Disc Golf as Ministry

One of the joys of my current position in ministry is that I get to go disc golfing (“frisbee golfing” to the terribly unsophisticated) with members of the youth group two or three times a week. I was first introduced to the sport about eight years ago through some members of my church. I would play every couple weeks in high school, the time pressures of college and dorm ministry relegated my faithful JK Champion Valkyrie driver to the furthest reaches of my closet.

During the last few months, frisbee golf has become the main point of contact between me and the members of the youth group outside of our church setting.

Disc golf is played much like “normal” golf, except by throwing frisbees instead of hitting golf balls. Specialty discs are made for frisbee golf, with thicker rims and heavier plastics to increase distance and resistance to wind. There’s a tee box that you throw off of, and a basket that you must throw your disc into (picture below). Professional players can consistently throw discs in excess of 500 feet. We’re not exactly professionals on the Cornerstone Youth Group Disc Golf Circuit. It has been a challenge to transition out of a discipleship-heavy, relationship-driven ministry as an RA at TMC to a position that is driven by teaching and finds me spending long hours behind a desk in a solitary office. And yet, I cannot believe that teaching and relationships cannot be blended together in a church environment. Which, is probably a better situation because the people doing the teaching are also doing the discipleship. My pastor’s sermons mean more because I see the life he lives in the words he speaks. It certainly is harder to get to know people when you don’t live next door to them, but difficulty isn’t supposed to stop the growth of the kingdom of God.

The more of a friend I become to the youth, the more they will hear what I have to teach on Wednesday nights. We rarely talk about anything spiritually-oriented during our disc golf games. There’s far more taunting over bad shots and laughter over the bizarre characters we meet and talk of music and Boy Scouts and pranks I pulled at Masters than anything. And that’s a beautiful thing. Because as we laugh at how the Grim Weeper tree on hole 10 ate my drive, I know that there’s more going on than just a frustrating disc golf shot. It isn’t a waste of my time to disc golf instead of write or read. Because the gospel exists inside of life, and is meant to be experienced in everything under the sun.

1 Thessalonians 2:8 says, “Having so fond an affection for you, we were well-pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us.” That really is the impetus for interpersonal ministry. It’s about the gospel and life, because the gospel is not a stagnant, intellectual belief but a controlling manner of life. Life and words serve to feed off of one another to increase the power of both. The more I see how those who teach me live, the more I pay attention to what they have to say. And the more I hear what they have to say, the more I’m confronted with who I ought to be.

Love

Genuine love will always compel action. There is no such thing as stagnant, vibrant love. For love to remain kindled hot and strong, it must actively honor its object. I cannot love Christ and live in contradiction to His commands. I cannot love other people and be indifferent towards them. The test of authenticity for love is to look at the sacrifices it compels.

John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.

1 John 4:9 By this the love of God was manifested, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.

1 John 5:3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensone.

Red Yellow Black White

I used to think that Martin Luther King Jr. Day was ridiculous, dismissing it as yet another display of white-guilt motivated “political correctness.” But the truth is that Martin Luther King Jr. provided leadership and a voice to a movement that desperately needed to happen. And before we minimize the importance and magnitude of what he did, let’s remember that somebody shot him for it.

We’re not a colorblind society. I don’t even think there can be such a thing as a colorblind society. To deny racial differences in an attempt at “equality” is to deny something that should be celebrated. True equality is found by understanding that differences are to be enjoyed, not feared or denigrated. The world would be a far less enjoyable place without the warm relational attitude of Latin America, the energetic celebrations of Africa, or the fiery strength of the Irish.

Martin Luther King Jr. certainly was no theological role model. He disbelieved that Jesus was God incarnate. He refused to accept the bodily resurrection. But we’ve never made theological perfection a requirement for men we admire. We can and should be thankful for men who accomplish great things even though they do not know God. George Washington was a rational humanist, General George Patton a profane man who thought he was a reincarnated Carthaginian general. But by common grace they did much to be celebrated.

Let’s quick to celebrate what Martin Luther King Jr. did. While racial harmony must never become our focus in this life, our focus must make racial harmony part of this life. As long as humanity exists short of the new heavens and new earth, tension will exist between those who look different from one another. I hope our love for God and His presence in our hearts will make us eager and passionate about fighting the ever-necessary battle against racial prejudice.

O Be Careful Little Fingers What You Text

When there are many [text messages], transgression is unavoidable,
But he who restrains his [fingers] is wise.

Proverbs 10:19 [edited]

The Severest Grace that Ever Was

Over the last three months, I’ve been working with a local artist to put the story of Christmas into an illustrated poetry book format. I’m excited to share the finished product with you here. May Christ be exalted and magnified for His birth, for His death, for His resurrection, and His coming renewal of all things.

Part One: The Town

Anticipation was the rule
In Nazareth for soon a jewel
A favored daughter would be wed
To Him whose ancestry thread
Wove round amongst the kings of old
The righteous Joseph, ever bold
To do the right and shun the wrong
Though poor, his moral compass strong
“A perfect pair” the women said
As wizened husbands nodded heads.

But soon the happiness was cast
Aside before the stormy blast
Of presumed infidelity
And then to cover up her free
And loosened living she would claim
Some wild tale that God became
A child. And stranger still that he
Condemned to live in cuckoldry
Would stand beside his fiancée
Expecting all of us to play
The fool with him. So mock and scorn
Them and the child to be born.

And so the favored couple went
From being loved to being bent
Upon the anvil of the town
Their reputations trampled down
Before all except the Lord.

Part Two: The King

Far
Away from Nazareth a jar
Containing royal scrolls was passed
From hand to hand until at last
The census words were handed down
To every city, village, town.
For Caesar hoped to know how great
His empire had become. Not late
Or early was his heart bestirred
For God would keep His holy Word
And overrule the heart of one
So powerful to move His Son
To Bethlehem where prophecy
Foretold the Child’s infancy
And so it was no accident
When Mary, Joseph rose and went
From all they’d ever seen and known
To Joseph’s old ancestral home

Behold the rising tide of cost
That Jesus had already tossed
Upon the tranquil lives of them
Whose faith compels their love for Him.
For comfort in this life was not
To be his parent’s earthly lot.

Part Three: The Wife

The Magi’s wife stared through the sand
That choked the empty road and planned
For yet another lonely meal
That night. Far away in Israel
Or somewhere in between he must
Under the ever-swirling dust
Be coming home. For two long years
Her ritual had been-with tears-
To gaze across the parting way
And then to pause and kneel and pray
To Daniel’s God. Within his book
Of prophecy were truths that took
Their hearts away from blocks of stone
And gave them to the King enthroned
On high. And as she prayed and poured
Her loneliness out to the LORD
A weary figure turned upon
The lane.

Her eyes shone like the dawn
But his were not as she recalled.
They spoke of joy and grief, appalled
By Herod’s great atrocity
But with the sight that Christ would be
Far great enough to take and splice
Eternal joy from sin and vice.
He held her close and told her of
The King who’d left His throne above,
Of angels, and of shepherds’ fright
Turned into faith by such a sight,
And of his own much longer quest
Through desert sands and mountain crests
To see the child.

The Magi turned
And softly asked: “One question’s burned
A path inside my heart and mind
These last two lonely years. I find
No room in my affections for
Doubt that what I’ve done is good
If forced to choose again I would
Still make that trip. Would you as well
Still choose to be alone and sell
Two years for me to see the Christ?
It is an awful, bitter price
For you to pay without reward.”

She smiled back: “You have adored
And worshipped God by traveling
With joy-filled heart to go and bring
Your gift to Him. But you mistake
To think that all He’s done is take
From me. Though God may part me from
The one I love its always done
for good.

And I would never trade
My closer sight of Him, though paid
in lengthy trials and distress.
I want, I want the Father’s best.”

Part Four: The Heart

We celebrate our Savior’s birth
Incarnate Deity on earth.
And Christ would later say He came
To save mankind and to proclaim
His love. But love that’s for our best!
The kind that shows us Him in tests.
When Christ would occupy a life
He causes peace and causes strife
For we would underestimate
The depths of our own sinful state
And so would cry when He brings pain
To purge the hidden faults that stain
The joy of the elect in Christ
For trials are His sweet device
To part us from our tiny view
Of Him to see His mercies new
And grander than before.

For years
Will pass to dry bewildered tears
And grace cries out within the gall
“Our joy in Christ is worth it all.”
For Christ remains in all He does
The severest grace that ever was.

Text: Copyright (c), Nate Brooks 2009

Illustrations: Copyright (c), Matthew Covington 2009

White Christmas Overload

Here are a couple of pictures from my Christmas with my family. I woke up one morning to a five-foot tall snowdrift on our porch. I shoveled more snow over a thirty-six hour period than I’d shoveled in my entire previous 23 1/2 years of life.

This is my brother’s 93 Toyota Corolla. Eventually we had to tow it out because it couldn’t get any traction on the ice that encased the wheels, even after we dug it out.

This is our across the street neighbor’s front porch. After finishing our own front porch, the Brooks men and others helped dig out his front door. The house next to his had no snow on the porch whatsoever.

What if We Talked Like Evangelical Scholars?

After reading The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment and Don’t Waste Your Life over the last couple of months, I wanted the next book I read have some scholarly and intellectual teeth to it. Unfortunately I picked up What Have They Done With Jesus? by Ben Witherington. This book was required reading for a class I audited (and hence didn’t have to read the book), so I really wanted to be favorable towards it.

I know next-to-nothing about Witherington’s theology or position in the evangelical world. In the book he comes across as thoroughly orthodox, with a slight liberal bent in regards to New Testament authorship (holding to the “First Witness” composition of Matthew, Markian Priority, and a rather unique position about the Gospel of John). The purpose of his book is to critically examine the bizarre world of alternate theories about Jesus and his relationships with his disciples. Witherington examines everything from the Gospel of Judas to The Da Vinci Code.

Despite some mildly beneficial content, I  put the book down after about 65 pages. It was an incredible waste of time. This book serves as a microcosm of the problems with current mainstream evangelical scholarship. I say mainstream because the church is blessed with many many God-glorifying, courageous men like DA Carson and David Wells who refuse to cheapen the truth for the sake of fake “intellectual humility.” And I say current because it hasn’t always been that higher learning and tepid writing go together. To quote:

“Very likely Isaiah 22:15-25 lies in the background…” (64)

“Probably, then, the keys are a symbol of Peter’s authority in general…” (64)

“Perhaps one could argue…” (64)

“Peter may have been one…” (65)

“This may explain…” (65)

“We should perhaps envision…” (66)

“It is, of course, possible to see…” (66)

“If the reference…” (66)

I began thinking, what would it look like if we talked in everyday life like we did in evangelical scholarship?

“After studying the mathematics, I am persuaded that the bridge most likely will be able to support your car as it travels across.”

“Hello ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for flying Southwest. Our destination will possibly be Phoenix today.”

“Thank you for paying with PayPal. The seller might send you your package.”

A referee: “That perhaps could have been a touchdown.”

Parent to child: “It’s possible that we love you.”

The gospel of Jesus Christ matters far more than a plane flight or a football game. It is of far more importance than banking statements and engineering. So why do we reserve unreserved assertions of truth for only things that don’t matter?

It’s sad to see the life-giving gospel muddied by pandering to the culture of trendy intellectual uncertainty. I claim to speak a message that brings reconciliation and redemption to the human heart. May God grant courage to speak it with all the force and clarity and compassion the Son of God slain for us deserves.

Charity and Missions

Contrast this, found on financial services site MintLife (HT: Tim Challies):

With this:

Missions is not only crucial for the life of the world. It is crucial for the life of the church. We will perish with our wealth if we do not pour ourselves out in ministries of mercy at home and missions among the unreached peoples. We are very wealthy in America. All the money needed to send and support an army of self-sacrificing, joy-spreading ambassadors is already in the church. But we are not giving it.

In 1916, Protestants were giving 2.9% of their incomes to their churches. In 1933, the depth of the Great Depression, it was 3.2%. In 1955, just after affluence began spreading through our culture, it was still 3.2%. By 2000, when Americans were over 450% richer, after taxes and inflation, than in the Great Depression, Protestants were giving 2.6% of their incomes to their churches. Moreover, “If members of historically Christian churches in the United States were giving an average of 10% in 2000, there would have been an additional $139 billion a year going through church channels.” Now add to that the really shocking fact that of the money given to the church, less than 6% goes to foreign missions and of that amount, about 1% goes to fund breakthroughs to unreached peoples. This is not to say we should pull back on any front. The point is, there is plenty for all the breakthroughs is we live to show that Christ is our Treasure.

–John Piper, Don’t Waste Your Life (pg. 172)

Thankful

I was playing frisbee golf with a few of our youth group members yesterday when I asked them a question: “What are you thankful for?” We as a culture (which means me as an individual) usually relegate thankfulness as something that only needs to be pondered on the fourth Thursday of every November. But it would seem that our utter inability to merit even life and breath would cause us to be overwhelmingly thankful. When life itself is a gift, how could I take anything for granted?

We as people are happiest when we are the most thankful, for thankfulness overwhelming selfishness is a clear testimony of the grace of God. It isn’t natural to be thankful. It isn’t normal to bow before God and confess helplessness and gratitude for and trust in His life-giving nature.

I’ve yet to see myself intentionally slide from the mountain top of thankfulness to the obscuring valley of selfish ingratitude. Rather, I wake up to realize that I no longer have the joy of an uncluttered view of who God is and what He has done for me. And I’m shocked by it. It’s as though I start walking down the path from the mountain top to the valley, feeling like I haven’t lost anything because I can still remember what the view from the peak looks like. And I’m not worried because, although I can’t actually see the landscape of grace, I can still picture what it looks like. Can still conjure up the awe that it evokes.

But then as time goes by and as I get further and further from the peak I can no longer remember what I need to remember. I can no longer feel what I know I need to feel. It saddens me most that I take most for granted the things that I love the most, starting with my Savior.

I don’t think that the ultimate solution is what I’m about to do. I don’t think that merely listing out things I’m thankful for is enough to keep me from becoming thankless. The heart is more deceptive than that. I need the sustaining grace of God. But I do know that usually I become thankless when I simply neglect being thankful. I want to be diligent in giving thanks. It’s really hard to pull your gaze away from something you’re thankful for.

Here are some things I’m thankful for, in no particular order or importance. And this list is in no way shape or form comprehensive!:

1) The Intentional Fellowship of Christians. I’m thankful for the people in my life who practice and talk about the “one anothers.” People who love and understand the value of authentic, heart-and-gospel-oriented conversation and actions. Much endurance comes from having such relationships.

2) Brent and Laura. I’m thankful for the way they have opened their home up to me. I’m thankful for the lessons I’m learning about what family life is really like from a parent’s perspective. They challenge me in diligence, drive, and purpose.

3) John Marc. I’m thankful for being able to learn what it means to be a faithful minister of the Word of God. He’s taught me much about the realities of ministry. It’s not flashy, it’s not hype-driven. It’s about faithfulness and confidence in the Holy Spirit. He’s taught me much about loving people for the sake of their gain in Christ. His reward in heaven is going to be very great.

4) Stars. I’m in an area where I can see stars again. It was funny taking astronomy in Los Angeles. Looking up at the night sky has a way of bringing perspective. To think that God created all of that, and billions of galaxies that I cannot see with the naked eye! It breaths out the awesomeness of God and the insignificance of man. And yet, that only reinforces the joy of His personal love for me.

5) Cornerstone Youth Group. I appreciate the youthfulness of the youth. I appreciate their eagerness and excitement in life, their drive to get maximum enjoyment out of everything. And I’m thankful for their thoughtfulness in youth group. They ask good questions, ponder important things. I’m thankful that they keep coming to hear the Word, over and above excitement.

6) My Mom, Dad, and Brother. I’m excited to go home for Christmas. There’s no reservations, no worry that it might be a stressful time, no fears that conflict might rip us apart. I know that’s not the case for the majority of people. So I don’t want to take for granted the joy of having a tight-knit, like-minded, Christ-loving family. My parents are wise, and my brother is one of my best friends. What more could you ask for?

7) Good music. I’m thankful for music that makes much of God like Shawn McDonald, Caedemon’s Call, David Crowder Band, Casting Crowns, Phil Wickham, Jeremy Camp. I’m thankful for music that is relaxing and helps me study like Sigur Ros, Secret Garden, Ulrich Schnauss. I’m thankful for music that is fun and thought-provoking like Switchfoot, Hillsong United, Matisyahu, Andy Hunter. And I’m thankful for all the countless hymnwriters who used their gifts to create music that has lasted for decades because of the truth that rings forth from their work. I’m especially thankful for the men and women who wrote Jesus Paid It All, Rock of Ages Cleft for Me, Amazing Grace, Great is Thy Faithfulness, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, God Moves in a Mysterious Way, Whate’er My God Ordains is Right, In Christ Alone, The Power of the Cross, How Deep the Father’s Love for Us, And Can It Be, It Is Well, and Hallelujah! What a Savior.

8 ) Doctrinal Words. Especially words that we don’t talk about much in ordinary conversation like regeneration and sustaining grace. They are rich words, containing so much about God and so much about man. I would be lost without God, and doctrinal words help me explore the nuances of who God is more deeply.

9) Blogging. It forces me to think through things more deeply. Clarity often comes through writing, and things I’ve thought have often proven to be untenable once I’m forced to form an argument for it.

10) Facebook. I’m thankful that Facebook lets me keep in touch with a much wider group of friends than I would be able to otherwise.

Meditation on 2 Thessalonians 1

This passage is the answer to all the pleas in the Psalms for rescue from the hands of evil men. There is a fervent purpose in all of the sufferings of the people of God. The suffering faced by the Thessalonian believers drew them closer to one another as they were able to witness and participate in the grace of God as it shone forth in the midst of their afflictions. Their faith was enlarged because of their trials. And how else can faith be enlarged other than for it to be taken beyond its previously supposed limits and proven to be made of much more steel than thought? Trials prove that the limits of faith are not limits bounded by the person of God, but rather bounded by the smallness of my picture of God.

The champions of the faith are men who suffered much. Christian history does not celebrate those who lived in comfort and ease. Spurgeon and the Down-Grace controversy, Athanasius and Arianism, Luther and the Roman Catholic Church, Eliot and the Aucas. Edwards and the communion compromises. No, the men to whom Christians look for encouragement and wisdom are men who suffered much. Suffering proves that everything other than God is a poor choice of foothold. When the cost overwhelms the comfort, when there’s no reason to fight against discouragement and pain apart from the all-pervading, all-persuasive biblical confidence that God is on the throne and will be glorified, that is when God is displayed to be stunningly above what I thought Him to be. And the Bible is so clear to teach that every thorn in life is intentional, storing up for me the greatest amount of eternal joy possible. God is not only working everything for His glory, but also that I might have the greatest joy. These two are never in conflict.

Release from affliction only comes once the end arrives, no sooner. David Crowder’s Church Music has been in my CD player for the last couple of weeks. The last song on the disc announces: “To the end there is hurting/To the end there is yearning/To the end there is suffering.” Paul doesn’t comfort the Thessalonians–who understood cost far better than I do–with promises that their sufferings would soon be over. Rather he reminds them of their hope in the second coming of Christ. There will be suffering until the end. Indeed, the greatest suffering that will befall believers is still yet to come. Paul didn’t see it. The Thessalonians didn’t see it. The tribulation still awaits. But after suffering comes a joy and a justice so great that it makes all the suffering of no consequence. Paul took no prisoners in his quest to crucify the world to himself because the great weight of eternal joy demanded it.

Eternal quality and quantity of joy is not the only comfort Paul gives the Thessalonians. He also reminds them of the eternal punishment of their oppressors. God says that vengeance is His. The Lord is in the business of revenge. God is angry over the way wicked men have treated His children. His wrath burns against those who persecute the righteous because they are righteous. The time is coming when mercy will be over and wrath and sinners will collide.

In the meantime, we pray and hope and take refuge in the knowledge that God is all about our glory and our joy. Bunyan wrote well when he said,

[B]e not offended at God or man: not at God for thou art his servant, thy life and thy all are his; not at man, for he is but God’s rod, and is ordained in this to do thee good. Hast thou escaped? Laugh. Art thou taken? Laugh. I mean, be pleased which way soever things shall go, for that the scales are still in God’s hand.

I don’t know much about suffering. I don’t know much about tribulation or pain or grief. But I do know that suffering in the Bible is not seen as possible, but probable. If so, then it is my aim to prepare myself by seeking to learn much of who God is, for that is how the firm steel of sustaining faith is enlarged.