Fuel for Discernment

Here's a nifty title: Shot Glass Evangelism

I bet some of you are thinking "Sweet!" and probably some of you are thinking "That's terrible!" I guess it depends on whether you're a presbyterian or southern baptist huh? That is a title of a blog post from a website that "...is a non-interactive newsand comment site regarding the state of the contemporary evangelical church." In otherwords it is basically a discernment site. And if I did not state this in my last post let me state it now; discernment is a great thing. Indeed, it is a necessity in the battle we face everyday. But done with wrong motives and without love it is just as sinful as getting drunk using those shot glasses to shoot your favorite liquor.
The story of that church is found here. If you were to read this short article and look closely at what is going on and why this discernment site chose to write about it you will see what mainly fuels these discernment ministries: contextualization. Tim Keller gives a terrific definition of contextualization. He says, “Contextualization is not giving people what they want. It’s giving them God’s answers which they may not want to questions they are asking in forms and language they can comprehend.”
So these discernment ministries are basically calling out ministers or ministries they feel are changing the Gospel in order to grow a large church or have a large following. And I think that is great they see through some of this and have a desire to spread the news. I just wish we could all model the grace and love of Jesus more when dealing with error. However, having said that and agreeing that passing out shot glasses to bar patrons to increase your church attendance or "impress people" is downright ridiculous, at least these guys were out among the people. Mark Driscoll spoke at a session at one of Piper's national conferences on this very issue. He basically said that if we do not contend for sound Biblical doctrine then when we contextualize we will go wrong and fall into heresy "certainly having new kinds of Chrstians...nonChristians." We will start to do things just because they seem to work while ignoring the eternal implications of some of these strategies and methods.
The above article about that church is a perfect example. The pastor of that church said his goal in passing out the shot glasses was to impress people that do not go to church. Please show me where the Bible commands or suggests we impress people. Please show me where we are to care more about the quantity of souls sitting in our churches rather than their eternal destinies. Let us love people more by caring more about their souls than where their butt is sitting on Sunday morning. And let us go and contextualize and make known the love of Jesus.

Discernment

What is this? Well the definition from m-w.com is 1 : the quality of being able to grasp and comprehend what is obscure : skill in discerning And the definition for discerning is showing insight and understanding. So I guess a discernment ministry would be one that is able to grasp and understand with insight things that are Biblical. Or nonbiblical?
After reading this post from Between Two Worlds I began to think about one of the issues he raised and another issue that really fuels the whole "discernment (for lack of a better word) movement." The one issue he raised that I want to comment on is the mean spirit or feel from some of these ministries. I only read one of these discerning blogs with any regularity, and a couple more on rare occasions if I see something interesting. From the first time I visited these blogs to this day I can honestly say that I have never read any post that I could describe as grace filled words. Sure there are posts on these blogs that point to church leaders past and things they have said or hymns written that are great reminders and motivators. But never have I seen a story or post that pointed to a church or ministry that was doing what they thought was Biblical with encouragement or praise to God. Please do not read between the lines here or try to find the hidden meaning in my last few statements. I am not saying that these ministries are not loving. I am not saying that they are spiritually oppressed by a demon of meanness either. I am simply stating that the impression I get when I visit the only discerning sites I have visited is that there is a tone about the words that is not indicative of grace.
In the post linked above from Between Two Worlds Challies said this, "So while I appreciate that there are many bloggers and webmasters and others out there who are interested in guarding the church and who value being able to see in the black and white terms so necessary for biblical discernment, I believe we have not properly done our task of discernment until we have spoken the truth in love." The reason I am even posting on this is because by nature I'm very critical. And I also love to be right. So when I can point my big bad righteous finger at some of the big names of Christendom then it makes me feel better about being me. It makes me feel like I have some insight some nugget of truth that God especially chose to reveal to me and not them. I know it is wrong. I know it is sinful. And God has really worked in me in this area. Granted I need infinitely more work. But that is why I appreciate Challies' quote here to remember love and remember grace. And the best way to do this is to remember Jesus and the cross.
Later, I will look at what I mentioned earlier, the issue that really fuels discernment ministries.