Aug 13
Andrew J. NicewanderRandom, Some Thoughts Fatherhood, Grace, Love, Marriage, Prayer
In the past 3 years I have gone from being a very single young 23-year old man finishing a computer science engineering degree at the University of Texas at Arlington, to being a married man of slightly less than a year and a half with one eight-month old little girl, working as a systems engineer, working towards a Masters of Divinity degree and prayfully considering where our little family is going to put down roots.
Much in my life has changed.
Along with these changes have come many lessons and mistakes.
Of these lessons (or perhaps more fundamentally observations based on fundamental truths), two have stood out in my 15 months of husbandhood and 8 months of fatherhood (not counting the in-the-oven time): namely, as a Father, I’m to exemplify God the Father and as a husband I’m to love my sweet wife as Jesus loves His Bride, the Church.
Now, in many ways, this is both a blessing and a curse. It is a curse because the reality is that there is no one on this earth who can do it. It’s nigh impossible. I am absolutely incapable of loving my wife like Jesus loves me. I simply cannot. I can never love my daughter like the Father loves me. Any attempt, while noble, will always fall short because I am, quite obviously, not Jesus.
Yet, this reality is also an extreme blessing because in the Father and in the Son I have perfect examples of how to love my family. When my daughter is crying at night, very loudly, and there is absolutely nothing I can do to soothe, calm, or quiet her and I am tempted to get made and flustered and discouraged, I can remember all of the times I have whined and cried and shook my little fists at God and my mind can be calmed and I can love my daughter in some small way like how my Father loves me. When I get flustered and my wife and when the romance is not there and when I’ve had a sucky day and she’s had a sucky day and I’m short with my words and I’m impatient and angry with my thoughts and I just want to go to bed instead of being with my wife, I can be kindly rebuked by my Savior’s Love for me; that love that lived on this earth, was broken, beaten, bruised, spat upon, tortured, bloodied, crucified and killed and I can know His great love for me and have a tangible example to encourage me to forget myself and my own petty needs and love my wife as Jesus eternally loves me.
Being a husband and a dad is better and harder than I ever imagined. God has surely graced me in allowing me to do it.
Jul 06
Andrew J. NicewanderPoetry, Sermon Poems, Some Thoughts Grace, Jesus, Love, The Church, Truth
Pastor Jarrett preached yesterday out of Revelation regarding the letter from Jesus to the Church in Ephesus. In this letter Jesus commends the Ephesians for their doctrinal purity, patient persistence in the midst of trial and for their steadfast service to Him. Yet He (rightly) accuses them of leaving their first Love. Jarrett reminded us of Paul’s words that if we are living and breathing and serving without love, then all of our effort is of no intrinsic value and is unprofitable, worthless and generally rather annoying. These words hit me where it hurts! I love Truth and Persistence and Doctrine and Ideas (even if I suck at all of them!), but what good is that to anyone if I’m not loving (as Jesus first loved me)? Is it even Truth that I believe in if I’m not loving? Do I love the same people that Jesus loves? Do I love them the way that Jesus loves me? Or am I the guy who has been forgiven a massive 10 million dollar debt, but can’t forgive a measly five dollar IOU?
Do I love Jesus’ Church, His Bride and Body? Do I love the sick and the poor and the widow and the orphan? Do I love the unclean, the unrighteous, the homosexual, the adulterer, the murderer, the thief and the child abuser? Do I love those on the edges and margins of society? Do I love those who would commit heinous crimes against me? Do I have “faith” without the corresponding works of love (and it IS work!)?
Yet, a more profound and searching question must be asked. Do I love Jesus? Or do I love my understanding of Jesus? Do I love the teachings of Jesus more than Jesus Himself? Am I too much like the serving Martha in her bad moments (as important and godly dutiful service can be …) and not enough like the enraptured-with-Jesus Mary? Am I stuck-up, haughty, arrogant and prideful about my understanding and faith, or am I abased and humbled and broken and contrite before the One who saved a wretch like me?
Lord, break me and abase me before Your Son and be my strength to love you more and more each day! I’ve not the strength in my frame and I’ve not the will to obey, apart from Your Grace …
I love my Savior God
I long to do His Will
But oh my soul I’ve lost my way
Woe unto me, I’ve left my love
I’m steeped in doctrine pure
I know when error comes
With patience I endure so well
Woe unto me, I’ve left my love
I toil and bear for Christ
I’ve not grown tired yet
Like Martha, service is my Call
Woe unto me, I’ve left my love
Jesus with the flaming eyes
Jesus with the two-edged sword
Your eyes see all, your mouth speaks Truth
Woe unto me, I’ve left my love
You control the skies above
You calm the raging seas
And oh my God, come calm my heart
Jesus please show me Your Love
I do no love the one’s you love
A hypocrite is what I am
I show my knowledge is not complete
All of my brothers I don’t love
I know it was for me you died
Your love was pain and suffering
With patience you endure Your own
Jesus I know it’s me you love
Jesus bring me to the day
When pain will melt away
I’ll dwell with you for all the days
It’s you, my God, I love
Please protect me from myself
The sin that dwells therein
Until I die keep me from my sin
Jesus keep me in Your Love
Jun 23
Andrew J. NicewanderSome Thoughts 9Marks, Baptist, Founders, Great Commission Resurgence, Internet Monk, Reformation, SBC
Below are some links to some thoughts from the SBC 2009.
Of interest is the
list of things that Michael Spencer notes over at Internet Monk. Of those, item #6 stands out:
“The patient teaching of the Gospel and church-centered theology by the Founders Ministries and 9Marks has paid off in more fruit than can be put in a basket. Hundreds and hundreds of young people, hungry to hear how to build a Gospel centered, God honoring, missionary focused church. It is astonishing. It may not be revival, but it is a solid outcome that will make a huge difference for a small number of churches.”
Nothing effects change (in terms of human understanding) than faithful, patient, plodding, grinding, constant persistence. Now, may the change that has been effected by
Founders and
IX Marks be Spirit-directed, Christ-focused and God-honoring.
More thoughts:
Tom Ascol (Overall Reflections
HERE)
Daniel Akin
SBC Voices
Tim Brister (10 Highlights) (10 Lowlights)
Baptist Press News
The Baptist Standard
Biblical Recorder
SBCImpact
Ed Stetzer
James Galyon
Owen Strachan
Wade Burleson
Alvin Reid
Micah Fries
Shawn Bergen
Thom Rainer
Peter Lumpkins
Alan Cross
May 21
Andrew J. NicewanderChristian Living, Some Thoughts Beauty, Christianity, Church, Faith, Faithfullness, God, Patience, Relevance, Responsibility
It seems that true, persistent, plodding faithfulness is perhaps the hardest part of the Christian walk.
It is fairly easy to be flashy and it is easy to exert a great amount of energy for a small amount of time. But to be faithful and constant … that is hard. Patience and persistence is required for such faithfulness. To be faithful means constant warfare with the flesh. For the faithful man or woman there are no breaks, no rests, and no separation from the grind. The faithful Christian is a plodder. She is content in doing what she is called to do, even if she spends her whole life in relative obscurity. The faithful Christian does not mind doing the dirty work. In fact, he puts all of his effort into the task, knowing that there will be few who notice. The faithful Christian will be told at the end of things “Well done, good and faithful servant”. The faithful Christian is a slave and he rejoices in it. She is a servant and in her servitude she seeks the honor of God. He knows he might never be noticed, but he is ok with that possibility and general reality.
He is the pastor of a small congregation in the Texas Hill Country. The church he serves in has never had much numerical growth. He has never had many converts. He is not flashy and he is not real relevant. He is faithful in the little things and faithful in the big things he is given responsibility for.
She is the mother of ten believing children and currently the grandmother of fifteen. She was a beautiful woman in the flower of youth but now her body is wrinkled, bent and worn out. She is not flashy and she’s not real sexy. She is faithful in the little things and faithful in the big things she is given responsibility for.
This man might not be successful in the eyes of the world (or even the eyes of Evangelicals!), but in the Lord’s eyes this man is honored. This woman might not be beautiful in the eyes of the world, but in God’s eyes this woman exhibits true human beauty.
Are we content with faithfulness to God, or are we in such pursuit of fame, success, relevance and beauty that we lost sight of the one by whom and for whom all things exist?
May 04
Andrew J. NicewanderCulture, Missions, Some Thoughts Church, Church Planting, Evangelism, Incarnational Living, Jesus, Missiology, Missions, Preaching, Responsibility, Scripture, Teaching, Worship
My previous posts in this series are below: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 I finished Part 3 in this series with a basic question: how is this missions model incarnational? To explain, the normal and traditional way of doing missions (at least according to this model) is shown below: 
Usually, the missionary is trained and mentored in the sending context and sent out into the rest of the world to evangelize, and for the church-planter, to plant churches. But, what if the model took on this shape: 
Notice in what context the whole model exists. Within this model the missionaries leave their home churches, go to their mission field and serve, are trained, are sent and plant planting churches within the indigenous context.
As many have noted, the number of “unreached” people groups have been dropping precipitously. This is a wonderful development and we should thank God for it. But, we dare not forget the scores of lost men who remain in groups that have been “reached”. We are called by God to make disciples among all the nations and all of the people groups, not just among those who are unreached. A direct (and obvious) corollary of the reality of there being fewer unreached people groups is the reality of there being more reached people groups. Because of this reality, there are more indigenous churches to serve in, to be trained in, and to be sent by to plant more indigenous, Bible believing, Gospel-Saturated planting churches.
Consider what a profound example of incarnational humility this can be. If you are a man called of God to someday pastor, it will be a great statement of trust in Christ and submission to others to, in faith, immerse yourself in another culture and serve in a local church in that culture. 
You then are trained by “indigenous” pastors and are sent by indigenous churches to plant indigenous churches that themselves plant indigenous churches that plant indigenous (or glory be to God, foreign) churches. You’ll more fully learn how to live with people of another culture. You’ll more fully learn how they think, how they live, how they worship and how they serve. You’ll be trained by men who know their culture, to serve others in that culture. You allow and encourage the indigenous church to take ownership and responsibility to plant indigenous churches that otherwise would have been planted by your home-culture church. Is this not a wonderful example of Christian unity? Is this not a wonderful example of the Biblical diversity that is found in the love of Christ? Is this not a profound declaration of the priority of our Heavenly Citizenship over the citizenship of our native land?
What are the full implication and ramifications of this model? Honestly, I have no way of knowing. I would pray that it would foster a passion for the glory of Christ in our unity as children of the Father. I pray it would encourage humility and discourage the arrogance that is found all too often in the saints. I pray that it would encourage us to preach Christ to all peoples. We must remember that every generation presents us with a new crop of souls to be harvested. May we ever submit to the Will of God and seek his glory, by the Son’s Grace and through the sanctifying work of the Spirit.
May 01
Andrew J. NicewanderCulture, Missions, Some Thoughts Church, Church Planting, Evangelism, Incarnational Living, Jesus, Missiology, Missions, Preaching, Responsibility, Scripture, Teaching, Worship
In review, here is the suggested model for living and serving incarnationally in missionary church planting.
In Scripture (1 Peter 3:8-9, Ephesians 4:1-6) Christians are called to submit to and live in deference one to another. In Hebrews 13:17 Christians are called to submit to their leadership (within Christian mutual submission). Being a churchman can and should be a very humbling experience. As much as the human being desires absolute autonomy, the simple truth is that in Christ we are unified to each other. In Christ we are to submit to one another with humble selflessness, giving deference to each other. If a man cannot do this in a local church, how can he have any reasonable expectation of asking men and women to follow his leadership as an undershepherd? How can a pastor hope to lead like Christ unless he can first be led? There is so much emphasis in evangelicalism on being a good leader that many people forget that in order to be a Christ-like servant-leader you must be a Christ-like servant-follower. Pastors are servants, under-shepherds, slaves and messenger boys, called of God to minister to Christ’s Body.
It is within this context that certain men are called out of the body of believers into roles of leadership. Yet, this does not necessarily happen instantaneously. In the examples of Barnabus and his protégé Paul, and then in Paul and his protégés Timothy and Titus, there is a very strong element of pastoral mentoring that occurs. 
In this modern era of Christianity, most of the heart of pastoral training is expected to be completed at a seminary. There is on the job training that happens, as with any job, but usually, to be a pastor means that one must go to seminary, get a degree of some kind, and then wait for one’s resume to be picked up by a church somewhere who will then call the candidate in question and examine him. Where is the ownership in the local church for a man’s training and development in such a system? Seminaries are not bad institutions. There is a lot of good that come out of seminaries, as well as bad. The problem comes when the local church abdicates her responsibility and ability to train her own pastors, missionaries and missionary church planters by farming out the work to the plethora of available para-church organizations and denominational institutions.
Once the pastors or missionaries or missionary church planters are trained and ready, who sends them? Should the local church rely solely on Missions agencies and church planting networks to send their men and women to the field? I think the example of the Holy Spirit through the Church in Antioch is a hearty no! It was the local church in Antioch that sent Barnabas and Paul. The local church must send out her own! This duty, calling and privilege is not the purview of the missions agency or the denomination. Are missions agencies or denominational missions wings bad? Again, not necessarily. Problems arise when local churches renege on their responsibilities. The church must train her people and she must take ownership of her calling before God to send them out among the nations.
Finally, as men and women are sent around the world to spread the good news of the Gospel, it must be done within the realm of planting churches that plant churches. Thus we see the organic nature of the Church: by God’s Grace, in Christ and through the Spirit’s power, churches reproduce. Interestingly enough, the three previous elements of this model happen at this point. One the one hand serving, teaching/learning and sending comes into play with this fourth element; but at the same time, the planted church is learning how to serve, teach/learn and send. In order for a church to be able to plant churches there should be a corporately similar trajectory of growth for the church as their should have been for the missionary church planter.
There are two additional aspects of this model that should be explained.
First, each subsequent element of the model is within the context of the previous element. Every Christian should be a part of a local church, that’s the large context of the model. Yet not everyone will be mentored to be a pastor/church planter. Even fewer will actually become pastors and even fewer will actually become church planters. Of the church planters and the churches that will be planted, even fewer churches will be planted that actually go out themselves to plant churches.
Secondly, every subsequent element of the model envelopes a larger and larger focus. For the first element, the focus is within the local church. As mentorship progresses to being sent the focus grows, finally culminating with an ever-expanding reality of planted churches planting churches for the purpose of worshiping God and evangelizing and discipling of all the peoples in all the lands throughout all the world.
A potentially obvious question is perhaps apparent. How is this incarnational? I’ll answer that with the last and final post.
Apr 30
Andrew J. NicewanderCulture, Missions, Some Thoughts Church, Church Planting, Evangelism, Incarnational Living, Jesus, Missiology, Missions, Preaching, Responsibility, Scripture, Teaching, Worship
There are scores of ideas in our contemporary milieu of evangelical thought on how to best accomplish our Christ-given Great Commission Responsibility. There are many various and sundry models, concepts and strategies that are used to bring the message of Jesus to a lost and dying world in ways that are missional, confrontational, contextual, relevant and incarnational.
All of these ideas and means can be well and good, so long as they are within the realm of biblical thought, principles and orthodoxy. Is that not the rub? Are we biblical in our methodologies or do we evangelize according to our own abilities and devices? Our evangelical strategies and missiological frameworks must be examined in light of and submitted to the Truth of God’s Written Will and Word. As such, please permit me to submit to you a biblical model of incarnational missionary church planting, based on the example of the early Church as led by the Holy Spirit.
As much as we read and hear about the epistle writer Paul, it is very enlightening to understand how Paul became the Missionary Church Planter we read about in the book of Acts and in his letters. After his Damascus Road Experience, Paul does not automatically seek to become a missionary church planter. After a time of learning from the Lord in Arabia, he sought to be with the disciples, in Damascus and Jerusalem. He recognized the need for the community and accountability that a group of like-minded believers can provide for each other. Then, when the need arose, Barnabas went to Tarsus (where Paul had been sent by the disciples in Jerusalem, because he had severely angered the Hellenists with his bold and biblical preaching), found Paul, brought him back to Antioch and together they ministered to the saints. The Scripture then says that in those days a prophecy was made concerning a famine in Jerusalem, so that the church in Antioch, taking responsibility to help their brothers in Jerusalem, sends Barnabas and Paul to Jerusalem with relief. We’re then told in Acts 13:1-3 that while the disciples in Antioch were worshipping and fasting that the Holy Spirit sets Barnabas and Paul apart for the work that was prepared for them to do. And, in obedience, the local church in Antioch sends Barnabas and Paul on God’s mission.
It is in the middle of Acts 13 that we see a major shift in Paul’s Ministry. He takes the lead. The student had concluded that stage of his education and training and took the leadership responsibility of the missionary team. From that point on in Acts, we see Paul planting churches in Ephesus, Corinth, Galatia, Thessalonica, and Philippi. It is important to note that Paul planted churches in major cities. It is from these urban centers that the indigenous churches were planted and from the urban areas that these planting churches planted.
In addition to Paul, we see this same example of serving/submitting, teaching/learning, sending and planting in Timothy and Titus. Both were men discipled under the ministry of Paul, both were trained in some measure by Paul and both then had the responsibility of discipling, mentoring and leading other men and churches.
Based off of the examples of Barnabas, Paul, Timothy and Titus, I would submit to you the following model for Biblical Missionary Church Planting:
In the next post in this series, I’ll explain what each element of the model means and why it matters.
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