The Commencement Season

May 26, 2007

From Watcher’s Lamp:

Families across the country will celebrate their children’s graduations from high school and college. As a father of a graduating senior, I look back and am amazed at where the time has gone, and how fast it goes.

My daughter has attended school under the threat of the Beltway Sniper, suffered through the loss of a close, teen-aged friend to suicide, and watched her high school community grieve the loss of a former graduate in the Virginia Tech tragedy.

She also has watched her SBC church transition to the seeker sensitive model. She watched how men surround and protect their pastors, out of fierce political loyalty, void of Biblical authority. She watched her father plead for doctrinal purity. She watched her family struggle to recover from the public shame of her father being removed as a Sunday School teacher. She watched her family leave the very church she was baptised in 7 years earlier.

When my daughter looks back on these disturbing memories, she will also see the Hand of God in each situation. His grace and mercy. His truth and love. His power and might.

My daughter can testify to the reality and power of Jesus Christ as revealed in His Word, and as demonstrated by His indwelling Holy Spirit. She also knows when someone is pretending the do the same. She knows how smoke and mirrors can be used to create the illusion of God’s power and presence.

Why would any pastor spend what precious little time there is on anything but teaching the whole counsel of God to fight the very real giants that threaten our children and our churches?

Joel 2
28 “And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.
29 Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days.
30 I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and billows of smoke.
31 The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD.

As I read this article from Watcher’s Lamp, I was struck with several parallels in my own church life.

1. Although not in as direct a manner, I was removed from my role as a College and Career sunday school teacher. I was basically asked to stop teaching and schedule others to teach on various (non-confrontational topics).
2. I have discussed at length with church leaders, to no avail, my concerns over serious doctrinal issues in the church I attend.
3. I have seen the pretentious in my church all to often.
4. I have seen leaders in my church protect pastors at the expense of the church body and it’s biblical mandate.

Lord, bring our pastors and church leaders to their knees. May they see the error of their ways, repent and move forward with Your mandate and not their own.

Posted in Church Life, Doctrine, Modern Church, New Evangelicalism