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Dave Anderson (moviepastor)

this may be shocking and most people who read this probably wont believe me based on a few blog entries, and style and language preferences - but I agree with you 100% - Especially this:

Those members of the CPM who have the 'changed life'€™ as their theological center and material principle are in grave spiritual danger. Even worse, it is more than likely that the people who are attending their church plants have the wrong idea about what the Christian faith is about.

When you phrase it like this it no longer becomes a straw man putting all the people at the conference you attended in the same bucket.

I also think there is a way to reconcile the first chart and the second one so that the first flows out of the second and in a way sits in the ring of sanctification. Agree? I also think you can start with a topic and lead people to the center of the second chart - Jesus did this a lot and most if not all of his teaching was topical. Arent the books of Corinthians topical? Answers to questions people had? To my knowledge Jesus never did expositions chapter by chapter and in a single setting rarely quoted more than a couple of verses. True?

Mark

Chris,
This was quite well done! Thanks. I am a student of Liberty Univeristy Baptist Theological Seminary and I can assure you, the "Baptist" CP approach you outline here is not anywhere near that of LU that I have observed.

Lastly, I think many of these well meaning folks maybe do not put enough confidence / faith in that message, perhaps thinking that making it more "relevant" is more powerful than Christ crucified.

Sola Scriptura

Paul C

I completely agree that Christ crucified should not only be the center of our faith, but is actually the thing on which our hope hangs. I would posit that as a result of the work of the Lord in your life, you will change and bring your life (with the help of God) into obedience to His ways.

I would emphasize that this can't be done alone, otherwise it simply results in a reformation (Pharisees) versus a transformation (Peter or Paul).

The other thing that would need clarity here is that the gospel is also practical. Many of Paul's epistles give instructions on daily life which I see no problem with. Where the issue comes in is as yoou rightly point out: we present the church as a form of group therapy or social club that promises change, with Christ thrown in.

I have also noticed an over-emphasis on excellence in the sense of great trailers, amazing bands, and "great experience" for the service... Still don't get why this is so important if God, who is mighty to save, is actually at work.

Dave Anderson (moviepastor)

Paul C: Excellence can be overemphasized and become the goal but mediocrity in my opinion is sin and the product of laziness. God deserve the best that we have - wheather it be sheep or goats - or trailers and music. Read some of the rehearsals for worship in the old testament. I really believe they were perfecting their art and craft of worship. Read about the instruments used in the tabernacle - they were ornate and detailed and beautiful. I think whatever tool we use to teach and preach the gospel and worship God be the very best we can do - whatever your heart finds to do - do it with all your might. Some might choose to have a choir - do it the best. Some might choose a band - dont suck! Some may use stained glass. Make it wonderful. Some believe video is a sort of post modern stained glass. Do it the best. Its a form of worship and to suck at it is dishonoring to God.

Chris Rosebrough

Paul C,

You've brought up a GREAT point about how Paul's Epistles give practical information in living out the Gospel in our everyday lives.

What I've noticed in far too many of the sermons of those whose material principle is the 'changed life' is that they never teach on the opening chapters of an epistle but jump right to the practical chapters. It's as if Romans begins in Chapter 12, Ephesians begins in chapter 4 and Philippians begins in chapter 4. They just skip right over the primary gospel passages that frame all of these practical applications in light of what Christ has done for us on the cross. I think this is a dangerous error on their parts and furthers the myth that Christianity is a performance based religion.

Chris Rosebrough

Mark,

The 'Changed Life' is not the historic material principle of the Baptist Faith. If you look at the early roots of the Baptist movement and their confessions of faith you'll see that they were much more in line with the early Protestant reformers in their material principle.

The current popularized version I am describing is not universally accepted but is growing at an alarming rate.

Paul C

Dave - I definitely agree that the Lord deserves our very best, but remember (extremely important) that worship is really an attitude of the heart. So, we are to do things with all our might indeed, but what I have observed (and I may be wrong) is that on many occasions (I'm sure not all) things are done for impression's sake.

As you know you can put on the best outward performance with all the bells and whistles, yet never yield on the inside. And we must also remember that the failure of the Old Testament is really the Jews' failure, on the whole, to be inwardly what they professed to be outwardly.

Apostacy set in, but religion never died. God didn't send a prophet for 400 yrs after Malachi, but religion still flourished. When excellence, performance and impression become our focus we are on a slippery slope in my view.

Chris Rosebrough

Dave,

I consider you to be a brother and I really appreciate your willingness to engage in discussion on these issues.

I've listened to many of your sermons. My brotherly challenge to you would be to dedicate yourself to the excellence that is needed to preach Christ crucified for our sins to BOTH the believers and the unbelievers in your fledgling congregation. If I can help you do that in any way please let me know.

Morris Brooks

Let's be honest, the reason most of those in the CPM use the life change approach is because it "works", which for most means it brings the numbers in. It is the approach used by the Saddleback and Willow Creek streams of the CPM. They have turned it into a formula most anyone can follow. If you go to these churches you will find that most of them use the same lingo, and preach the same sermons.

If you are not preaching Christ crucified then you have a gospel that is devoid of the cross, and without the cross the gospel loses its power. As such it can not save the unbeliever, nor sanctify the unbeliever. This causes the unsaved to stay unsaved, and the saved to be spiritually insecure.

Dave Anderson (moviepastor)

Sola Scriptura, Whole Counsel of God, Preach Christ Crucified for our sins only? Maybe I cant see what you are saying - but I say there is a lot more to the bible than You are a lousy sinner and need to repent because Jesus died for you - lather, rinse repeat. 1 Tim 3:16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Preaching the whole counsel of God involves teaching disciples how to live like Christ - and like it or not there is a behavioral component to this - born out of a love for Christ and what he did - not in order to gain heaven. Again - I may just be misunderstanding what you are telling me but I think many here misunderstand completely what I am doing and churches like mine are misrepresented to some degree. We are unlikely to close the gap here - and I have to bow out cause I have to go hang out with Gary Lamb ;-) and I have to prepare my sermon in Ruth 3 this weekend.

Chris Rosebrough

Dave,

Of course there is a behavior component to preaching and Preaching Christ Crucified for our sins does not preclude that. The problem arises when you make behavior the 'center' of your theology and preaching.

The issue is that everytime you preach about behavior you are automatically preaching components of God's Law. The problem is that all of us are constantly sinning and are guilty of breaking God's law on a daily basis.

So preaching Christ Crucified for our sins and applying it to ALL of the sinners in your congregation is a necessary component of preaching the whole council of God's Word.

Think of it this way... I am sure that you are constantly telling your wife that you love her. That's a good thing. But withholding the Gospel from believers is the same thing as telling your wife, 'Honey, I love you but I'm not going to tell you that any more and if anything changes I'll let you know." It would only take a few days before your wife began to doubt that you loved her. Why? Cause you never tell her.

The believers in your congregation are committing all kinds of sins on a daily basis. They don't Love God with all their heart and they certainly don't love their neighbors as themselves. As a result of those sins they may not feel that God can forgive them or may think that it is their responsibility to atone for those sins rather than trust Christ for their salvation. Therefore, they need to hear the gospel every bit as much as an unbeliever.

Furthermore, Christ himself has made it clear that ALL of the scripture is ultimately about Him and his redemptive work.

Read Luke 24 and focus in on what it says in verse 27, "27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in ALL the Scriptures the things concerning himself."

Also read what Jesus said to the Pharisees in John 5:39-40 "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life."

So, according to Jesus (your not going to get a higher authority than that) ALL of the scriptures bear witness to HIM.

As you prepare your sermon on Ruth 3 you would be missing the greater point of the passage if you overlooked the whole connection between Boaz being a 'kinsman redeemer' and how Jesus Christ is the 'kinsman redeemer' of the entire human race, including the believers in your congregation. The story of Ruth and Boaz beautifully points us to Christ and his redemptive work.

Angela Ventry

Thank you for succinctly clarifying what I have been struggling with in the modern CPM all of these years. I was so sick of hearing about how to change my life. I truly missed my walk with Christ Himself. I am discovering that anew, and I am so grateful to be attending a church that continuously points to Christ. It is water to a thirsty soul.

Jim

Chris,

A picture is worth a thousand words...two pictures are priceless.
Excellent work.

Jim

Steve Martin

Pastor Anderson,

I believe it with every fiber of my being, that when you preach biblical principles, and lessons to show people how they can become more Christlike, you are (with the best of intentions)keeping the old Adam alive. In order to teach people how to become more Christlike, you have to water down the very law which was intended to kill off that old Adam to the religious (getting better) project.

No death...no resurrection. That's why we, as Lutherans (at least some of us) use the law, God's commands and demands, to bring death to the sinner. Then the Gospel can go to work and inspire that new man or woman to do good things (which we do not measure).

St. Paul says that there is no life in the law (what we should, ought, or must be doing).

Thanks Pastor!

- Steve Martin

J. K. Jones

Chris,

I like your graphs and approach. I may steal them in my next talk with my pastor.

seth dean

Chris Rosebrough for President!

Brendan

Chris,
I understand and agree mostly with what you had said; however, I have run into one thing that seems odd to me. I am a firm believer in expository vs topical preaching but I am unsure about our Pauline example. From what I could tell, Paul reminds them in a VERY succinct fashion about the message that he had taught before and moves directly on to common questions and issues of the day (ie. 1 Cor. 1:1-9).

It seems to me that he IS reminding them of Christ and Christ crucified but a non-believer who is looking or hearing these messages won't necessarily understand it. The reference is rather simple and limited. Is it possible he spends an extraordinary amount of time at one point preaching the message of the Gospel and then simply remind them of that at the beginning of his other messages for a frame of reference?

Chris Rosebrough

Brendan,

Great question.

The point that I was making about Paul is that the message of Christ crucified for our sins was the center of his theology. It is his material principle (using theological jargon).

When you look at the entire body of Paul's writing you see how this center plays out. His epistles begin in the message of the gospel and then move into how gospel plays into our everyday lives. With the Corinthian church there was immorality in the church that needed to be addressed. Notice that he begins with bringing them back to the Gospel and then builds out from there. It is the same in Romans and Ephesians. In Colosians he counters the heresy that had taken hold in Colosae by refocusing on Christ crucified for our sins. With the Galatian church he rebukes them for abandoning the message of Christ crucified for our sins. Over and again with Paul the message of the gospel is the message that he is obsessed with. It saves us and it sanctifies us and protects us from false teaching.

In Paul's theology it would be unthinkable to talk about marriage in isolation to the gospel message. Instead he shows us how the gospel should impact our marriages and play out in our relationships.

In Paul's theology it would be unthinkable to talk about good works in isolation to the gospel. Instead he shows us how the gospel shows us how to do good works out of love for God and neighbor and not put any trust in them.

So when the gospel is the center of your theology it literally touches all aspects of faith and practice.

When you make the 'changed life' the center of your theology the gospel message has no function in that theology beyond getting you in the door.

Brendan

Oh ok, that makes sense.
Couple of questions though:
1. Wouldn't a topical sermon on marriage and an exposition out of several verses of Corinthians as you progress through the book each week be the same, if done correctly, and does that create an issue? If I am understanding what you are saying that I would conclude that it does not make a difference as long as the core of the message remains that of Christ, mercy, and grace.

2. I personally don't think this, but some argue that by getting more people in the door (or butts in the seats to quote Sister Act), then the greater the chance that a lost person will see the difference or "changed life" of other Christians and will lead them to the Gospel in invitations and whatnot. What do you see as invalid about this sort of shotgun approach? Is it that church is for the Christians and thus the notion of appealing to the lost is unfounded or simply overstated in most churches? Thank you for your blog, I have been a continual reader for quite some time and just haven't really posted until now.

Heidi Sue

1. Wouldn't a topical sermon on marriage and an exposition out of several verses of Corinthians as you progress through the book each week be the same, if done correctly, and does that create an issue?

Two such sermons might very well end up being the same. The difficulty lies in the direction of thinking. Topical sermons tend to use the Bible as a religious "Baker's Book of Quotations", where the preacher begins with an idea and looks for texts that fit the idea, whereas exegetical preaching begins with the text and looks for the ideas that come out of the text. Obviously, there will often be overlaps, but the topical preacher must be aware that the text does not always say what he thinks it says, and must be humble enough to let the text (even a text that he has chosen for his topic) shape the message.

So there is nothing inherently wrong with a topical message, just be prepared for the Word to wrench your ideas and your topic away from what you expect.

What do you see as invalid about this sort of shotgun approach?
Lots o' problems, but here's the main ones:
1. You can also see the "changed life" in synagogues, Mormon temples, and Muslim places of worship (sorry... I'm having a brain freeze as to the proper name!)
2. The primary purpose of worship is, well, worship. Evangelism may end up being a part of it (See 1 Cor 14.24-25), but to turn the PRIMARY focus on the horizontal, me-to-my-neighbor realm pulls us away from focusing on God coming to us and offering us Himself and His forgiveness. Evangelism is more often than not done by those who have been sent out from the congregation (not just capital M Missionaries)
3. The "butts in the seats" approach minimizes God's work in drawing people to Himself and maximizes our salesmanship.

Mark

Chris - Mark Driscoll just posted some interesting sermons/lectures (not sure which) about the emergent church movement. Interesting stuff. Here's one: http://www.marshillchurch.org/audio/driscoll_sebts_092107.mp3

Great article -- your insight has been invaluable to me on the material principle... really makes it simpler to grasp what is going on.

Chris Enstad

A couple comments:
The previous poster asked about a "topical sermon"... I would say the minute you move into topical sermons you are going to move away from bringing the dead to life and into the realm of lists of things to do to try to prove we aren't the walking dead in the first place.

Also, I would like to see how your two principles work in regards to the emerging church movement in any or all of its forms.

Thomas Twitchell

Thanks for the goods straight up!

Rev Scottie

Hey Chris,

Finally found your web site through Mark Love. I also enjoyed our dinner conversation that night at the Evolve conference. One thing I learned about you from our conversation is that you are very unfamiliar with culture in the south and the workings of a typical Baptist church. It may come as a surprise to some of your posters that the Southern Baptist convention is based in the south. I say that to make the point that how many of the posters on here have ever attended a Baptist church? For those unfamiliar with Baptist churches in the South the gospel is often presented at the end of the worship service in the form of a challenge to the congregation. It is a time when the pastor typically points out how we have sinned and our only hope is through the redemptive work of Christ on the cross. The "changed life" Baptists you guys have been discussing are a tiny percentage of Baptist churches if in truth they even exist. I would be very careful characterizing an entire denomination by sampling sermons posted on the internet. It may also surprise you that Rick Warren is not the Southern Baptist "Pope" and many do not follow his model for church.

Rev Scottie

Hey Chris,

Finally found your web site through Mark Love. I also enjoyed our dinner conversation that night at the Evolve conference. One thing I learned about you from our conversation is that you are very unfamiliar with culture in the south and the workings of a typical Baptist church. It may come as a surprise to some of your posters that the Southern Baptist convention is based in the south. I say that to make the point that how many of the posters on here have ever attended a Baptist church? For those unfamiliar with Baptist churches in the South the gospel is often presented at the end of the worship service in the form of a challenge to the congregation. It is a time when the pastor typically points out how we have sinned and our only hope is through the redemptive work of Christ on the cross. The "changed life" Baptists you guys have been discussing are a tiny percentage of Baptist churches if in truth they even exist. I would be very careful characterizing an entire denomination by sampling sermons posted on the internet. It may also surprise you that Rick Warren is not the Southern Baptist "Pope" and many do not follow his model for church.

Micah Burke

As a Reformed Baptist, I shudder to hear the word "Baptist" used in this manner. ;)

This may be modern evangelical/pietistic preaching but it is not Baptist theology. Thanks.

Micah Burke

Geoff Smith

I may be young and a bit unknowledgeable but I, as a baptist, cannot ever remember purposefully preaching a sermon that didn't make Christ crucified...and resurrected the center, as justification, would be impossible without resurrection. Now that I think of it, neither my home church, the church I attended before theology school, nor the church I currently preach at has ever thought that a sermon in which Christ is not the point is worth the time spent to hear it.

So, I understand your criticism of preaching about changed lives instead of about Jesus, I just don't understand what is distinctively baptist about it. I can't even think of a single baptist systematic theology or confession of faith that says anything of the sort. Even when I preach on a "practical" portion of scripture(as if it isn't all practical), the point is Christ. Paul's whole reason for self-denial in 1Corinthians was that he might save some, and the only way Paul makes for people to be saved at the beginning of the letter is Christ crucified. Peter's reason for suffering peacefully is because Jesus himself suffered. When John talks of loving others it is to walk as Jesus himself walked. In the same way in any good baptist sermon any ethic that exists, exists for the sake of displaying Christ crucified.

So anyhow, good post. I agree that the gospel ought be preached in the church, I believe that the gospel is what authenticates the rest of the scriptures and actually does reveal God and change people's lives as a necessary result of its being preached and believed. But even so, though I am familiar with the church growth movement, I don't think that there is anything distinctively baptist about it, just like there is nothing distinctively Calvinistic about treating people like crap.

Ike

" Wouldn't a topical sermon on marriage and an exposition out of several verses of Corinthians as you progress through the book each week be the same, if done correctly, and does that create an issue?"

This is my first time on this blog. I used the quote above just as an illustration. If I understand this blogs message then wouldn't I be correct to say that the closer I am to my Lord, the closer I would be to my wife? I have been married for 38 years and I have found that this is true for me and my wife. All the topical messages about marriage could not make me a better husband than a deeper intimacy with the Lord Jesus Christ. This would be true for every facet of life.

Also, I agree with this article about preaching the Gospel to believers. The Gospel is the "deep thing" of Christianity! The greatest of Christians will never master the Gospel, but every true Christian will be mastered by it.

Ike

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