Understanding Fat Loss

Read what Doug McGuff says about fat loss through caloric restriction and "cardio" vs fat loss through caloric restriction and resistance training. It is an analogy, but an incredibly helpful one for people who do not care to read research journals.

In the first senario, there is a budget deficit, and no department has any unusual demands. Layoffs can occur in all departments. So, the board lays off some fat, some muscle, some bone, and connective tissue, as well as some nervous tissue. The corporation becomes a smaller version of its former self.

In the second scenario, there is also a budget deficit, but a large demand has been placed on the muscle department; indeed, more muscle has to be hired on. This necessitates a large layoff in the fat department. Furthermore, no cutbacks can be made in the bone and connective tissue departments, because their support is needed for the muscle department, which is not useful unless is is attached to strong bones by strong connective tissue. The recourse is that more fat has to be cashiered. No nervous tissue can be spared either, because the new muscle is useless unless it is innervated by new nervous tissue. This imposes even more cutbacks in the fat department. With these adjustments, the corporation takes on a notable shape change. Under this scenario, all of the body's weight loss has been shunted exclusively toward fat loss. You have added a modest amount of shape-improving muscle and jettisoned a large amount of shape ruining fat.

Doug McGuff and John Little. Body by Science. (McGraw Hill, 2009), 186

Review: Renovation of the Church

Kent Carlson and Mike Lueken. Renovation of the Church: What Happens When A Seeker Church Discovers Spiritual Formation. (Downers Grove, Illinois: Intervarsity Press, 2011)

Renovation of the Church (RoC) is a book, that in many ways, is not unique. It is a book written by folks who are essentially mega-church pastors about how they did something special in their local church. RoC is a book that is unique in many ways because of what the pastors did and what they admitted at the end of the book. What the book is essentially about is that a church(in mega-church parlance that means groups of elders, pastors, and staff) that was trying, very intentionally and specifically, to be a seeker-sensitive mega-church type church discovered the gospel of the kingdom of God and changed their focus to making disciples. The book is meant simply to state their journey, what they learned, what God changed in them as individuals, and what mistakes they made in hopes that others might learn the importance of Jesus' commission to make disciples of all nations. For instance, here is their purpose statement,

“We write not as theorists, but as practitioners. We are telling this story, not as historians, but as “evangelists.” We write about good news, wonderful news. We write to inspire. To challenge. Perhaps even to incite a rebellion. We dream of another way of being the church. We dare to hope this dream captures others as well.” (RoC, 15)

The book, despite some of what I perceive as significant flaws, seems able to do just what the authors set out to do with it. I'll start with the good, then go to the ugly, and then move on to the great.

The Good

The book is filled with good. First, the style is pleasant and in ways gripping. I found myself regularly wanting to know what would happen next in their stories. I got a real sense that the authors cared about the gospel, that they loved the Lord, and that they loved God's people. As pastors, in the church system in which they were, they really cared about working for people's well being. The honest of the authors was also refreshing, the last chapter mentions their mistakes, particularly in terms of being impatient with people who did not understand why the church leadership wanted to change direction (RoC, 165). Their willingness to mention this really helped me come away loving the book rather than being challenged by it, but ultimately displeased. The attitude of the authors towards people who were concerned with the changes happening in their church was jarring at times (more on that in The Ugly).

Another good piece is the section written to help ambitious pastors, it is a wonderful few paragraphs about how to encourage a pastor and about how pastors often chase after the numbers game in churches due to insecurity about their calling or significance. The idea is that encouraging leaders for fulfilling their calling to make disciples and preach the gospel will be more beneficial to the mission of the church than will be criticizing them for low numbers, etc. The other recommendations to ambitious pastors are also helpful. The segment in this chapter about emphasizing the purpose of the church makes an oft missed point: the church is for making disciples, not primarily getting people to “make decisions” or getting people forgiven, but training them to be disciples, which definitely includes teaching them the kind of repentance that the New Testament says leads to forgiveness, it also involves teaching people how to evangelize (RoC, 74-87).

The Ugly

Because the book is written by a couple of mega-church pastors, there are places that indicate that they used their mega-church pastor authority too much. For instance, they mention that there are two ways to transition a church to focusing on what the New Testament says the church is for: through small groups of people interested in the gospel influencing others over time. The second is using centralized leadership to change the church from the top. They chose the second (RoC, 49). This lead to many instances of their leadership being seen as opportunities to shut down concerned or confused congregants rather than to serve them. They did mention this in the chapter on mistakes (RoC, 163-164).

The Great

The book, more than any other of it's type, seems to speak to contemporary pastors plainly about what the purpose of the church is. I mentioned this above, but the church is not about getting people to heaven, getting more people to attend, solving social problems, or having moving services. The church is a community that is meant to train people to be students of the living Lord, Jesus Christ. He takes care of the heaven, the attendance, and even through his disciples, the social issues.

The authors focus with exciting depth on the problem of human depravity and how Jesus deals with it in the lives of his people. The capacity for self-deception is dealt with very well, particularly in terms of how we want freedom from sin, but we still want to sin (RoC, 125). The authors see this as a problem of human identity, we do not realize that having sin is actually contrary to our nature.

The chapter on worship includes some very helpful insights, reminiscent of John Piper in key ways, for instance, the fact that worship is primarily about God, what he does, and what he says. Worship is not even about how we happen to feel at the time, sincerity in worship is not what matters, God is, and church service worship is most honoring to God when the same focus on God is carried into our lives all day long. Otherwise, no matter how authentic we feel or how great our experience is, our worship is a sham. And in fact, when the focus is on our experience, our authentic praise, how much we get into it, we lose our focus on God and his work. It is neither style, excitement, nor sincerity that ultimately matter, but God, God revealed in Christ Jesus. 

 

The Finale

All in all the book is a great book. Many pastors could benefit from reading it in the present ministry situation in western Christianity. It probably will not be great ten years from now, but for now it is great. In many ways it is similar to radical, except it never tries to offer a formula.

Reformed Internet Culture is Exhausting

I was reading some of Challies' blog and got into the comments and suddenly  remembered why I stopped reading things like that. They are typically mean spirited. They are also made by people who probably do not know what they are actually talking about. The constant accusation of scripture twisting always confuses me too, because well, I'll get to that. Which explains why some of the comments had bizarre contents, like criticizing Rick Warren for not using the word sanctification to explain spiritual growth in a sermon series. The rationale for the critique was that God's Spirit used that word.*

But, the fact is that the Holy Spirit did not use that word, except maybe in one place. This leads me to believe that a lot of people who claim to understand the intricacies of the Bible in terms of it's specific language, probably do not know Greek or Hebrew. I say this because even in that one place, he used a Greek word, not the English word we use, with all of its associations. Sanctification only in later times became a heading for increasing in personal holiness, but typically the term talks about a one off event by which God commends a person to himself when they trust in Jesus Christ. In fact, in 1 Corinthians, sanctification is the ground for Christian living, not the process. For more information on this exact issue, I would refer the reader to a Greek Grammar, Lexicon, and Syntax book. Dave Black, Dan Wallace, and BADG are a good place to start. Also, check out Vern Poythress' book Symphonic Theology, especially pages 74-79.

The place where the author of Hebrews uses sanctification to speak of the process of the Christian life is actually disputable. He says that the recipients of the letter are to "εἰρήνην διώκετε μετὰ πάντων, καὶ τὸν ἁγιασμόν, οὗ χωρὶς οὐδεὶς ὄψεται τὸν κύριον (Hebrews 12:14)." If you look at the noun for holiness, it very well could just mean "seek the state of being a holy person." Which I suppose could mean that it is some kind of process called "holiness/sanctification," but more than likely it is just a state of life wherein one is at peace with all others...which is what the verse says to seek before it says to seek holiness.


I wrote this, not because I doubt these commenters are Christians or because I like or dislike Rick Warren, Tim Challies, or John Piper. Though, John Piper will always be one of my favorite authors, though I disagree with him on many issues. His dissertation showed me that one need not fear historical examinations of the Jesus tradition (and that I need to know German). I wrote it because Reformed Internet culture is so strange and unlike anything I want to be that I had to stop reading the comments. 


The worst part about this subculture and many of the real-life members of it that I've encountered is that many of them have their "guys" but they seem to have just found a quote book of their guys. There is almost no nuance, room for context, or particularly indepth knowledge of any particular thinker. And at least some folks like this actually don't even bother with Greek or Hebrew and I think its cause their "guys" read the Bible for them(I met a pastor like this once who loves his reformed guys, but said that he does not need Greek or Hebrew because he has translation committees, I fear that he is a common kind of guy).

The culture is just weird, unpleasant, and frankly unbiblical in many ways, particularly the dismissal of every command to pursue peace in the New Testament for following the example of Jesus or Paul lambasting false teachers as though apostolic example (something we are not) some how trumps God's commands to his people (which we are). Paul deals with this specifically in the life of the church in Ephesus when they are facing false teachers:

"24 δοῦλον δὲ κυρίου οὐ δεῖ μάχεσθαι, ἀλλὰ ἤπιον εἶναι πρὸς πάντας, διδακτικόν, ἀνεξίκακον, 25 ἐν πραΰτητι παιδεύοντα τοὺς ἀντιδιατιθεμένους, μήποτε δώῃ αὐτοῖς ὁ θεὸς μετάνοιαν εἰς ἐπίγνωσιν ἀληθείας, 26 καὶ ἀνανήψωσιν ἐκ τῆς τοῦ διαβόλου παγίδος, ἐζωγρημένοι ὑπ’ αὐτοῦ εἰς τὸ ἐκείνου θέλημα."

Anyhow, I'm pretty Calvinistic in my thinking, but if the gospel comes with a culture (a common Calvinistic trapping), then that culture must fit the teachings of Jesus on how to treat other people. The Great Commission says so..."teach them to obey everything I commanded you." But if Calvinistic Internet culture does not mirror, model, or even demonstrate knowledge of the teachings of Jesus, then it is difficult to even categorize it as gospel centered. Again, not that members of said culture are not Christians, but the culture has evidently gone astray by the criteria Jesus himself gave to his mission. Also, see John 8:31-32, Jesus says that his teachings lead to freedom from sin and that his disciples continue in his words, so any culture, despite it containing justified Christians, will be deficient if Jesus' teachings about what to do and what to be like are ignored.


I hope that whatever good in reformed sub-culture remains and that continued attention to the teachings of Jesus as well as of the best representatives of that culture continue to lead to positive gospel presentation around the world. Folks like Richard Baxter, J.C. Ryle, Ralph Venning, Jonathan Edwards, Thomas Watson, John Bunyan, and yes, John Calvin have much to say to the church today about obedience, God's grace, and how to navigate life through the long process of transformation from one degree of glory to the next (discipleship).

*The same comments section had people saying that they question John Piper's agenda for recommending (he really just quotes them...never recommends them) Dallas Willard and Richard Foster. Dallas Willard is a guy who has wrongly been accused of universalism by folks who've found a quote from a book that was lifted from context. And Foster is an odd ball, but one of his favorite authors is John Calvin, so he's already read more reformed literature than most of the sermon addicts on the Internet.