It has been an interesting week in the political and spiritual life of America. Americans in North Carolina cast an important vote protecting the traditional definition of marriage. The vote incited a flurry of debate on a host of various but connected issues - should the government play any role in marriage? Does the Bible condemn homosexuality? Was this vote a breach of church/state affairs? A few days after the vote, President Obama went public through an interview with ABC concerning his own "evolved" position of supporting gay marriage. The interview showed an understandably uncomfortable President.

As a conservative Christian I understand and believe the issue of marriage to be fundamentally important to both Church and country; it is an issue worth discussing and worth our conviction. It is also an issue that will alarmingly remind us that fighting against something is relatively easy in comparison to living for something. In other words, it is easier to point our fingers than to address our own hearts. It is easier to see the speck in someone's eye than notice the log in our own. It is easier to preach judgmental sermons than edifying sermons. It is easier to hate than to love. It is easier to embrace the "truth" than to embrace the "grace." 

So, do I think all conservative Christians should stop discussing and debating? Hardly. What I am calling for is a starting and finishing point of 1 Corinthians 16:14  - "do everything in love." Speak the truth brothers and sisters. Love absent of truth is not love. Preach the word in and out of season. But lets begin and end in love. If we don't, our message will contradict itself. The question we should ask after a conversation or debate is not "did I win?" but "did I show love?" If we showed love, then we can echo the words of the great theologian and basketball coach Norman Dale - "I don't care what the scoreboard says at the end of the game, in my book we will be winners." 

God is honored when we stand for truth. God is more honored when we stand for truth abounding in love. God is dishonored when we stand for truth abounding in hate.

How are you doing with that?  

Sometime over the weekend I will be posting a blog outlining a few of the conversation points I have heard over the North Carolina vote. I hope they are honoring to the truthfulness of Scripture and rightly capture the balance of grace and truth. Till then, peace to you all.   

Today I read an article by Trevin Wax describing 6 pastors who influenced his life and ministry. His blog article was prompted by this comment from Russell Moore:

When I am talking to young evangelicals, often who are in ministry, and I say, “Who has been really influential upon you in ministry and on learning to preach and to do the things of ministry?” ten years ago, most people would have given me the name of a local pastor who had mentored them and worked with them. Now they are mentioning a disembodied voice that they have heard on a podcast. That’s a very dangerous thing… 

This of course made me reflect on my own learning experience from a varied degree of pastoral influence and stirred in me great thanksgiving. I tend to be a sentimentalist anyway, fondly reflecting on the memories of old, so this exercise was fun and encouraging. Here are 4 pastors who I had the privilege of interacting with that have had influence on me.

1. Gary Meade. My dad. He was the first preacher I remember seeing and hearing in the pulpit. Dad was a bi-vocational pastor during my early childhood years and poured himself into the church. I have had a great respect for bi-vocational pastors all my life because of what I saw my father do without complaint. The possibility that Christ will one day tell all of us pastors that we should have been bi-vocational is one that lingers somewhere in the recesses of my mind. Dad was not seminary trained and lived way before the onslaught of a internet/media revolution. He essentially taught himself everything he knew about the Bible and faith. Thus, his theological precision might not have been as accurate as he would have liked (is it for any of us?), but dad remains one of the best communicators I have ever heard. A good bit of my preaching, from walking to and from the pulpit to the way I emphasize points stems from dad's preaching. In addition, dad's heart for people was contagious. I will never forget one experience I had with my father in the study of our house in Kingsport, TN. Dad had been working with an acquaintance who had been hospitalized with a condition I don't remember. It was a serious condition. Dad had spent a lot of time in the hospital room, talking to his friend about Christ. I had come home from school and my mom told me that she had some bad news for dad when he got home. . .his friend had passed away presumably without making a confession. Mom and I waited for dad. He came into the study and sat down at the desk. I was watching a "safe" distance behind mom. He said, "don't tell me." She said, "I'm sorry Gary." And then it happened. Dad did something I will never forget. 

He wept.

I had not seen my dad cry too many times but this was open weeping, both for the loss of his friend and for what he thought might have been the loss of his friend's soul. It was weeping that seem to shake the foundation of the house. It was almost scary to me. To this day I have yet to weep for someone's salvation the way my father did on that day. It is yet another reminder of the distance I have still to travel to reach that kind of pastoral heart. My dad, once again, changed my life that day.

2. Bill Craft. Bill is the pastor of Millstone Missionary Baptist Church in Millstone, KY. I have not spent extensive time with Bill throughout the years, but his influence on me has nevertheless been important. A good part of my extended family lives in eastern KY - Whitesburg, Neon, Letcher County. Way back in one of the "hollers" in a little place called Millstone is a Missionary Bapstist Church. Bill has been preaching there since Christ walked the earth. I would go see Bill preach when I was visiting during the summers and during special events. I can remember watching him and thinking, "yep, I will be doing that one day." Although my style of preaching compared to Bill Craft is like night and day, I hope the common thread is in the way our message is received by the congregation. Folks latch on to Bill Craft's every word. He is engaging, dynamic, and effective. Not to mention a legend to me. Watching Bill Craft preach in that wonderful church down the holler still rings with me today.

3. Bobby Russell. Preacher Bobby has had the greatest pastoral impact on my ministry. He pastored Temple Baptist Church in Kingsport, TN and I sat under his leadership and his preaching from the 3rd grade through graduation. The influence he has had on my life is indescribable. What first comes to mind is the high level of respect he had for the Bible. Bobby preached the Bible long before I knew what an "expository sermon" was all about. When I began learning preaching in college and seminary, I was like, "Bobby has been doing this for years, whats the big deal?" I also learned about the centrality of Jesus in everything the church does, especially in worship. One of the funnier moments in my church childhood was watching Bobby almost fall out of his seat when one of the Christmas specials was "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas." It's not that he didn't like the song. It's that the song wasn't Christ-centered, and therefore did not belong in a worship service. I was 9 years old when I started listening to Bobby preach and I would refuse to go to children's church because I didn't want to miss the sermon. I would sit next to my father and would take notes. I still have some of those notes; they are priceless to me. When I went to college, I had several tapes of Bobby Russell preaching. I would listen to them over and over when I made the trip from Nashville back to Kingsport. I still have a few of Bobby's sermons memorized. As I was departing to Nashville, TN to attend Belmont University, Bobby stopped me in the hall of the church and said this about my future ministry:

Philip, at the end of the day they won't remember everything you preached. They won't remember everything you taught. They will remember you were there. So make sure you are there. 

I'm trying my best Bobby. Sadly, Bobby Russell passed away just a few months ago. I look forward to seeing him again.

4. Mike Ruffin. I have been able to do what I think is perfectly unique to me - study under Dr. Mike Ruffin at Belmont University and minister alongside him in the local church, not once but twice. Dr. Ruffin was the Old Testament Professor at Belmont University and although his time at the school was relatively short (because he wanted to get back to pastoring), I was blessed to study under him during my four years at Belmont. I then worked part time as a youth pastor at Fosterville Baptist Church where Mike was pastor, and then somehow ended up in Adel, GA serving with Mike and Bob Walker (in what was one heck of a fun and, I think, powerful ministry team). Mike has influenced me in all kinds of ways, many of which he probably isn't aware of. I learned about the integrity of the pulpit from Mike. "Don't be a clown in the pulpit" he would tell me, and he modeled his respect for preaching Sunday after Sunday. As a matter of fact, integrity is the word I would use to describe Mike's ministry overall. Even when Mike disagrees with folks, he handles the disagreement in a way that is always honoring to Christ and to his own ministry. Dr. Ruffin taught me about stopping and making eye contact when people want to talk to you and he has never allowed himself to get caught up in church growth schemes. Mike's pastorate is one of steady, intentional, Christ saturated growth. I think one of the greatest aspects of our relationship is in our differences. Dr. Ruffin and I have found ourselves in different places on a host of issues. In some ways that is a testimony to his teaching and influence. A mentor who just makes carbon copies of themselves is not much of a mentor. Thus, in our differences we hold each other in the highest of respect and are genuinely thankful for the other's ministry. The world and the Church are better off because of Dr. Mike Ruffin. So is Philip Meade.

It has taken me quite a while to finish this article because of the tears of joy I have shed. Even if you don't have a blog or write publicly, you should make your own list and reflect on the people God has put in your life. You will be smiling. 

On Friday, May 11th, I will be traveling to the great city of St. Louis along with a good friend/church member for the purpose of scouting out ministry projects for Graefenburg Baptist Church to engage in during the week of July 23rd. I'm excited about the preview trip and our week long mission effort. Here are a few reasons why.

1. Graefenburg Baptist Church has historically been committed to being a "Great Commission Church." The good folks at GBC understand the centrality of God's mission and are devoted to alleviating both temporal and eternal suffering. I now have the incredible privilege of pastoring this fine church and when my appointed time as their shepherd has come to an end, there is a single aspect of my ministry that I hope will have had the most transformative impact on our community of believers. Believe it or not, it isn't that the people will have a deeper love of theology, which I hope they will. It isn't that they will start everything with the bigness and sovereignty of God, which I hope they will. My hope is that we will learn to better understand and love the process of cross-bearing for the purpose of Godliness and service. Regardless of how we might argue the smaller details of the question, there is little doubt that the mission of a NT church involves glorifying God through our service to others. "Others Lord, yes others, let this my motto be. . .help me to live for others that I might live for Thee."

2. We will be working with two church plants in the greater St. Louis area. The North American Mission Board has made clear that part of their refocusing process will be centered on church planting. Working with the excitement of a church plant will not only provide us a great opportunity for long term partnerships with other churches, but will also be a first glimpse for our own folks at GBC into what a church plant looks like and why it is a process we need to begin praying for today. Within 7 years, my prayerful goal is that Graefenburg Baptist Church will be actively pursuing our own church plant.

3. We will be partnering with folks from varying Baptist affiliations. During our preview trip, my friend and I will take part in a city-wide prayer and worship service which will include churches from the SBC, CBF, and ABC USA, as well as folks who are not Baptist in their denominational affiliation. I spend a good part of my time on PhilipMeade.com trying to help folks understand the important differences between these varying affiliations, differences that cannot be ignored. And yet, when we are able to find common ground for the purpose of reaching others, it is a joy to pray and worship alongside believers who might not line up on every issue with one another, but who are willing to see the common need for Jesus Christ.

4. This is a great next step in embracing our "Acts 1:8 Challenge." That is simply the process of reaching people in our local community, in our state and nation, and around the world. St. Louis is our "Judea and Samaria."

5. Seeing the St. Louis Arch is always fun.

If you are part of a church and would like to partner with us on our St. Louis project, please send me a message and we can begin chatting about how we can work together for the cause of North America.     

Every pastor has their own methodology to preparing and writing sermons. Having said that, I don't think I am making too radical of a statement to suggest that almost every pastor shares one identical element of sermon preparation:  Trimming. Once we have delimited a text, examined the Scripture, consulted the appropriate extra-biblical help, and shaped the basic structure of the sermon, there will almost always be material, sometimes very good material, that must be left on the cutting room floor. Sermons need to be long enough to do justice to the pericope of Scripture but not so long that they stretch into 3, 4, and 5 parts on a single passage. For those of us who tend to preach through books of the Bible, it isn't the best idea to spend 5 years in a single book (unless you are John Piper, and even then I'm not convinced it is a good thing). This is one reason why sermons typically should focus on one "big idea" and avoid the incredible temptation to mention everything you can find packed into the text. What is left out can always be addressed at a different time or in a different setting. 

 In writing the first sermon for a series through the book of Jonah which I am currently preaching, I prepared some introductory remarks that highlighted 4 reasons why we should study and preach through Jonah. After all, don't we all know this story? How many times can we listen to people talk about this guy who was swallowed by a big fish? Well, I think there are lots of reasons why we need to revisit Jonah. I had written 4 of them in my sermon, but had to remove them due to time constraints. I thought it might be fun to list them here on the website. So, here it goes:

1. It is in the Bible. Sounds like a bumper sticker, I know. "The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it!" Well, even though that slogan might not be the most helpful way of thinking about things, the fact remains that God in His infinite wisdom provided the book of Jonah for us. I am one of those guys who believes that all of Scripture is profitable and all of it should be preached. When we consider that God is the author of Scripture it should remind us that the depths of the riches in any given book or text, regardless of how many times we have heard it presented, are never fully discovered. To ever say "I already know that stuff" when discussing a new Sunday School class topic or sermon series is to say words of self-incrimination. 

2. It is a story that points to Jesus Christ. Don't they all? Why yes they do as a matter of fact! But Jonah is especially rich in its Christocentric nature. Since Jesus himself references Jonah in speaking of his own death and resurrection (Matthew 12:40), this story safely falls into the category of "type" where the man Jonah represents not only his own life experiences, but also pre-figures the life and events of Jesus Christ.

3. It is a story that points to ourselves. Among other things, what makes the Bible incredibly relevant for Christians today is its astonishing accuracy in describing the human condition. The characters of Scripture who are scattered about engaged in all kinds of various activities are able to speak to us because they are us. Reading Jonah is like looking into a mirror. We find someone who loves God but doesn't always act in a loving way. We find someone who has a history of obedience followed by a selfish act of rebellion. We find someone who struggles to keep God's priorities ahead of his own. Sound familiar? It should.

4. It is a story that points to our mission. The book of Jonah paints for its readers a beautiful glimpse into the heart of God for the nations. God loves people. God desires people to be saved. God sends us. I suppose in some ways those three little ideas need to be the morning reminder for us Christians - God Loves, God Desires, God Sends. We don't have to wait until Matthew 28 and the famous "Great Commission" to see God's heart and understand our mission. Right here in the OT book of Jonah we learn that unless we go, folks will not have the opportunity to repent. Equally important is how Jonah teaches God's complete sovereignty through the redemptive process. In other words, God doesn't cross his fingers and hope that Jonah obeys. God has a purpose and a plan that will be completed in his own time and way and that plan involves an incredible showing of love and mercy to the nations. As God loves, so are we to love.

The list could go on and on. But there are four little reasons why I believe Jonah is a book worthy to read and preach. If you would like to follow along in the sermons, you can do so by visiting this webpage. Blessings.      

A moderate baptist conference organized by Mercer University on the topic of sexuality was held at the First Baptist Church of Decatur, GA last week and attended by roughly 300 folks. The purpose of the conference was to allow various speakers to discuss sexual identity, the church's response to that divisive topic, and some "new understandings" of authority.

Guy Sayles, pastor of First Baptist Church in Asheville, NC, gave an address on April 19th entitled "Faithful Listening in Challenging Times: How Do We Discern God's Voice?" His remarks cut once again to the clear and eventually unavoidable distinction between how the CBF approaches Scripture and how the SBC approaches Scripture (I am speaking in generalities). Regarding the way Christians read the Bible, he told his listeners that Christians ought to "remember that the risen, still-acting, and still-speaking Jesus is the norm by which we interpret Scripture and evaluate other sources of authority." Well, that sounds pretty good. On the surface it would seem everyone could get behind that sentiment without conflict. But then listen to how Sayles fleshes out his own proposition:

"Too often, Christians read the Bible in ways that overemphasize isolated texts and use them to push aside the just, gracious and merciful God whom the grand overarching themes reveal. . .the result is that followers of Jesus think, feel, and act in ways that aren't Jesus-like but seem to be required by their reading of the Bible."

That quote by Saylers is incomprehensible as is, in my opinion, this particular understanding of "interpreting Scripture through Jesus." Most of us would acknowledge that the Bible presents a singular story of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. As the "Jesus Storybook Bible" so appropriately puts it, "every story whispers his name." The SBC has material coming out in the fall called the "Gospel Project" which is a study to help us read all of the Bible, especially the OT, through the lens of Jesus. That is essential and correct. We can all find common ground on that particular point. The issue comes when the dangerous next step is taken of ignoring or denying aspects of the Bible in lieu of it "not lining up with Jesus." This presents a significant problem. That problem is. . .

How do you know what lines up with Jesus? If we are to interpret Scripture through Jesus, there must be some knowledge of Jesus by which we do the interpreting. How do we come to that knowledge? The Bible. Listen to this next quote by Saylers. In order to confirm the "grand overarching themes" of Jesus and avoid the erroneous interpretive process of turning to specific, isolated texts, Saylers says, "Jesus made the radical inclusiveness of God unavoidably clear." Ok, how did he do that? By what he said? By what he did? So, those specific texts which make the "inclusiveness of God unavoidably clear" can apparently be included in our interpretive process. But the alarming number of "unavoidably clear" texts where Jesus speaks of judgement, of not being included, of separating goats from sheep, of proclaiming exclusivity, of telling stories about separation from God, of speaking of hell time and again and again, are all "isolated texts" which we should avoid turning to. It is selective nonsense.

Where "interpreting Scripture through Jesus" as proposed by Sayles and others ultimately leads us, whether or not it was the original intention, is to a place where Scripture can affirm anything. All we have to say is, "this lines up with the overarching theme of God's inclusiveness as seen through Jesus."  Boom - you just made homosexuality acceptable. Boom - you just created a means to bypass the roles of men and women. Boom - you just allowed multiple and universal means of salvation. Boom - you just denied the reality of hell. All the while urging Christians to avoid turning to specific texts by using specific texts to demonstrate what is unavoidably overarching. 

Propositional truth is generally maligned by the CBF, unless those propositions talk about the unavoidable overarching theme of God's inclusiveness. In those cases, they are rock solid. If Jesus makes a propositional statement about alleviating suffering, that is considered a proposition for the ages. If Jesus makes a proposition about hell, that is considered outside the theme of inclusiveness, and therefore is propositional garbage. 

Dare we think that God, in his bigness, might use the means of restriction to compliment his desire for inclusion. As a father, I want my children to enjoy freedom in life. And I use restriction all the time to make sure that happens.

This is the flow of Christian thought as presented by many prominent Christian teachers and leaders today such as Brian McLaren and Rob Bell. Listen to this quote by McLaren who admits the Bible presents us with. . .

"violent images, cruel images of a character named God that conflict with the good creator in Genesis and the compassionate liberator in Exodus. This character named God, who sends a flood to destroy most of humanity or commands his people to kill others and take their land, represents an early but quite frankly unChristian image of God not to be confused with the mature, generous, accepting God elsewhere presented in the Bible."*

In other words, since some descriptions of God do not "line up with Jesus", those revelations must be false and not confused with the overarching theme of God as seen in Jesus, who by the way, is God. It just doesn't make sense. Instead of letting God decide what a "Christian image" of God looks like, McLaren incorporates a similar approach to Scripture in order to create a view of God that is based on certain texts and not based on others. The decision to accept some and reject others is simply based on the notion that an accepting God is superior and "better" than a God who acts in ways that confound our human hearts and minds. By utilizing this method of interpretation, we are right back to the philosophy of Thomas Jefferson and others. We might as well rip out certain books and texts if they don't come across as "Christian" to us. Or, I suppose the easier way is just to call those portions of Scripture errant.

There is still plenty that the CBF and the SBC can agree on. We can combine our efforts in some ways for the sake of those who are suffering and we should. But it is also important to understand why there are differences and why it isn't necessarily possible or even healthy for us to just be one big happy family. Biblical authority continues to be a dividing line between conservatives and moderates and with all that is at stake in the differences, it will not be mended anytime soon.

*McLaren, A New Kind of Christianity, 98.