Here’s the deal; between work, life, & ministries, we have to put The Modern Post on hold indefinitely.

But, you can still keep up with us individually.

Ralph is a graphic designer, and is training to be a pastor and on the Uganda team at Rockharbor Church.

Dustin is a singer by trade, as well as leads worship and the college group at his church.

Nick is on the Media & Communications team at Mars Hill Church in Seattle. He is also a deacon and leads a community group.

We hope our posts have pointed you to Jesus. We look forward to picking this up again when the time is right.

Gratefully,

TMP

There is an important but rarely-highlighted aspect of what we do at Mars Hill Church; worship music. Most people are familiar with Mark Driscoll’s heavy, engaging, and theological preaching but what they don’t usually get to see from outside our walls is how the preaching is complemented with worship music that reflects those same aspects. Since working here, I’ve loved observing how the bands write songs and arrange sets for Sundays that are theologically unified, stylistically diverse, musically excellent, and God-centered.

The video above is “Jesus Paid It All” from our Good Friday service.

(posted by Nick)

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In the last few years many people within the faith have critiqued Christianity - more in particular evangelicalism - for being more about ‘what they are against than what they are for’. There is some truth in that. It is always dangerous when a political party, social activism, or a cause becomes more important than the Gospel.

But at the same time, we do have to draw some lines in the sand. It’s not enough to be for ‘love’ without defining what we mean by that. It’s not enough to be for ‘community’ without defining what we mean by that. Sadly, in some cases it’s not enough to be for Jesus without defining what we mean by that. I came across these thoughts from Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones’ What is an Evangelical, written in the middle of the last century.

One of the first signs that a man is ceasing to be truly evangelical is that he ceases to be concerned about negatives, and keeps saying, We must always be positive. I will give you a striking example of this in a man whose name is familiar to most of you, and some of whose books you have read. This is what he has written recently: `Whether a person is an evangelical is to be settled by reference to how he stands with respect to six points’, which he then enumerates. His definition is by reference only to what a person is for rather than to what he is against. He goes on: `What a man is, or is not, against may show him to be a muddled or negligent or inconsistent evangelical, but you may not deny his right to call himself an evangelical while he maintains these principles as the basis of his Christian position.’

Now that is the kind of statement which I would strongly contend against. I believe it is quite wrong. The argument which says that you must always be positive, that you must not define the man in terms of what he is against, as well as what he is for, misses the subtlety of the danger.

What do you think; is it enough to positively state what we are for?

(posted by NDMB)

What is our alternative? Ignorance? Falsehood? Josh Harris with a creative trailer for his upcoming book, Dug Down Deep.

Matt Chandler on making the Gospel explicit, not assumed. Please excuse the hyper-color background that Southeastern Seminary chose.

(via Justin Taylor)

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4. The growing cultural remoteness of the gospel. The basic concepts of the gospel — sin, guilt and accountability before God, the sacrifice of the cross, human nature, afterlife — are becoming culturally strange in the west for the first time in 1500 years. As Lesslie Newbigin has written, it is time now to ‘think like a missionary’—to formulate ways of communicating the gospel that both confront and engage our increasingly non-Christian western culture.

How do we make the gospel culturally accessible without compromising it? How can we communicate it and live it in a way that is comprehensible to people who lack the basic ‘mental furniture’ to even understand the essential truths of the Bible?

Here is part one of my Resurgence interview with Dr. Michael Horton from Westminster Seminary in California. Dr. Horton is one of the hosts of The White Horse Inn and the author of several books; most recently Christless Christianity and The Gospel-Driven Life.

Last week the PEW Forum released a study on religion among the Millenials (those aged 18-29). Here are some of the findings.

• 52% of Evangelicals ages 18-29 believe there is more than one way to heaven.
• 79% of Mainline Protestants ages 18-29 believe there is more than one way to heaven.
• 43% of Evangelicals ages 18-29 believe Christianity is the only way to heaven.
• 18% of Mainline Protestants ages 18-29 Christianity is the only way to heaven.
• 86% of Evangelicals ages 18-29 are absolutely certain in their belief in God.
• 70% of Mainline Protestants ages 18-29 are absolutely certain in their belief in God.
• 85% of Evangelicals ages 18-29 believe in hell, while 89% believe in heaven.
• 70% of Mainline Protestants ages 18-29 believe in hell, while 85% believe in heaven.

While 86% of of young evangelicals are certain in their belief in God, more than half believe that people can go to heaven without Jesus.

The results also show that Millenials are more apt to believe in heaven than hell.

The Root

A couple things that we can say about these findings are that we see a continued decline in orthodox Christian belief that is more than likely the effect of our culture’s pluralism and moralistic therapeutic deism (as diagnosed by Christian Smith from Notre Dame). Here are the traits he associates with that worldview.

• A God exists who created and orders the world and watches over human life on earth.
• God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and most world religions.
• The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about one-self.
• God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when he is needed to resolve a problem.
• Good people go to heaven when they die.

Less Compelling Than Flattery

“It is one of the defining marks of Our Time that God is now weightless. I do not mean by this that he is ethereal but rather that he has become unimportant. He rests upon the world so inconsequentially as not to be noticeable. He has lost his saliency for human life. Those who assure the pollsters of their belief in God’s existence may nonetheless consider him less interesting than television, his commands less authoritative than their appetites for affluence and influence, his judgment no more awe-inspiring than the evening news, and his truth less compelling than the advertisers’ sweet fog of flattery and lies. That is weightlessness.”

–David F. Wells, God in the Wasteland (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 88.

Not only are those who don’t know Jesus lost, it’s clear that a growing number within the church are lost as well.

(posted by NDMB)

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This is a brilliant article by Kevin DeYoung looking at what is becoming an increasingly popular way to talk about the Gospel. It is in response to a recent interview with Shane Claiborne in Esquire.

DeYoung observes that there is a pattern:

1. It usually starts with an apology.
2. Then there is an appeal to God as love.
3. Thirdly there is an invitation to join God on His mission in the world.
4. Finally there is ambivalence about eternity.

What are the problems with this? Read on to find out.

(posted by NB)