and Ministry

Tom Nelson and Matt Perman – The Gospel and Money

Stephen Um – On Ministry and Revolving Doors: Practical Challenges and Ideas for Ministry in a Mobile Society

Sandy Willson – Gospel Mission to the World: Arrogance or Love?

Name of the Song	Downloads
Wonderful Grace of Jesus

Wonderful grace of Jesus, greater than all my sin;
How can my tongue describe it, where will its praise begin?
Taking away my burden, setting my spirit free,
For the wonderful grace of Jesus reaches me!

REFRAIN: Wonderful grace of Jesus,
Deeper than the mighty rolling sea;
Higher than the mountain, sparkling like a fountain,
All-sufficient grace for even me;
Bigger than my sins,
Greater than my shame;
O magnify the precious name of Jesus, Praise His name (3x)!

Wonderful grace of Jesus, reaching to all the lost,
By it I have been pardoned, saved to the uttermost;
Chains have been torn away, giving me liberty,
For the wonderful grace of Jesus reaches me!

REFRAIN: Wonderful grace of Jesus,
Deeper than the mighty rolling sea;
Higher than the mountain, sparkling like a fountain,
All-sufficient grace for even me;
Bigger than my sins,
Greater than my shame;
O magnify the precious name of Jesus, Praise His name (3x)!

About this Song:

From http://www.faithalone.org/journal/1997i/Ward.html

“Wonderful Grace of Jesus”—the very title proclaims from the outset and at the beginning of each stanza that this hymn by Haldor Lillenas is a hymn of grace. First introduced in 1918, this song has become a favorite across denominational lines in the Church today. Its upbeat, bouncy meter and somewhat unusual refrain, which splits into two parts, with the melody alternating between the bass/tenor and alto/soprano parts, endear the tune to many. However, as is often the case, the strong doctrinal message carried by the words of the hymn are often obscured in the enthusiasm for the music. In fact, the author himself, in his autobiography, cautions against distorting the words of the hymn by performing it at too rapid a tempo.¹

While at first glance “Wonderful Grace of Jesus” may seem to be simply a general song of praise to God for His grace, several of its phrases make it clear that the author understands not just the term but the substance of the grace of God. In the first stanza and the chorus, the surpassing nature of God’s grace is set forth with the phrases “greater than all my sin” and “Broader than the scope of my transgressions, greater far than all my sin and shame” (Rom 5:20). It is grace, Lillenas proclaims, that takes away the burden of sin and liberates the captive soul.

In the second stanza, Lillenas demonstrates his understanding of the extent of God’s grace. Not covering just a favored few, the grace of God reaches to “all the lost.” People may choose to reject grace, but God extends the offer of salvation freely to all (Titus 2:11). Also in this stanza, and again in the chorus, the sufficiency of grace is described. Lillenas says he has been “saved to the uttermost” by an “all-sufficient grace.” Lillenas’s view of salvation by grace is not one of meeting God halfway, with both parties contributing to the transaction (Titus 3:5; Eph 2:8). His words here indicate an understanding that when Christ completed His work on the cross, salvation was finished (John 19:30), leaving nothing for man to do but accept the gift of grace and be completely saved.

The third stanza touches on another hallmark of the doctrine of grace—that regardless of the magnitude of one’s sin, God’s grace is available and is sufficient for salvation even to “the most defiled.” This is reminiscent of Fanny Crosby’s words in “To God be the Glory”³ when she wrote “The vilest offender who truly believes, that moment from Jesus a pardon receives.”

The words of this third stanza may strike some as inconsistent with Lillenas’s Nazarene theology. While most evangelicals generally recognize that ultimate sanctification will occur only in the presence of the Lord in Heaven, Nazarene theology teaches a doctrine of “entire sanctification,” in which the believer can and should obtain complete sanctification in this life.⁴ Connected to this doctrine is the Nazarene teaching that apostasy in the life of a believer can result in the loss of salvation. Thus, for the Nazarene, there is no true doctrine of eternal security. This makes Lillenas’s words in the third stanza even more interesting, when he writes “Purchasing peace and heaven for all eternity,” and even in the second stanza where he tells us that we have been “saved to the uttermost”. While these words may have meant something quite different to Lillenas, they seem equally applicable to our understanding of God’s grace in salvation, sanctification, and security.

“Wonderful Grace of Jesus” combines doctrinal truth with a buoyant melody and serves as a good vehicle for teaching the doctrine of grace. It touches on the availability, sufficiency, and efficacy of the salvation offered by grace through faith in Christ, and so carries an appropriate message for believer and unbeliever alike. Though we should be aware that Lillenas’s own theology may not line up completely with that of most evangelicals, his words do carry the Gospel of grace, making this hymn worthy of the category “Hymn of Grace.”

Endnotes:

¹Paul G. Hammond, “Wonderful Grace of Jesus,” in Handbook to The Baptist Hymnal (Nashville: Convention Press, 1992), 277-78.

 ²Hammond, “Lillenas, Haldor,” Ibid., 387.

 ³Reviewed in JOTGES (Spring 96), 97-99.

 ⁴Manual (1993-1997), Church of the Nazarene, (Kansas City: Nazarene Publishing House, 1993), 26-45.

Name of the Song	Downloads
My King
Who You Are
I Surrender All
Overwhelm Me
Glory To Our King
Glorious Day
Shine Your Light On Us
Grace Greater Than My Sin
Great is Thy Faithfulness
Rejoice
Hope in a Child
In My Place
Hallelujah God is Here
My Hope
It Is Well With My Soul
Here I Am

Last summer, myself and a few friends went out to Lost Lake Campgrounds near Mt. Hood and studied the biblical themes of Suffering and Endurance through the book of Job. We fasted, prayed, sang songs of worship, confessed sin, went on prayer hikes, had time for silence and solitude, climbed a butte and held a bible study on the summit, told jokes and laughed around a campfire, suffered through a night of bitter cold, and feasted in thanksgiving to the Lord the following morning. Men’s Retreats are all too often escapist in nature, where men get together to do “masculine” things like watch Gladiator, do ropes courses, and eat inordinate amounts of chicken wings/pizza. All the while, many men on these trips enjoy an “escape” from the reality of the battlefield of life, and feed the mentality that discipleship can be reduced to a search for friendship and new hobbies. We men need to embrace the call to suffer for Christ, and we need to learn how to endure the battle and fight the good fight of faith. Every Sunday we walk into church looking like men who have forgotten the Gospel, and that’s because we’ve been retreating all week. I would love to see a philosophical shift away from “retreats” and toward “advances”. Not that we have to change the name, just the way we see them. I think this would produce a greater sense of urgency in men’s ministry, and give younger men a vision for biblical manhood that would inspire and challenge them to radical transformation.