My Trip Report from Next: Part 2, and Pray for Sovereign Grace.

On Day 3 of the Next Conference, I attended a breakout session with Dr. Vern Poythress (Science and Faith) and a vocational breakout with Tom Fluharty (Arts). One of Dr. Poythress's first statements struck me: God has not revealed Himself in spite of scientific discovery, but through it. In college I took 6 classes in astronomy, almost a full minor. Even though I had not yet started listening to sermon podcasts at the time, I saw my study of that subject as something of an act of worship because it allowed me to use my mind to understand more of God's creation and the vastness of its scale. Astronomy allows a better appreciation for some of the attributes of God. When a biologist or chemist studies a cell or a molecule under a microscope, he feels "big" and possibly somehow deserving of favor from God. Astronomy turns my mind in the opposite direction. When I watch Powers of Ten, I feel incredibly small, as I stare at something far more vast than the Grand Canyon. And God created the sun, moon, and stars with His voice in one day's work! Even if that were the absolute limit of God's power, the most powerful person on Earth could never do that. And that is why the rich businessmen and kings of the earth who do not know Christ will melt before the Lord on judgment day - because they do not really have any power, and they will stand before the sovereign Lord of all.

I also delighted in God, to hear Dr. Poythress explain about the "sameness of law" and how the laws God set to govern nature give us one coherent universe and show that it all has one Creator. The universe was not fashioned by God and His friends, or by rival gods who fought to establish each of their own interests in the created order. Overall, Dr. Poythress's session was fascinating. Rather than restating the rest of his points, I encourage you to download it from the Next conference's website! After that session, I did a short workout to more gospel rap: Dillon Chase's Pause mixtape, including his "Here in Your Presence Remix" and "How He Loves Remix".

I decided on a whim to attend the vocational breakout concerning the arts. Although I am not an artist, I have a casual interest in digital photography and frequently take my camera on hikes. Several young ladies who attended the young adults' camp with my church the previous weekend are artists, so I attended this session partially to understand more of where they are coming from and what challenges they face as Christian artists.

Tom Fluharty is a very talented caricature artist who has done a great deal of hilarious work for a wide range of publications. I was surprised to find how much he and I have in common spiritually in spite of our widely different vocations. He got the job that he wanted but was not ultimately happy with it. After college, I spent nine months applying for positions before I got my foot in the door with a company. Several years later, I have realized that work is a good thing because it keeps me busy, but it is not my ultimate source of satisfaction. I must look only to Christ for that. In this world, the metaphorical "ground" that I work on is cursed and often frustrates me, leading me into grumbling, sometimes profanity, and being difficult with people. That doesn't make work a bad thing. But since my work causes me to sin, does that mean I should find a new line of work? I am still wrestling with that. The work itself doesn't make me sin; my own heart does. Artists often have to choose between often more lucrative opportunities to make art that glorifies sin and chances to make art that is not morally objectionable. But Christians in all professions need to choose their jobs based on whether they are convinced that the work will allow them to make much of God in both their vocations and the rest of their lives. By God's providence, enough jobs exist that most Christian workers can make a choice between jobs that will give them enough time for family and ministry and jobs that will not.

Like me, Tom got to a point where he saw that God is truly his satisfaction and spending time with Him stopped being a legalistic exercise. Children are often raised in some measure of church ritual. And it is good to have that, but all that it can do is show them where the right path is. God must change their desires to see devotions as anything other than 15 minutes or half an hour in the morning that gets in the way of games, friends, or sports. I have had several seasons in life where I have had just an intense desire to be with Jesus. Even now, I like to fast and hit the trail for a full day with nothing but a Bible, a camera, and of course Gatorade (it gets pretty hot here in America in the summer :-) ), just so that I can be alone with Him.

Tom also suggested that young artists contact and follow their heroes in art. In my profession, I have taken that idea away in the form of reading books and blogs by many people who I deeply respect in my field. For most of the year, one-on-one mentorship had been my only source of professional development. Since the conference, I have tried to spend more time taking in the view from the giants' shoulders. As a Christian, I should not give my whole life to my craft. There needs to be time for family, ministry, exercise, godly fellowship, and time alone with God. But many of those who have given their lives to their craft have shared their wisdom because they have earned the platform for influencing their entire field. Taking their advice allows me to work more productively with an eye toward pleasing God, whether my manager is watching or not.

Dr. R.C. Sproul spoke in the fourth general session about the sanctity of God's truth in a world that, by nature, despises it. I found his statement that there are no moral relativists very interesting. I have not heard many people praise moral relativism since I graduated from college, although that philosophy probably still dominates many college campuses. But, as Dr. Sproul said, if there is a Mack truck in an intersection, you believe there isn't one, and you attempt to cross the street, "It will be the end of your relativism at the same time as the end of your life." Brilliant!

Shane & Shane led worship in that night's general session and gave a concert after the session. I was very blessed by their music, which focuses very much on putting Scripture to song. In general, the bands at this concert (the others were Reilly and Generation Letter) gave me some hope for Christian rock. Most of the Christian rock I had heard before was silly or doctrinally bankrupt. So for years, I only listened to secular music, and several years ago, some friends introduced me to gospel rap. But don't write off Christian rock; just know where to look for musicians that who focus on the glory of God, not on having a good time.

The conference ended on its strongest note with Pastor Kevin DeYoung's general session, "Who Am I? Humanity in the Eyes of the World and the Christian". After many American churches tackled man's purpose throughout the late 1990s and 2000s, influenced heavily by The Purpose-Driven Life, I have seen some shift their focus toward the believer's identity. My church's youth ministry has been covering it this year, and Eric Mason has been preaching a sermon series at Epiphany Fellowship about it. I've also spent more than a year writing about it, in my most ambitious project for this blog so far. And I love the doctrine of imago Dei, which Tedashii covered so well in Identity Crisis. So I was thrilled to find out Pastor DeYoung would give his treatment of the topic at Next this year.

Among other points, Pastor DeYoung focused on Biblical manhood and womanhood and God's design for gender. God does not free us to create or express ourselves, but to bear His image in the world. The distinct gender roles God gave Adam and Eve predate the Fall, so complementarianism actually gives Christians a means of restoring the beauty of God's original creation. What struck me the most from this discussion was that twisting gender roles actually hurts women more than it hurts men. His example was abortion, which turns women into both the victim and the bad guy. Another example that I recall from one of Pastor Voddie Baucham's messages is that expecting women to have careers outside the home forces them to bear the curse of Adam (the curse on work) when they already bear the curse of Eve (pain in childbirth); giving the curse of Eve to a man is a biological impossibility.

Following up on a point from his breakout session, Pastor DeYoung mentioned the shift of words in describing sin, from spiritual and volitional words to medical and unavoidable ones. A common example of this in the world is any sort of addiction. In my previous church, many of the men mentioned their various addictions in small groups, and the answers that they were given did not always involve replacing their desires for sin with a genuine desire for God. I called it "sin management" and told my professing "brothers" that idolatry was really at the root of their problem. I don't believe in "addictions", only sins. Reducing sin to a "disorder", as Pastor DeYoung said, makes the world a more dangerous place, because taking away the words that describe evil as evil does not take away their realities.

In closing, Next was an amazing conference this year. Much thanks to everyone who worked to put this on. Each session taught me a great deal, and it was a great blessing to worship the Lord around many other people who love Him with a great deal of passion and have a great appetite for more of His truth. Please, please, please pray for Sovereign Grace Ministries, who organize Next, Together for the Gospel, WorshipGod, and other conferences. I am not a member of a Sovereign Grace church, but they have been a great blessing to me and many others. For reasons that many articles and blogs have described, CJ Mahaney has gone on indefinite leave as their president and Joshua Harris has stepped down from their board of directors. Their church network appears to be in a state of disorder right now, and whether you consider denominations or church networks a good thing or not, please put that aside and consider that these men are much more faithful to Scripture than many other influential pastors and teachers and that they collaborate not to give a new definition of Christianity, but a new demonstration of it.

For every Next there are thousands of rallies, conferences, convergences, and Joel Osteen speeches to sold-out stadiums that glorify false teaching and give millions of people a false view of who God is and what His Word teaches. Few groups that seek to practice true Biblical Christianity have the size or resources to gather thousands of people together to celebrate and learn about the true gospel. May this trial bring my brothers and sisters in Sovereign Grace Ministries, including the many who have left SGM and are coming out of the woodwork now to scream against it, to a higher degree of unity in Christ while not causing them to compromise to the world in what they teach. And may the men involved be restored in their fellowship with one another as well.

Lessons Learned from My International Courtship, Part 1

As I mentioned in the previous post, I have been putting together a list of 25 things I have learned during and after my international courtship. Here is the first part of that list:

1. Distance is not a bad thing in a relationship, as long as you maintain clear and regular lines of communication. If anything, distance can actually help because the relationship becomes based on words. It also helps maintain a higher standard of physical purity and takes away temptations to fall in that area. However, emotional temptations still exist and probably become stronger.

2. Trust between two partners in a long-distance courtship is critically important. A great deal of doubts and suspicion arise when you cannot trust the other person to stay committed in a courtship. For about 8 months, I never smiled with interest at another woman, lest I betray my trust to her. She and I were in a stalemate because I would not tell her that I loved her until she showed commitment to me, and she would not give me her commitment or her love until I told her that I loved her. So she allowed other young men to stay in the picture, although her only other suitor was an unbeliever. Ultimately, I did not tell her that I loved her (although I definitely did!) because our doctrinal differences would have left her unwilling to stay involved in my church and my first loyalty is to God, not to a woman. (To clarify, if I were married, I would not divorce my wife if she turned out to embrace false doctrine or be a false believer. Scripture forbids that. But this was a courtship.)

3. Do not use theology to manipulate a courtship partner. For most of this courtship, I gave her the benefit of the doubt because I had access to great theological resources and she did not. So in effect, I was using the courtship as a means to teach her sound doctrine. After a while, she felt like she had to earn my love. Men, you have to know what you believe and what she believes before the courtship begins. Do not bait her with, "If you will suddenly stop being an Arminian and believe the 5 solas and the 5 points, you can have a courtship with me" or "As soon as you say, 'I am a Calvidispiebaptogelical' or 'I am a hedonist. I seek my pleasure ... / not in wealth, no, He's my treasure!', I will have a rock for your finger!" (If you live on a gravel road, rocks are cheap. ;-) )

4. Know when to walk away. I spent a significant amount of time in prayer about her and fasted for probably a total of a week and a half to two weeks, spread over the whole courtship period. During the last month of the courtship, I realized that I already knew what was pleasing to God and was using fasting to try to manipulate Him. I really just needed to obey Him in faith.

5. "They are somehow our brothers, man." - Sho Baraka. Some people who subscribe to false teaching are merely trapped there and will accept the true Word of God when it is shared with them. However, to keep listening to false teachers, they refuse to discern. We cannot say that everyone who does not reject the teaching of a heretic is unconverted. Many people who accept false teaching bear more good fruit for the Lord than I do. Their communion with God is more uninterrupted; they are better at loving the brethren; they are more willing to serve. If I do not love them back, that reflects a problem with my heart, not with theirs.

6. Don't expect someone from an egalitarian background to suddenly become a complementarian because of love. I said in the previous post that her father is a pastor. Her mother is also a pastor and regularly preaches in their church's service on Sundays. To any Reformed Baptist, this is a red flag. Scripture does not permit women to teach or have authority over men in the church. Many people have said this instruction from the Apostle Paul merely applies to the culture of New Testament times, when he did his ministry. I would counter with this: if a church permits women to preach, that is often indicative of more important compromises in doctrine. Here, there were many. I never mentioned the issue of women preaching to her or her family, not wanting to start a fight over a side issue, but I kept this in the back of my mind. People put up a false front to get other people to love them.

7. Doctrinal differences that can be smoothed over between friends become magnified a thousand fold in a courtship, engagement, or marriage. Biblical manhood and womanhood is one very significant area for couples. She had never heard those terms or was unfamiliar with them, so I tried to explain to her what they meant. I showed her from Scripture that it is good for a married woman to be busy at home and have her heart at home, not in the workplace; to work only out of necessity and not define herself by her job. And I told her that my goal in working and planning my future is not to be rich, but to still give her no financial reason to need to work outside the home. Although she was possibly telling me this from a short-sighted point of view, she told me she wanted to always work and admitted to me that she is a workaholic before her long hours started. After the long hours started, she mostly only wanted to discuss her job and did not want to talk about God with me. That was when I truly realized that our visions do not line up. Having a common vision for the family based on a common understanding of Biblical manhood and womanhood resolves many conflicts.

8. I became deeply aware of the global theological famine and, in particular, its effects on Christians in the Third World. Desiring God International Outreach uses the term "global theological famine" to describe the inability of Christians outside the Western world to access theological resources that help establish them in sound doctrine. Even Christians who have access to a complete Bible do not always know how to read it in a profitable way that shows them the truth. They cannot learn the historical and cultural context of the Word. As a result, many of them do not realize that Jeremiah 29:11 was not written to them, claim it as their favorite verse, and believe that God has promised by it to get them out of poverty. And then when they have spent the whole rest of their lives in poverty, their faith is crushed.