Thanksgiving with Trinity Joy!


Psalm 145 has been an immense blessing while we have spent a couple sleepless nights at the hospital.

"I will extol you, my God and King and bless your name forever and ever. Everyday I will bless you and praise your name forever and ever. Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised and his greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall commend your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts. On the glorious splendor of your majesty and on your wondrous works I will meditate. They shall speak of the might of your awesome deeds and I will declare your greatness. They shall pour forth the fame of your abundant goodness and shall sing aloud of your righteousness."

Being apart of an extended family that has put the fame of God on display by speaking of the wonders of God from one generation to another, I now find myself with great responsibility to lead a family in doing the same. God be praised for a family that has demonstrated to me what that looks like. I hope do the same by falling in debt to grace. God is ultimately the one who puts himself on display because he loves who he is. Therefore I rest in his empowering grace to point my family to the greatness of God which is unsearchable.

Trinity Joy was born November 25, 2008 at 5 am. being 5 lbs. and 14 ounces. I have reason to extol my God and King! ... for a wonderful wife!... and now a new baby girl ... and even for random nurses that hear Chris Tomlin playin' on our computer and are willing to sing along and then to lovingly pray over inexperienced parents... I didn't know what to say to that nurse - I was so surprised at her Christlikeness... I was so surprised at her love. I sat there thinking I have just unexpectedly experienced the love of Christ. My God, my King is good!

Fight Club: Lesson 9- Mature and Humble

Just a reminder: How do you start a fight? Pursue Holiness!
The overseer must not be a recent convert. He must not be “newly planted” in the faith. He needs to sink his roots and develop some maturity in order to develop fruit that might be nourishing to others.

Often times the appearance of maturity and accelerated growth are mistaken for the excitement and zeal of a new convert. New converts must be seen as vulnerable. The seed of the Gospel is often torn from them in an instant. New converts must be more tightly embraced when they have received salvation. Also it is important that “involvement in ministry” does not become the mode of operation for new converts.

Discipleship, mentoring, theological training, or ministry training should be avenues through which the believer seeks to be informed about maturity. However, being informed does not mean that the material has taken affect upon the heart. Therefore, in order for development to take place there must be periods in which the believer is incubated. He must be under the supervision of other leaders who can direct his desires and mentor his character to the point in which his calling can be matured and confirmed before the church and leadership.
Discuss: What has been the most beneficial times of maturation in my life and how so?

The result of placing an immature Christian in a position of leadership is often pride. This pride will lead to unwise dealings with church members and even an unwillingness to be led by other elders. The consequence is condemnation. This is a condemnation that is demonic and of the devil. This condemnation is either the accusation of Satan against the man or it is a similar condemnation that Satan will endure for his pride. Either way, condemnation will be the result of placing an immature Christian in a position of leadership.

Discuss: What are some areas of pride in my life? Is pride ever associated with your desire for the ministry? How do you fight pride?

Answer the following questions:

1. When were you converted?

2. What would you say is level of spiritual maturity?

3. If you asked your wife or a close friend to critique your spiritual maturity what would they say?

4. In what ways do you see pride in your life?

5. Are you sensitive to critique and criticism?

6. Can you submit to the opinions of others when your opinion is different?

Read: Thomas Brooks, Precious Remedies against Satan’s Devices, p. 50-78.

Carl Trueman Is Tired of All This Talk About Culture

by Thabiti Anyabwile

And I am too. But Trueman is more eloquent commening over at Ref21:

Am I alone in being sick to death of all the trendy talk about `culture'? A biblical approach to reality seems to involve, first and foremost, a commitment to the notion of essences. Culture is very real but, as a social construct it is not the ultimate reality; nor is it, therefore, the ultimate reality. This seems to me the problem with much postmodernism: it's obsession with culture at the expense of essence has created moral chaos. For example, how can one have inalienable human rights when there is no inalienable human nature? Hence the silliness on the left these days where -- surely to Marx's horror! -- moral equivalence arguments are made between feudal genocide, as in Saddam's Iraq, and poverty in post-feudal democracies. Any Marxist knows that capitalist democracy, for all its faults, is superior to feudalism in every way. Christians should take a leaf from the books of the palaeo-Marxists and return to talking about nature and essence, not culture.


What about you? Are you with Trueman, or do you think the current Christian fascination with 'culture' and 'engaging culture' has merit and steam?

Get Better at Contextualization

from Resurgence:
Jonathan Dodson

Contextualization and church planting aren't anything new. These have been practices of the missional church for centuries, and in comparison to what is passed off as contextualization today, our early planting fathers put us to shame. Consider Gregory the Great and his partner Augustine of Canterbury (not St. Augustine of Hippo).

Gregory & Augustine
Gregory the Great (540-604) was the perhaps the most influential bishop of the 6th century. Some have argued he was the first pope, in which case he would not have been the best bishop. All this is debated. Nevertheless, Gregory would have made a great church planter, but instead, he was a kind of church planting coach. Gregory sent missionaries to Britain to “make the Angles into Angels". His choice emissary was Augustine of Canterbury, who, with 40 monks, set up mission base at in England. Like many of his Celtic predecessors, Augustine realized the strategic value of having a mission training and sending center among his target people. I'm willing to bet it was much better than most "church planting residencies" we have today. Why? He had better missiology, better contextualization.

Principles for Better Contextualization
Augustine implemented the great missiology he received from Gregory. That missiology, as Tim Tennent has pointed out, can be summarized with three words: Adaptation, Gradualism, and Exchange.

Adaptation - Adopting a cultural form for Christian purposes. In Augustine's case, he adopted heathen temples and turned them into church buildings. Gregory wrote to him: "Detach them from the service of the devil and adapt them for the worship of the true God." Many Christian leaders and Christians would frown on using a Jehovah's Witness Kingdom Hall for a church building because their conception of church is so narrowly conceived. Since my first day in Austin, I began praying that God would give us the abandoned male strip joint called La Bare for our church. We are currently meeting in a downtown theatre where we frequently pick up beer bottles off the floor before people arrive. The bathrooms are covered in graffiti and smell terrible, but the aroma of Christ fills the Hideout Theatre every week and is slowly changing that part of the city. Not only have we detached the theatre from less than admirable ends, we have also boosted sales in the adjoining coffee shop, ministered to the homeless outside, and adapted the space for the worship of the true God. Adaptation isn’t about being cool; it’s about adopting cultural forms, creating common cultural space for mission, and using these forms for Christ-honoring purposes.

Gradualism - Implementing Christian ideals slowly, recognizing that individuals are undergoing an entire worldview shift. Don't expect radical holiness from your new converts. If they have embraced Christ but still smoke pot or occasionally drink too much, don't beat them up for their behaviors. Instead, shepherd their hearts, lead them into the gospel, and allow their inner joy to transform their outer joys. Gregory wrote: "If we allow them these outward joys, then we are more likely to find their way to the true inner joy... It is doubtless impossible to cut off all abuses at once from rough hearts, just as a man who sets out to climb a high mountain does not advance by leaps and bounds, but goes upward step by step and pace by pace." Allow for the gradual transformation of the gospel, especially in post-Christian contexts. What you think is normative holiness, probably isn’t the norm. It’s not about leaps and bounds, but steady advance in grace.

Exchange - Creating an entirely new cultural form in exchange for an existing idolatrous one. It is one thing to use pagan temples for church buildings, it is quite another to participate in pagan sacrifices. For example, if your people consistently go to happy hours to get wasted and have a social life, create a more God-honoring context for socializing. Gregory wrote: "People must learn to slay their cattle not in honour of the devil, but in honour of God and for their own food..." Acts 29 and The Resurgence have done a really good job of stimulating community through media. Just consider The City, Mars Hill Church's networking site, and The Resurgence’s videos and blogs. Create new cultural forms and exchange them for sinful ones for the sake of the gospel.

Six Ways to Engage Culture

by Jonathan Dodson
In a recent interview, singer/songwriter Rufus Wainwright surprisingly remarked: "We're so obsessed about debunking Bush in this country that we don't spend time on any other subjects. That's a little depressing." Wainwright's point is that many Americans neglect a whole range of cultural issues, often neglecting political engagement for finger-pointing.

What's more depressing is that many Christians are just as guilty of this charge as non-Christians. As a result, there are few citizens who think through cultural issues critically, and even fewer who think them through redemptively. Here are six ways to promote critical and redemptive engagement with culture.


1. Engage culture prayerfully. I'm not suggesting that we should actually bow our heads and recite a prayer before reading a newspaper or book, watching TV or a movie, or going shopping, though that certainly wouldn't hurt. Instead, we are to live life and engage culture in a spirit of dependence upon God; we are to pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:17). We should approach culture just as we should approach all things: prayerfully.What should we pray? We should thank God for the gift of culture, confessing that all cultures contain truth, beauty, and virtue, asking Him to help us recognize and rejoice in these good gifts, which come down from the Father of lights (James 1:17). Alternatively, all cultures also disdain truth, beauty, and virtue. Thus, we are dependent upon God to enable us to recognize and reject those things that are harmfully false, ugly, and immoral. By asking God to give us the perspective of His Spirit, "the Spirit who searches out all things, even the depths of God" (1 Cor. 2:10), we can begin to discern between the things which are true, beautiful, and good and the things that are false, ugly, and evil.

2. Engage culture carefully. When approaching any given issue, from parenting to politics, we all have our biases. In order to engage culture well, we must strive to avoid the paths of both the sectarian and the secularist, of both blind rejection and uncritical acceptance. This will require careful investigation into the issues we face, taking the opposing view seriously and weighing its merits. Make a habit of hearing both sides of an issue before you baptize your opinions. Be slow to speak and quick to listen (James 1:19).

3. Engage culture biblically-theologically. Why hyphenate biblical and theological? Why not just say "think biblically"? Well, the plain fact is that the Bible does not explicitly address most cultural issues. It does not tell you who to vote for, which school to go to, what movies to watch, whether or not you should date, whether or not to abort your baby, or how to respond to cloning. Instead, the Bible offers theological principles which we can appropriate in order to form opinions and convictions about cultural issues. For instance, there is no verse in the Bible that reads: "Thou shalt not have an abortion." However, the Bible does inform us that God is the author of life and that to take human life is murder, which is prohibited by God. The circumstances surrounding abortion can be complex. A mother's life may be threatened if the life of the baby is not taken. The Bible does not say, "Preserve the mother's life." However, there are principles and practices in Scripture that can help us make wise decisions about cultural and ethical dilemmas.
The problem, however, is that we often start with cultural assumptions about what is right, beautiful, and good and go to the Bible to prove them. Instead, we need to bring cultural questions about what is true, good, and beautiful to the Bible, reflect on them theologically and then prayerfully, and carefully form our opinions. Don't begin with cultural convictions and end with biblical proof-texts; end with cultural wisdom by beginning with biblical-theological reflection. Start with the biblical text and reflect theologically on cultural issues. Move from Text to Theology to Culture, not the other way around.

4. Engage culture redemptively. Strive to connect your theological reflections regarding culture to redemption. We can redemptively engage culture in two ways: practically and positionally. To practically redeem, identify what is broken, what is in need of redemption, and take restorative action. Ask yourself questions like "How can I bring the gospel to bear on this issue?" or "How can I restore, forgive, or reconcile in this situation?" For example, if you come to the conviction that abortion is ugly and immoral, think about how you can help those who are suffering from the devastating affects of abortion. Don't just debate others. Volunteer at a crisis pregnancy center. Learn how to counsel mothers. Don't become self-righteous and inactive; practice your cultural convictions. Live them out redemptively.
Our practice should flow from our position in Christ. Our actions ought to reveal our redeemed identity, not form our identity. Consider the danger of mistaking your newly-formed habits for who you are. For instance, do you think of yourself now as an environmentalist or as a citizen of Zion with an environmental conscience? Do you draw significance from being a "pro-lifer" or from being new creation in Christ Jesus? Ask yourself, "Am I confusing my practice with my position?" or "Am I finding my significance in what I do instead of who I am in Christ?" Guard yourself from subtly allowing cultural convictions to take the place of your identity in Christ. Ground your identity in the gospel and your practice will be more redemptive and more honoring to the Lord.

5. Engage culture humbly. Recognize that you have much to learn from a given culture. Read, converse, and reflect on cultural issues with a teachable heart. Ask God to shape your convictions through whomever or whatever He wills. Avoid proud dogmatism and cultivate humble conviction. Don't put others down who believe differently from you. Consider others more important than yourself without surrendering your convictions. Yet, be willing to revise your opinions through a process of Text-Theology-Culture.

6. Engage culture selectively. Realize and embrace the limitations of your own time, experience, and interests. Spend your time wisely. Don't sacrifice time with God, church, or family in order to become more culturally savvy. Everyone has been created differently, to live a unique life. Make the most of your experience by redemptively engaging culture, but try to avoid making the experience of others your own. There are too many issues in the world for you to become an overnight expert on Christ and culture. Be selective about what you engage.

Summarizing the Six Ways
When engaging culture prayerfully, we depend on the wisdom that comes from the Spirit who searches out all cultures, who can enable us to recognize and rejoice in what is true, beautiful, and good, and reject or redeem what is false, ugly, and immoral. As a result, engaging culture can become an act of communion with God. Relying on the wisdom of the Spirit will also mean careful investigation of cultural issues, being critical of our own biases while maintaining an open ear to the arguments of others. However, we're not left to navigate the turbulent waters of our culture with only prayer and reason. God has given us his Word, a divine and authoritative Text from which we can glean wisdom and theological principles to engage culture.
When wrestling with issues, we must be careful to bring questions, not assumptions, from our culture to the Word, following a pattern of Text-Theology-Culture. This biblical-theological engagement with culture should always lead to redemptive action, restoring what is ugly and immoral from our position as accepted children of God, citizens of Zion. In turn, we can engage culture humbly and selectively, recognizing our limitations and rejoicing in our unique opportunities to engage the world around us.
Finally, try to practice these six ways of engaging culture not just as an individual but in community. To put a spin on Rufus Wainwright's words: Only when the Church in this country becomes obsessed with glorifying God in all things will we critically and redemptively engage our culture on all kinds of subjects.

A Believer's Identity


Recently I have found a deep sense of longing for many of my friends who have been wallowing in the wasteland of purposelessness. Their days are filled with mundane routine. The routine of getting up late, thinking about cracking open the Scriptures, but just getting swept away in the hustle and bustle of daily activity. So off to work they go meandering about their responsibilities while feeling a deep sense of dissatisfaction:"who am I and what am I doing here?". They find no contentment in what they do. It's just another day crunching numbers, organizing warehouses, doing paperwork and heading back home. So is this all their is to life? Mundane Routine!?

Well, life can be routine but it doesn't have to be mundane routine. The difference is that as believers, our identity and functionality does not end with responsibilities at a company. In fact, our identity is first and foremost in Christ which makes everything we do at a company significant. Now in Christ each number I crunch, each strategy of organization, and every page of paperwork is now an avenue through which Christ in you can be manifest to a perishing workplace.
Christ in you makes everything significant because it stands in glory to the one who made you; who fashioned you with all the faculties to make glorious the mundane. Not only has are you made to put Christ on display through routine jobs, but you have a greater identity and functionality in the Christ's community. The church should never be neglected when considering our identity. Christ has purchased us to the church to meet one another's physical and spiritual needs as well as to have our needs met. He has fit you into his community with purpose and significance. Thus, your functional responsibility in Christ is to seek to met the spiritual needs of your brothers and sisters. It means asking hard questions and being willing to give honest answers. It means being humbled and being a means of grace that leads others to humility in Christ.

We are in fact a peculiar people whose functionality and identity are fundamentally found in Christ. But since in Christ we are purchased to his community, our identity and functionality are flushed out through Gospel-centered relationships in him.

So if you have been wallowing in the wasteland of purposelessness get yourselves into Christ's community and begin living out Christ in every number crunched, every organizational strategy, and every paper filed. You are significant in Christ! To rely on identity and significance in anything else would be cheating yourself. For you were created for nothing less than an infinite God!

Attempting to do the Impossible!

I had the opportunity to spend my college summers working road construction. I remember one instance in which the backhoes, dump trucks and scrapers were clearing out ten feet of dirt to get it down to were we could begin building the road up to grade. I was directing traffic making sure the dump trucks weren't getting in the way of the scrapers and vice versa when suddenly a black chevy came roaring onto the job site. We all knew it was the owner of the company who always confused whatever harmony we had already established. So sure enough, the owner started shouting orders and before you knew it the Foreman got hit by the backhoe; the trucks suddenly began running different routes and I was stuck in the middle of a lot of confusion. That's when our eyes met. In mid-sentence he began stomping his way to me with his finger pointing at me. "Why aren't you taking the *&%#$ grade!" he shouted. I told him I would get right on it, however the road still needed ten feet of dirt taken off of it before grade could be measured. Fifteen minutes later one the owner sidekicks showed up on the site with all the survey equipment to take grade. So I was supplied with all the equipment to do the job but the job was impossible to perform. I was left with two choices. 1.) don't do it or 2.) pretend to do it. So after a quick conversation with the Foreman we began faking it until the boss left. Although he had given me all that I needed to accomplish the job I still couldn't do it.

Often times our spiritual lives are like this. We have been commanded to do the impossible. As incapable as we are in ourselves, we wallow about compromising biblical commands or pretending we can do it through external conformities. Hence, legalism and relativism are the spiritual escape routes. It's often in these positions that we forget about grace! All of the biblical imperatives of Scripture are accompanied with the indicatives. In other words, God calls us to Gospel centered lives but he doesn't leave it there. He supplies all that we lack. In my situation on the job site their was no foreseen way out of the predicament. However, when the loving call of God comes upon us, and we are asked to live out Christlikeness in this dark world, he supplies GRACE! - the ability do the impossible. So fall in debt to grace and may God be glorified.

So what do ya think?



If you can't get this video see http://theresurgence.com/interview_with_demon_hunter_the_band

So what do you think? Can Christians redeem culture? If so, can they redeem heavy metal or hip hop?

Coming from a fundamentalist background this goes against my grain. However, as I have grown I am beginning to realize that being in the world will inevitable end in syncretism, sectarianism or submersion. Syncretism adopts the value systems of the world. Sectarianism builds up walls like monasticism and secludes itself from the world and its ways (more of the fundamentalist ideal), but submersion seeks to engage culture with an understanding of a biblical worldview in which the love and truth of Christ is embodied before a perishing society. But even so, what are the biblical parameters that guide our engagement with culture?

Total Church Conference

From Resurgence...
The Audio for The Total Church North America Conference 2008 has now been uploaded. Tim Chester and Steve Timmis recently published a book - "Total Church" with Re:Lit. This conference is the result of the ideas presented in the book



Taking it With You

(Just notice Chandler's introspection about his sanctification; we all need to be wrestling through sanctification with this kind of introspective intensity)Nov05
Philippians 1:6: “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”

Hebrews 10:23: “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.”

I could be wrong about what I’m about to post. I have given it some thought and decided I would write about it despite the fact that I usually do my wrestling internally and with good friends rather than post my young thoughts on the Web. So grace would be appreciated. Before I get started let me give you a little background:

It’s been 16 years since God, in His predestined, powerful plan, allowed my soul to experience “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” He grabbed hold of every part of me and has absolutely ruined me for anything but Him. The process of sanctification has been and still is quite often a very difficult one. No one told me (or maybe they did) that Jesus wanted my heart. I thought there was going to be some behavior modification and some new friends but I didn’t understand how aggressively, ruthlessly and passionately He was going to search and destroy in me anything that wasn’t of Him. Nor did I understand how dark my heart truly was and how out of fear, pride and arrogance I would argue, complain and resist almost every advance of the Holy Spirit to reconcile every part of my being into holiness.

Let me give you some family background. Most of my dad’s life has been difficult. He was abused and neglected, abandoned and ignored by the people who should have loved and seen in him the beauty that’s so easy to see. He raised me the best he could for where he was. He loves me, and I love him. I know this deeply. But what his dad struggled with, he struggled with and although I feel like by God’s grace alone I walk in an unbelievable amount of victory over the things that have destroyed Chandler men for the last 100 years, I do at times feel those things warring in me which brings me to my thought.

Audrey and Reid, my two children, have been such gifts to Lauren and me. That little girl and little boy grabbed a hold of my heart the second they took in the gift of breath. I don’t know where you are in life or if you have children or not but I find the fact that my sin directly effects my children to be mortifying. I ask our great God and King almost nightly that He would protect my children from my sin, that they would never see in me hypocrisy or feel provoked to anger. I ask Him to help me with patience, gentleness and to hide from them my pride and idolatry while giving me the grace to acknowledge often that “God is still working on Daddy.” I want the specific struggles that have haunted my bloodline to go into the ground with me. I want to fight, wail and pray. I want to “hold fast the confession of my hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.” I know that Audrey, Reid and the child growing in Lauren’s womb will have their own fights. The world is fallen, depravity is real but these specific struggles…I want, I hope, I pray that I might, like Moses, die on the mountain as they walk into the promise land. I hope this post makes sense.

Fight Club: Lesson 8 - Leaders in the Home

The Scriptural qualifications of an overseer do not come overnight; rather they require practice and experience. The home is a wonderful way to hone the skills of leadership and care. Hence if a man is going to be a good leader within the family of God he must first demonstrate leadership qualities with his own family. He must keep his home managed and nurtured.

The overseer must develop a balance between managing or supervising his home as well as caring for his home. If he simply manages his home, he becomes an authoritative figure who organizes well but inevitably exemplifies a disinterest in fulfilling the heart-felt needs of his family. A man who errs on the management side will come across very cold and unloving.

However, if the man becomes all about nurturing the hearts of his family without management, he becomes the feel-good-raise-your-self-esteem guy. He will typically become friends with his children rather than their dad. Instead of being a friend, he should be the leader, protector, counselor, guide, and comforter.

Discuss: On a spectrum beginning with management to care, where would my personality fall? What could I do to be more balanced?

In verse 2 of chapter 3, Paul mentions that an overseer must demonstrate fidelity to his wife. Now in verse 5, Paul has concern for the children and their relationship to their father. The father must be dignified and respectable in how he embraces his role but also the children should be respectful to their father. Therefore these relationships should flourish with mutual respect.

This does not mean that an overseer must have a perfect home. He will be imperfect and his children will be imperfect yet he must strive to be dignified and respectable through the difficult circumstances of life and his children should seek to demonstrate respect despite the difficult circumstances of life.

The family is the microcosm of the church family. If an overseer demonstrates balanced leadership in supervising and nurturing his family well, by God’s grace he will also have the wisdom to do so in the church family.

Answer the following questions:

1. Are you attentive to your home? Are you involved in the life of your family physically and emotionally?

2. Do you care for your children and how?

3. Do your children submit to you?

4. Would your children say that you are qualified to serve as an elder?

5. If you are single, what is your attitude toward children rearing?

Read: Deuteronomy 6 and Proverbs 1-9 and note the father’s responsibilities, and methods of communicating life situations to his children.

The Cross and Christian Ministry: by D.A. Carson

Just some excerpts: Chapter 4 - 1 Corinthians 4

Only rarely do those who dream of leadership, but who have never experienced it, think through the responsibilities, pressures and temptations leaders face. Almost never do they focus on accountability, service and suffering.

Christian Leadership means being entrusted with the "mysteries" of God.(4:1-7)

1. Christian leaders are 'servants of Christ'. They see themselves simply as servants and want other Christians to see them that way, too.

2. The gospel itself is the content of this mystery, God's wisdom summed up under the burden of Paul's preaching: Jesus Christ and him crucified.

What is required in some sense of all believers is peculiarly required of the leaders of believers. There is a difference of degree.

Those who want to be leaders in the church today, then, must begin by recognizing that there is no special, elitist qualification.

What it means to be a servant of Christ is to be obligated to promote the gospel by word and example, the gospel of the crucified Messiah.

In the West, we must repent of our endless fascination for "leadership" that smacks much more either of hierarchical models or of democratic models.

Christian leadership must prove faithful to the one who has assigned them their fundamental task (4:1-4).

There is only one person whose "well done!" on the last day means anything. In comparison, the approval or disapproval of the church means nothing. It is not even your own estimate of your service that is important. Feeling good about your ministry may have some utility somewhere, but surely it has no ultimate significance. You may think more highly of your service than God does. But if you are constantly trying to please yourself, to make self-esteem your ultimate goal, then you are forgetting whose servant you are, whom you must strive to please... It is the Lord who judges.

Those who follow Christian leaders must recognize that leaders are called to please the Lord Christ- and therefore they must refrain from standing in judgment over them (4:5-7).

...it is also important for the rest of the church to see them as ultimately accountable to the Lord Christ, and therefore to avoid judging them as if the church itself were the ultimate arbiter of ministerial success.

One-upmanship among those redeemed by a crucified Messiah is repulsive.
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