The Issachar Report (New Blog)

I have a new blog. I write that with the full knowledge that I have a really, really bad track-record with trying to balance two blogs at once. Yet, here I go again. This blog, Pursuing Godly Manhood, represents the “practice of ministry side” of my life’s calling. The Issachar Report is also ministry-related, but in a different way, as the following description will help explain.

I would love for you to check it out when you get the chance. Here’s a little about it…

Our Mission Field

If you were called to serve as a missionary in a foreign land, you would no doubt seek to learn as much as possible about that land and its inhabitants. You would want to learn how to speak the language of the people as well as discover their customs, beliefs, etc., so that you could get to know them and communicate effectively with them. How else would you be able to meet their eternal and temporal needs?

In our world today, what is true about ministering in a foreign land is equally as true in our own. As countless theologians, apologists, missiologists, and evangelists have pointed out, if we desire to effectively reach our culture (our very diverse culture) for Christ, we must know the language, customs, beliefs, etc., of the people we’re around everyday.

Yet, we know that behind people’s perceived temporal needs there lurk real and eternal needs that only the Lord Jesus Christ can meet. Irrelevance is not a mark of faithfulness or a virtue to celebrate. I don’t believe that knowing where folks are coming from spiritually, philosophically, psychologically, emotionally, etc., is necessarily accommodation and compromise. Building relationships, meeting needs, and giving answers that never include the Lord Jesus Christ and his gospel emphatically is accommodation and compromise. It was the Apostle Paul who said that he had become all things to all people that he might win some to Christ (1 Corinthians 9:22). We can be certain that he was able to do so without sinning and selling out. Should we not seek to follow in his footsteps?

Who or What is Issachar?

Issachar was one of Jacob’s sons whose descendents grew to become one of Israel’s twelve tribes. By the time of King David, we are told in 1 Chronicles 12:32, that the men of Issachar were distinguished by knowing or understanding the times in which they lived and were able to advise Israel accordingly. It was the Lord Jesus who castigated the religious leaders of his day for being able to predict the weather but not being able to interpret the signs of the times (Matthew 16:1-3). I believe that God calls Christians today to know the times in which they live so that they might provide a faithful witness for Christ and his Kingdom in our own day.

The goal of The Issachar Report is to help folks view the temporal world in which they live with and through the light of God’s eternal perspective. Whether the focus is theology, worldviews, ethics, culture, peace, justice, economics, etc., my desire is to provide you with some of the most biblically faithful, culturally relevant and practically useful insights and information available to help equip you to better represent the Lord Jesus Christ as well as to bear a more faithful witness in your own personal mission field to which you have been called to serve.

Of course, if you don’t know the basic truths of the Christian faith, then spending all of your time learning about your mission field is a bit like putting the cart before the horse. In fact, if you don’t know what you believe and why you believe it, it’s much more likely that the you will be more influenced by the mission field than the other way around. So please keep first things first!

Jesus Christ is the Lord over every mission field and we want to communicate that touchstone truth to every man, woman and child in a way that is true, significant and attractive. We can’t save people ourselves, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t bear witness to our Lord as lovingly, clearly, and faithfully as possible.

Like the men of Issachar, we need to know the times in which we live and effectively, humbly, and respectfully give an answer to everyone who asks us about the hope that we have in this world… and in the world to come.

My hope is that The Issachar Report will help you toward that end.

Grace and Truth,
Dale

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Our Post-Christian Culture

My bookshelves are loaded with countless titles that take a look at post-Christian this and post-Christian that. For years I had a sneaking suspicion that these books were a little over the top. A bit of hyperbole goes a long way. However, over the last decade or so, it’s finally dawned on me how apt the phrase, “post-Christian” is to define our own culture here in the good ol’ USA.

All the books from George Barna and his various associates that warned the church repeatedly that you can’t continue to lose generation after generation of professing Christian youth have proven most observant and/or prophetic. Of course, the church abdicating her various other responsibilities to the wider culture, not to mention the loss of any sort of distinctive Christian home, have certainly helped us achieve our present situation.

(I can remember countless comments I’ve heard over the years from folks of older generations who would often tell me something along the lines of, “In my day, we didn’t go around talking about our faith like  folks do today.” Two thoughts: First, if that premise is true, then it explains, in part, much of the loss of our culture to the secular world. My other thought is that I only wish that there were more folks today taking a stand for their faith… in every sphere of their lives.)

At any rate, I’ve read several great articles recently that focus on what “post-Christian”really means. Two fantastic articles that are well worth reading are both by James Emery White. (You can find the links below)

The Old Testament tells us that the Tribe of Issachar  consisted of men who knew the times in which they lived and were able to advise Israel regarding what it should do. The Church today is in need of  godly men and women who have not checked out but who, like foreign missionaries, know the culture in which they live, and can help steer the church as it seeks to faithfully represent our Lord and to share his Gospel with a dark and decaying world.

By the way, one of the ways to be a faithful member of the Tribe of Issachar is to subscribe and read (cover to cover) WORLD Magazine.

Grace and Truth,
Dale

The 2012 Tipping Point by James Emery White

Here’s an excerpt…

America as a nation is now, without doubt, decisively post-Christian. This does not mean is it non-Christian, or anti-Christian, simply post-Christian. To be post-Christian means that the very memory of the gospel is fading. This declaration has nothing to do with who won the election. It’s not even about the overall statement the nation made through the election on social issues. It’s about reminding those who may be in shock over the various votes and decisions that this was simply a reflection of who we have become.   Religious “nones” now make up one of every five in our nation.  To use a biblical metaphor, we have gone from an Acts 2 culture to an Acts 17 culture; we no longer live among the God-fearing Jews of Jerusalem, but reside firmly among the populace of Mars Hill.

Click here to read the whole article.

You will also want to read, Future Shock, also by James Emery White.

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Chick-fil-A Day

It seems like every day I wake up, our culture has taken another giant step away from anything I recognize… even from the days of my own childhood (and while at 46 years of age I do feel old sometimes, my childhood wasn’t that long ago). Times, they are a changin’. I get that. But like the world of computers and internet… the change seems to be exponential and often without much reflection.

The latest maelstrom is over remarks made by the CEO of Chick-fil-A. Having now read the remarks he actually made, I’m scratching my head, wondering why all the fuss. I recently read something John Piper said to the effect that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to address the subject of homosexuality, even compassionately, without being demonized. Well, it doesn’t appear that the CEO of Chick-fil-A even had that topic on his radar screen yet he and his company are still being demonized.

My understanding is that August 1st is going to be a day to boycott Chick-fil-A for these atrocities against humanity. I plan on eating there for breakfast, lunch, and dinner on that day. It seems to me that making so much over the remarks made by the Chick-fil-A CEO trivializes legitimate acts and words of discrimination. I feel (truly I do) for any group that is discriminated against… but is simply ”feeling” discriminated against always the same thing as actual discrimination? This particular case doesn’t seem close to resembling discrimination and hate speech.

If all I have to do is “feel” discriminated against to raise the issue, then I would like to charge the media, pop-culture icons, etc., with discrimination and hate speech against Christians who still hold to classical, biblical orthodoxy. Such religious discrimination seems to be the only officially acceptable form of discrimination in today’s world. And don’t even think about arguing with me… because this is the way I “feel.”

I think James Emery White’s post today clarifies and sums up everything I’m trying to say… only much, much better. Here’s an excerpt…

Every now and then an event comes along that offers a unique reflection of our world. A mirror, if you will, of what our culture has become.

 

One took place this past week through the catalyst of three words from the CEO of a restaurant chain: 

 

“Guilty as charged.”

 

Dan Cathy, president and chief operating officer of Chick-fil-A, gave an interview to Baptist Press. Correctly saying that there is no such thing as a “Christian business,” he did offer that organizations such as his can operate on biblical principles “asking God and pleading with God to give us wisdom on decisions we make about people and the programs and partnerships we have.”

 

Then came the match that lit the fire.

 

When asked about the company’s support of the traditional family, Cathy simply said, “Well, guilty as charged.”

 

Click here to read his whole piece… it’s worth your time and effort.

 

Here are a few other links to articles about this same issue…

• Squawking Over Chick-fil-A byEric Metaxas at Christian Post
• Chick-fil-A Day at Baptist Press
• Chick-fil-A and the Irony of the Tolerance Police by Denny Burk
• The Chick-fil-A Firestorm by Gene Edward Veith

 Grace and Truth,
Dale

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How Should We Then Live? (1-3)

with Francis Schaeffer

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Hunger Games Review(s)

I had no idea yesterday morning when I awoke, that I would be arriving two hours early last night to attend the midnight showing of the Hunger Games with several hundred teenaged girls, their mothers, and a few fathers sprinkled about, just for good measure.

Due to a last-minute glitch in some plans that my daughter had made to see the movie, I agreed to take her so she could share in the experience of watching the movie version of the book series that she had been reading.

I was a complete blank-slate regarding my expectations of the movie, since I had no real advanced idea of what it was about. I’m still processing it, but off the top of my head, here are a few observations. (By the way, below are some links to several reviews of the movie that I have not yet read. I wanted to share my own thoughts before I learned what others thought about it.)

First, it was a bit unnerving to watch children killing children. That just can’t be good for kids to see and then think about later. I sort of understand the reason in the story for this, but it just bothered me to “witness” it. I don’t have anything clever to say here… this is more of a visceral observation.

Second, I think the movie might have had more authenticity (at least for me) if the characters, at least once, had a conversation on how barbaric this annual ritual called “the reaping” was. Maybe the book spoke to this, but the characters in the movie just seemed to accept it as the way things were. That bugged me too.

Third, I know this is an unrealistic expectation on my part, but it seems that something so directly focused on “life and death” would have at least taken a minute or two to reflect on God’s part in all this… or even if a good God exists. Some metaphysical or ethical reflection by the characters seemed in order.

Fourth, I appreciated the lead character stepping in for her sister and how, even in the midst of such barbarism, she attempted to act with some genuine humanity toward the others. There was a little grace sprinkled throughout the movie.

I know these aren’t terribly deep thoughts, but after all, it was 12:30 a.m. when the movie started. I was barely awake to begin with and all I knew of the story was what I learned last night as I watched it. I’m sure the reviews below will prove to be much more helpful to you and me. I’m also sure that I will regret that I didn’t first read them before I shared my own thoughts on the movie.

PS – I should say that as a movie, it certainly held my attention as I reflected on what I was watching and as I tried to figure out what was going to happen next. I made my daughter promise not to tell me. She was true to her word.

1.) Conscience killer? The Hunger Games is a compelling story that can sensitize or desensitize teens to darkness | Emily Whitten at WORLD Magazine

2.) The Odds Are In The Hunger Games’ Favor by Christa Bannister at TheFish.com

3.) The Hunger Games at Plugged In

4.) The Hunger Games by Esther J. Archer at BreakPoint - This is a review of the book series.

Grace and Truth,
Dale

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Strong families equals strong economy according to studies

Click here to check out the National Marriage Project

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Dancing with the Culture (Or – Use Your Time Well)

with Chuck Colson

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