I was driving today, listening to conservative talk radio (because it’s as funny as Jon Stewart during the Bush years) and all the flailing and panicking and minor-key interludes that accompany advertisements for reseeding packets and buying gold.  Then, I turned off the radio, and looked over the tops of the brilliantly colored red and yellow leaves to notice a hawk flying high on a background of white, wispy clouds.

Despite what is clearly an attack on our way of life, and the worst economic meltdown of the century, and the rise of fascist dictatorships, and eminent inflation, and the end of life as we have known it, and the rolling over of the founding fathers in their graves (according to the show I had just turned off), it was strangely peaceful.

Almost as if God is not worried.

Almost as if the designer of the beautiful leaves and amazing blue sky didn’t stop painting and creating long enough to fret about his kids worrying and thinking he’d left the throne.

God is so worried that he started painting.  Maybe we should take that hint.  We Christians ought to be so vexed and perplexed that we start singing.  The tomb is empty.

John 21:15

“Do you love me more than these?  These what?  Oh, these 153 fish that I just caught?  I sure do, Jesus.  I’d gladly give up fishing—my very livelihood—if it meant being with you.”

How quickly Peter answered.

Jesus is asking me lately whether I love him more than financial security, or even providing for my family.  He’s not, I think, asking me to forgo money (just as he wasn’t telling Peter to never fish again).  He’s simply asking what I trust in more.  At the end of the day, when all seems lost and I want to crawl in a hole, what do I trust more?  Who do I love more?

This is a quote that rocked me to the core last week.  It’s something Tim Keller references in his study Gospel Christianity 101 (which you should immediately purchase, read, and use as the curriculum at your small group)  He quoted Richard Hays from his book The Moral Vision of The New Testament:

God’s… invasion of the world has wrought an inversion: God has reversed the positions of insiders and outsiders.  Those who are in positions of authority and privilege reject Jesus and the message.  However, people of low or despised position in the social world of first-century Jewish culture receive the gospel gladly, for their need is great… Those familiar with the story should not  under-estimate the shock of this inversion.

It’s a great quote.  It’s not something terribly new to me, but what rocked me this time as I was reading it is the harsh realization that in my church, in my ministry, and in my life I consistently become an insider.  In fact, at times it is my primary goal. I get a new teaching, or a new way of doing things, and I make and “inside” and an “outside.”  I’m always an insider, scratching and clawing my way to be recognized, applauded, and accepted by the other “insiders.”

The gospel alone forces me to admit being an outsider.  But once I am out in the cold, with no way of saving myself, that same gospel shows me (and in some mysterious way gives me) a righteousness that is unshakable.

May God continue to push us out into the cold, lest we believe the compelling lie that there’s something we did (or can do) to save ourselves.

I love it because you don’t have to wear a mask.  I mean, I still do… I just don’t have to.  I see the pastors every week taking off their masks and allowing us to glimpse how the gospel is changing them.  Someday, I’ll take mine off, too.

My church isn’t perfect.  But the one to whom she is betrothed is.  I’m so thankful it’s HIM that the pastors and worship leaders strive to take me to each week.

Ever watched your team win the championship when you are the only one in the room who cares?  I have.  It was 2005, and UNC was playing Illinois.  I lived in Middle Tennessee, and had to suffer through Kentucky basketball games anytime there was a Raycom conflict that season.

The day of the championship game I had two bible studies scheduled.  So I had the guys from both of them over to my place, we brought in a projector, and watched the game projected on a wall in my house.  Everyone in the room watched the game, but they were far more interested in watching me watch the game.

There was something about winning it all that was less satisfying than I had imagined.  Part of the joy of celebrating is celebrating with others.  I jumped up and down and even ran down my street waving a Tar Heel flag, but it still wasn’t the same.

That’s what the third and final word in our organizational DNA is all about.  “Send.”  We want to send students and faculty around the world to gather up more people to celebrate with them, not because it is some sinister plot to take over the world, but because we’ve found something we enjoy, and we want others to enjoy it alongside us.

Sending should be something that, if we’ve properly built into the students, happens naturally.  Once a student gets the taste in their mouth of God using them, it’s tough to get it out.  That’s what propelled me literally around the world to tell others about Christ.  I found something worth celebrating, namely that Jesus had paid for all of my sin, and wanted others to find the same reason to party.

The thing that differentiates this missions model from others is that it’s really messy.  We will send a junior in college, with no formal seminary education, to a remote city in Asia to share with others about Christ.  Does it always end well? Absolutely not.  As I mentioned in yesterday’s post on building, we focus on one or two things, and do them well.  We would rather take steps of faith and have to go behind students and clean up the mess than to always play it safe.  And we believe in a sovereign God.

What I have seen in my 7 years of campus ministry is that students are far more effective at reaching students than I am, no matter how trained or untrained they are.  My job is to find Johnny Freshman and build into him in such a way as to give him the vision to reach his classmates.  That transition normally doesn’t take place until at least his fourth semester.  But once it does, I get to watch as a person with far more “street cred” than I reaches out to his peers.

My favorite thing in the world (after Jesus’ life and my wife’s smile) is seeing students catch on, and make the turn from being a consumer in their faith to being an active participant in the Great Commission.

Like having a Heel-by-marriage wife to celebrate another Carolina championship 4 years later, Jesus wants us to enjoy him, and call others into that enjoyment.

Utilizing my extensive training in the world of Lego blocks, I’d have to assume that a building is only as good as it’s foundation.  So, looking at the second word in our organizational DNA, “build,” ought to give us insight not only into the methods, but the underlying premises of what our organization truly is concerned with.  How exciting.

Most missions organizations, from my perspective, put the thrust of “every tribe, tongue, nation” type verses primarily on the “going” or the “reaching.”  And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.  But the job of the great commission (Matthew 28:18-20, which I would say is the banner verse under which Campus Crusade exists) is to “make disciples,” not just converts.  In fact, with thanks to my friend Donny and my Logos Bible software (which, by the way, I need to take a course to learn how to fully utilize), I took some time this morning to study the original language of the verses in question, and as best I can tell the act of “going” in assumed, not the main thrust of the verse.  The act of “disciple-making” seems to be the main verb.  That’s not readily apparent in our English translations of verse 19.

So the reaching (see my discussion of “Win” yesterday) is a necessary component of the greater goal of our ministry, and that’s the building (“…make disciples…”) and eventually sending (“…of all nations”).  We want for students and faculty to not only come to know Christ, but to become “disciples,” which is a truly rich word.  We want to teach them the things they need to know to grow and to really experience the gospel over and over.

Recently I have been very encouraged by the  division of CCC called Centerfield Productions, as they have been putting out some great resources that are helpful in not only effectively building students, but doing so in a way that is transferable.  We desire to give students content in such a way that they can turn around (without hours of training and studying) and give that content to another student.  This produces movements that are not leader-heavy, and leaders that don’t erroneously see themselves as integral to the movement, but as stewards of God’s movement.  For more study on how we think this idea of transferability is biblical, check out 2 Timothy 2:2 and note how many generations there are from Paul (the writer) to “others.”

One of the criticisms I’ve heard of Campus Crusade is that we oversimplify tough doctrines (Like the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, for example).  I’d like to offer a defense and explanation, again from my perspective as a staff member.  (This is by no means CCC’s official stance on anything.)  We have razor-sharp focus on one or two doctrines, namely the proclamation of the gospel and an intro into walking in the power of the Holy Spirit.  By focusing in on teaching folks that the Holy Spirit is the power source for the Christian life, we are able to agree with both sides of the potentially divisive charismatic issue and yet not, in my opinion, dishonor the Holy Spirit.  Is our doctrine exhaustive or complete in this area?  No, and it never was intended to be.  If we claimed it were all there is to know about the Holy Spirit, then there’d be a problem.

We are missionaries on the college campus.  I see one of my primary goals as plugging students into the visible body of Christ, namely the local church.  I give them the basics, and then train them to share those basics with others.  I am squarely concerned with training.  I want for students to learn how to share their faith in a way that is not street preaching with offensive, out-of-touch signs.  When I’ve effectively built students, that’s one of the primary markers for me.

But to simply build them involves (and finds it’s completion in) sending them to repeat the process.  More on that tomorrow.

The first of the three words in our organizational DNA?

Win.

Of the three, this is the word whose usage is the most antiquated.  But keep in mind that CCC started long before political correctness.

When we say we are trying to win students and faculty to Christ, we don’t mean it to sound like they are a game that we are playing, or that we want to do something to them without their consent.  We want to give individuals the opportunity to hear and respond to a message.  But we’re convinced that the message is so astounding (and so supernaturally backed) that the hearers can be (and are) changed on a fundamental level by hearing and responding.  We believe that because we’ve experienced it.

So, one of the distinctives of Campus Crusade (that is reflected in our name) since the very beginning has been the unashamed, unwavering, bold proclamation of the gospel.  At times that has given us a bad reputation as tract people who are more concerned with numbers than with actually connecting with folks.  In my 11 year experience (both as student and staff) within this organization, that has turned out to be a near-totally fabricated accusation.  We are concerned with numbers, sure, but so were the writers of Scripture.  ( ____ people were fed with ____ loaves and ____ fish in Matthew 6:41… ____ people came to Christ after Peter preached in Acts 2:41…)  We want to know the numbers so that we can celebrate what God is doing!  But we are far more concerned that people experience the gospel than we are with a number.

Are there (or have there ever been) any staff members who are more concerned with numbers or getting people through a booklet?  Sure.  At times our zeal has outpaced our discretion.  Do we always have great, crystal-clear theology of evangelism organizationally? Nope.  The “I found it” campaign in the 70s immediately comes to mind. There are two sides to err on, the side of over-enthusiasm and the side of smug theological arrogance and nit-picking (curiously also often leading to a lack of passion and action).  We’ve almost exclusively erred on the side of enthusiasm.  But that enthusiasm is under-girded and driven by a single, unshakably biblical conviction: God wants to use people to save other people.

I will firmly stand behind the current local, regional and national leadership and say that, to the best of my knowledge, their heart is to trust the Lord to change the hearts of students and faculty on the college campus.  And that’s something I want to be a part of as well, for the good and benefit of those faculty and students.

But as we read Matthew 28:18-20, we find Jesus commanding us to make more than converts.  He wants us to make “disciples.”  Tune in tomorrow for how we are seeing that take place, as we look at “build.”

When Dr. Bill Bright founded Campus Crusade for Christ in 1951, his vision was to “reach the campus today, reach the world tomorrow.”  That vision worked itself out through an organizational DNA we’ve come to refer to by the three words “Win, Build, Send.”  Over the next few days I am going to be sharing what I believe those words mean, and how God is in the midst of doing a great work in and through CCC.  It is my goal to “map out” the structure of that corporate DNA.

Tomorrow we’ll start with “Win.”  See you then!

It’s so easy to share even a message about Jesus and not share the message of Jesus.

Take Matthew 4:1-11 as an example.  It’s a fairly well known passage about Jesus being tempted in the wilderness by Satan.  Every single time I have ever talked or meditated on this passage I have made the action point something like, “and you, when you are tempted, can be like Jesus who answered the temptation with Scripture…” or some other vague encouragement to be a better person, like Jesus.  While that is partially true, in that scripture memory is important and beneficial, it totally misses the bigger point, and places the emphasis of an otherwise Ben-free passage on, well, me.

In fact, that’s a pagan point.  Pagans appease their god by doing enough good, and cleaning up their act, and memorizing enough mantras.

The bigger emphasis of this passage is that, as the writer of Hebrews says, we have a high priest who was tempted in every way just as we are, but didn’t cave.  Jesus fulfilled all of the law, even on the level of motive, so that sinners like me can have life.  In this passage Jesus is more than our example (because that would be an insurmountable load of pressure, now that we consider it), He’s our substitute.  Far from being a passage where I walk away feeling bad for not having memorized enough of the Bible, I am instead encouraged that Jesus memorized enough Bible, and followed all of it perfectly enough, to save me.

If you walk away from any sermon in any Christian church feeling like you need to work harder or do better in order to make God happy, you’ve either missed the point of the sermon, or the sermon was a pagan, non-gospel sermon.

The other night at the Derek Webb concert I had a blast. Very few artists can make me think like he can. His perspective on life is amazing.

I think my favorite song on his new album (which he plays ALL of at the show) is “The Spirit and the Kick Drum.” It is a resounding call to the church, all caught up in our sound and lights worship services, to remember that we are not the point. The three lines that stick out from the song, and form the frame onto which each verse is woven:

I don’t want the Spirit, I want a kick drum.

I don’t want the Son, I want a jury of peers.

don’t want the Father, I want a vending machine.

What is it that we want out of Christianity? Do we want God, so that he can give us something else, like health or money? Or do we see HIM as the blessing of the gospel?

How often, if I am honest, I look to what God is holding out in his hand to me, and miss the point that it is the sight of God’s hand at which I ought to marvel.

So, I got a guest post over at “Stuff Christians Like” which is the Christian-blogical equivalent of me suiting up and snagging Kobe’s starting spot. (or at least John Paxson’s spot on the ‘93 Bulls.  Who’s with me?)

With a guest post of such magnitude, I thought I’d take a second here on my blog to introduce myself, with the overt desire of persuading several dozen of you to become regular readers.

I’m Ben.  Not to be confused with Little Ben, who is far cuter.  Most of the stuff you experience on the blog was posted by me.  My beautiful wife Jacqueline (Jacq for short, but try to avoid “Jackie” if you would…) posts from time to time, and mostly works the pictures-of-the-little-guy angle.

Vocationally, we are hedonistic drug dealers.  Our drug of choice is grace (the unmerited, unearnable, irrevocable thumbs-up of the only One whose opinion matters), and we deal primarily on the college campus.  We got hooked on grace in college, and have been junkies and dealers simultaneously for the past 7 years (Ben) and 4 years (Jacq). We’re involved in a plot outlined in Matthew 28:18-20 to hook people from every nation, people and language on the good stuff.

Non-vocationally (hobby-ally?) put me down for a slab of graphic design with a side of total frustration when I try to make those designs into web pages.  My semi-ineptitude at CSS is illustrated in the fact that above you see my latest twitter update, but not my wife’s.  I’m working on it.  I love the creative process and really long to give my creativity a non-sucky outlet. Some of those outlets? Video production, photography, creative writing, and graphic design.  I’m still very much a rookie and formally untrained in all of the above.  I am slightly more-trained as a guitar player and worship leader, which also serves as a creative outlet.

To get to know us a bit better, here’s a list of posts I think you ought to check out:

My experience with rice cereal and the pinky.

My 25 things.

LB and the monster faces (video)

Why I do what I do.

LB and the blocks (video)

The tag cloud to my left (your right) is also a great way to find out more about a specific segment of the blog.  The bigger the word, the more I have to say about it.

I should warn you that if you poke around enough on this site, or stick around for more than a few minutes, I’m bound to challenge you to worship with your wallet.  Here’s a post clarifying that phenomenon.

Why do I blog?  Here’s the approximate motivational breakdown:

60.21% Keeping friends, family, ministry partners, and others up-to-date on our life, in the never ending quest for actual authenticity.

32.45% Creative expression outlet

7.34% Challenging folks in their view of God, money, and life.

(I’m also willing to include up to 10% extra in the event that you are a high school or collegiate football coach and require more than the standard 100%.)

So, I’m glad you stopped by.  Bookmark us, follow one or the other of us on twitter, subscribe to the RSS feed over there—>, and swing by again!  I’d also love it if in the comments below you’d share where you’re from.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go give Kobe his jersey back.

There are some drawbacks to being named after arguably the most bumble-headed thing (this is a family blog, and I try to keep cussing posts down to fewer than one per year, so bumble-headed is going to have to do) Christians have done since Peter lopped off an ear, sure.  But here’s how the conversation normally plays out for me.

Me: I work with Campus Crusade for Christ…

Joe Freshman: Can you use the word “crusade?” isn’t that like “jihad?”

Me: I know, I like to call it “vintage militant.”  We started back in the fifties, long before political correctness.  Also during that time, Billy Graham was known to go on “crusades” where people came to an arena to hear a message.  We were in essence extending those arena crusades to the college campus.  Our name is meant to differentiate us from a “fellowship” in that we make it a point to initiate conversations and interactions about the Bible.  We are about telling people (without the swords and burnings at the stake) that Jesus has changed our lives.

Joe Freshman: Oh, cool.  Have you played Madden ‘09?

See, to be honest, it’s not a stumbling block to people that are actually interested in spirituality, and talking about the gospel.  Its a stumbling block to the atheist message boards and the students and faculty who are not in any way interested in the gospel.  They are looking for a way to discount us without engaging us.  Frankly, I’m ok with that.  I am not interested in having a conversation with someone who has closed their mind to even the remote possibility of Jesus being who He said He was.

The charge that we should change our name to something else would be viable, if our movement of 50 years bore even a remote semblance to the crusades of 15th century Europe.  But anybody who has been around the local, regional, or national leadership of Campus Crusade can tell you that there’s just nothing in common, on the level of motive, to compare.  I’d much rather a person stay Muslim and dialogue with me than for me to force them to fake-repent.

And if we were to change our name to appeal to the fact that some antagonistic fringers don’t like it, then we become the ministry formerly known as Campus Crusade (no matter what we change our name to), and that won’t fit on my business card.  I say we stick with two things: the same name, and the same love for the campus, that makes charges of bigotry really tough to stick.  It’s tough to accuse a guy who is hugging you that he hates your guts, no matter how bumble-headed he is.

I’ve seen many of these types of bumper stickers and signs, lately.  And I agree, we should work toward peace, now.  But what these stickers and the sentiments behind them fail to take into account is that, essentially, all of the war-mongers out there are thinking the same thing.

“There would be peace, if everybody shared the same worldview, (mine.)”

So the ones who aggressively push for peace and the reconciliation of the different worldviews are doing the same thing as the radical fundamentalists.  Pushing their worldview (that no worldview is more correct than another and that all of us need to pursue coexistence above all else) on others.

One problem is that the peace-mongers have the elevator music of worldviews.  Take out anything that could be potentially offensive, and ignore the fact that only a very small minority of people like what you are left with.

The other (more fundamental) problem is that the peace-mongers have something to lose.  If people don’t reconcile, and come to their way of thinking, they have failed.  Their personal peace (especially in the primarily-agnostic worldview in which they live) is inextricably tied into the proliferation of their philosophy.

Jesus came with a worldview that, though unpopular, actually works toward bringing about real—no strings attached—peace.  His worldview?  That God is King (not president) of all kings, and that all of us have actively and passively rebelled against his kingdom and authority.  Instead of executing justice (something along the lines of a universal flood, minus the ark) he sent his Son, the second person of the eternal trinity, to substitute himself for the rebels, and take our penalty, by dying a gruesome death, and raising from the dead. As Christians we call the content of this paragraph the “gospel” or good news of what Jesus has done.

Now, instead of having to earn God’s favor (and therefore ultimate peace with Him), we are gifted it.  And therefore we no longer have to fight to be right, or to protect our cause (though many well-meaning “Christians” have fought and continue to—because they don’t understand the gospel I just shared above).  One of the things that marked early Christianity was the care for the poor, and not just the Christian poor, but all of the poor.  Pagan kings were flabbergasted that the Christians would even take care of the pagan poor and hungry.

Only in the gospel do we find a true reason to not be selfish (the beginning of peace).  In the gospel we see that we are the rebel, the outcast, who was brought into the family, by grace.  We have all the acceptance, hope, love, and joy that we’ll ever need—in Christ.  That means that we can truly work toward peace, with nothing in it for us.

I am stuck on the thought that what I witnessed yesterday over at Stuff Christians Like, though good, is not confession.  I did a quick perusal of the words translated as “confess” in our English Bibles (thanks to my Logos Bible Software, it took all of 5 minutes) and found out that Christian confession, from a biblical standpoint, is almost always viewed as positive, joyful, and beneficial.  What I also deduced is that “anonymous confession” is an impossible contradiction of terms, biblically.

See, though it may be therapeutic to give voice to the things you would never tell a soul as an anonymous comment on a blog, you have not yet confessed your sin.  You’re close, but you’re not there yet.

My heart broke as I read through the comments on that site, for the fact that we don’t understand the gospel if there is nobody in our lives with whom we can share the darkest parts of us.  There was a part of me that wanted to shout, “Is that all you’ve got?” after reading those “confessions.”

See, having walked with Christ for somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 years, I’ve begun to notice a pattern.  Every time I think “there’s nobody that struggles with this particular sin…” and then I share it with a group of guys, about half of them struggle in the same ways with the same things. And I am increasingly unsurprised by the depths to which my heart can go.  I think some of the most hateful things, on a very regular basis.  My heart resonated with many of the things I saw “confessed” in those comments.  But my heart also deeply resonates with the fact that Christ has freed me from myself.

The thing we need most, as ministers, is to resist the lie that says our people are not bad people.  There are two categories of people.  (1) Bad, crooked, depraved people in need of redemption; and (2) Jesus.

That’s not to say that God doesn’t give us a new heart with new motives and new direction, as He certainly does; just that we ought not to think that our old heart dies when our new one is born.

The other thing we need to take from the “confessions” is that people need the gospel.  Over and Over and Over.  Daily, hourly, minute-by-minute.  We all need to constantly remember the gospel, or good news that Jesus has become sin for us (even the ugliest sin we can think of) so that, in Him, we might become the righteousness of God (by GRACE).

My favorite word in 1 John 1:9 is “just.”  It doesn’t say God is “faithful and merciful” (which would make sense) but that he is faithful and JUST.  Because Christ died for all of my wickedness (some of which is ongoing), it is his justice that is satisfied by my confessing (joyfully, and without reservation) that wickedness.  He would be unjust to condemn me for something for which Christ already died.