Tag Archives: Christian life

Henri Nouwen’s Out of Solitude

Posted on by
Reply

One could make the argument that the most powerful things in life are simple and brief – a passing word of encouragement from a friend, a glance from one’s spouse, a child’s laugh, a moving quotation from an esteemed leader, or a teaching of Jesus. In short, human beings are never truly moved by the mind boggling and the complex. We are moved by powerful simplicity. The greatest spiritual teachings have never needed an interpretive flow chart.

With this in mind, I would like to recommend to anyone reading this review that they purchase Henri Nouwen’s Out of Solitude and read this short and simple little book – not because of its shortness and simplicity, but because of its power. I was given this book by a friend who recently rediscovered the importance of solitude in his own walk with the Lord. His only instruction was that I read it more than once. I have just finished my second time through it. It will not be the last time.

This book consists of three sections that were originally delivered by Henri Nouwen as sermons at the United Church of Christ at Yale University. Section one deals with solitude. Section two deals with care. Section three deals with expectation. Through introductions and conclusions to each section, Nouwen shows that these three facets of the spiritual life (solitude – care – expectation) stand together and, properly understood, progress into each other. The book also includes photographs by Ron P. van den Bosch that mirror the content of the text in their subtle strength.

Nouwen makes a compelling case that solitude served as the primary component of Jesus’s ministry. He contends that it was in His moments of solitude that Jesus reveled in His “oneness” with the Father. Consequently, all other facets of His earthly ministry sprang from this solitude. He then contends that solitude is no less important in our lives. Without it, Nouwen argues that we will live our lives in constant search of success, affirmation, and the pleasing of others over and against unity with God. Solitude therefore stands as the cornerstone of our spiritual lives – “A life without a quiet place, that is, a life without a quiet center, easily becomes destructive.” (p.21)

It is only of out solitude that we will learn to care. As a pastor, I found this section to be perhaps the most powerful. Nouwen states that we are more consumed with fixing people’s problems than with caring for them. He notes that “care” essentially means “to suffer.” Who can deny that we are a results-oriented society? This is a very real temptation in ministry (i.e., to want to fix but to forget to care) but it is a truth that is no less applicable to all Christians.

Lastly, Nouwen points to the Christian’s eschatological hope as that which keeps care from becoming “a morbid preoccupation with pain” (p.51). In his discussion of expectation, he highlights two aspects: patience and joy. His discussion of patience is particularly moving. In it, he notes that we will not understand what it is to truly live until we understand that life’s unexpected surprises, calamities, and joys are themselves opportunities for living and growing in patience and hope. He ends with reminding all of us that the expected consummation of all things in the coming kingdom of God is the only basis for true joy.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who would like to reexamine the most basic aspects of their walk with Jesus. Nouwen shows us that solitude, care, and expectation are much more difficult to attain and achieve than we had imagined. He also shows us that we simply cannot know what it is to be a Christian and a human until we do attain these things.

Chuck Lawless’ Membership Matters

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve recently finished Chuck Lawless’ Membership Matters and I would like to take this moment to recommend it.  I’ve been and I am working on a membership project and have been working through a number of works on church membership over the last number of weeks.  I found Membership Matters to be extremely helpful, illuminating, and convicting.

Membership Matters is essentially an apologetic for the creation of membership classes in local churches as well as a clarion call for the raising of membership expectations in the local church.  It is based (as so many of these kinds of books are nowadays) on survey data that reveals a growing trend of churches who are rejecting cheap membership and turning instead to membership of substance, expectations, and accountability.

Let me add a caveat here:  it is nice to read a book on the modern church that actually gives one hope and encouragement instead of constant jeremiads of doom.  There is a kind of niche market for ecclesiological apocalyptic literature, the kind of literature that forever paints with broad strokes a picture of the church in North America as utterly bankrupt and souless.  There is, of course, much evidence to support this kind of negative picture, but it is nice to be reminded (as Lawless’ book reminds us) that there are a number of churches seeking to reverse the trend of that consumer-driven churchmanship that has come to so dominate the church landscape today.

The book reveals some interesting things.  It shows that churches which take membership seriously are healthier, stronger, and more effective in reaching people, on the whole.  It revealed, interestingly (and sadly), that the majority of churches with membership classes are good at stressing accountability but that very few of these same churches stress church discipline.  In other words, it is easy to tell people, “This is what we expect.”  It is harder to say, “And if these expectations are violated or ignored, this is what happens.”  But the articulation of membership expectations is a healthy thing that should be celebrated.

The book also gives some helpful suggestions on membership classes:  on the need for the pastor to be personally involved, on the need to have a wholistic approach in terms of subjects taught, on the need for the church to buy into this vision.

The book is also not naive about the difficulties facing churches that move in this direction.  It does reveal, however, (through a very helpful round-table discussion with a number of pastors) that the risks are worth it.

As I am personally involved in the research stages of a membership project that, I pray, will bring a number of practical reforms to the system as it is practiced in our own church, I found this work encouraging and helpful.  I highly recommend it.

Wayne Mack’s To Be or Not to be a Church Member?

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve just finished Wayne Mack’s fascinating little book, To Be or Not to be a Church Member? and would like to heartily recommend it.  It was published by Calvary Press Publishing in 2004.  Mack is apparently an elder at Grace Fellowship Church of the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania.  He’s a graduate of Wheaton College, Philadelphia Seminary, and Westminster Seminary.  This last school, coupled with the fact that he quotes Kuiper twice in a seventy-five page book, tripled with the fact that the church has plural elders, quadrupled with the fact that the church recommends the 1689 London Confession of Faith leads me to believe that Mack is reformed in his theology and baptistic in his convictions, as is his church (despite their non-denominational label).

He’s written an intriguing little book that calls for a return to substantive church membership.  He frames the book around ten reasons why you should become a church member.  (Sidenote:  Where was reason #2!!)  His quotations are very helpful, especially the fascinating Spurgeon quote where we see a young sixteen-year-old Spurgeon threatening his lazy pastor with calling a meeting of the church himself to present himself for membership if the pastor did not do so soon!

It is an imminently biblical book.  Mack makes compelling use of the New Testament and I found myself thinking more than once, “Never thought of that before!”  He firmly links membership with discipline and accountability.  He also provides Grace Fellowship’s membership questions (for both the prospect and the church), which was very helpful indeed.

This would be a great little book to incorporate in some way or other into a new membership class.  It is practical, helpful, straightforward, and convincing.

Jerry Bridges’ The Pursuit of Holiness

Posted on by
Reply

Let me begin this review with a point of tragic irony.  The version of Jerry Bridges’ The Pursuit of Holiness that I have is the 25th Anniversary Edition that was published by NavPress in 2003 (the book was published first in 1978).  For this edition, new endorsements were apparently collected from a number of respected authors and leaders:  J.I. Packer, Charles Colson, and John Piper to name a few.  Then there is this endorsement at the bottom of the back cover:  “The Pursuit of Holiness has helped so many believers navigate the tricky but vitally important road to personal holiness.  This book should be on every Christian leader’s shelf.”  The author of this endorsement?  “Ted Haggard, president, National Association of Evangelicals.”

My point in mentioning this is not to heap scorn on Haggard, but rather to illustrate a point:  holiness is a tricky business, and public avowals of holiness must be tempered with a recognition of how easily any of us might fall into the sin that besets us.

It was a friend of mine who recommended that I read this book.  I was pastoring a small church in Woodstock, Georgia, at the time, and my friend was a former pastor there.  I had seen Bridges’ book and knew of its status as a modern classic, but had never gotten around to reading it.  I’ve just finished doing so, and I must say I regret not reading this book earlier on.

Bridges is a meat and potatoes writer who does not delve much into literary flourish.  That’s a compliment, for too many frills would obscure the central contention of his book:  that a holy God has called a people to holiness through the sacrifice of His Son.

One of the Bridges themes is that we have made the matter too complicated.  We speak of needing “victory” over this or that, when, in reality, what we need to do is use the minds God has given us, work hard to develop sustained habits of obedience, and put some personal exertion into it.  Bridges rejects the notion that Christians are incapable of doing anything towards holiness.  Of course we rely on the Holy Spirit and the power of God, but we also study the Word, pray, avoid sin, and think carefully about what we’re doing.  In this, he sounds like some of Dallas Willard’s writings…or, rather, Dallas Willard sounds like him.

This is no semi-Palagian reliance on the self.  Bridges arguments are biblical, practical, and helpful.  They avoid the “quick fix” mentality that there’s a shortcut to holiness.  He calls for a sober recognition of the fact that the more we sin the more we’ll want to sin, but the more we walk in obedience, the more we’ll want to walk in obedience.  And the point is, we can walk in obedience. “Surely,” writes Bridges, “He has not commanded us to be holy without providing the means to be holy.  The privilege of being holy is yours, and the decision and responsibility to be holy is yours.  If you make that decision, you will experience the fullness of joy which Christ has promised to those who walk in obedience to Him” (212).

The only possible criticism I might have is that Bridges’ illustrations are, at times, a bit quaint:  the girl whose love for tennis got a little out of hand, Bridges’ realization that he was coming to love ice cream a little too much, etc.  They do make the point, but I wonder how the heroin addict would take all of this?

Regardless, this is a work of great importance that ought to be read widely…and it has been for thirty years now.  So I’m a latecomer to this classic, but that’s better than not coming to it at all.  I was challenged, encouraged, and convicted by this work.