Wesleys used bar tunes?

No.

A music adviser for the United Methodist Church has set out to puncture the "myth" that John and Charles Wesley, the brothers regarded as the fathers of Methodism, based several of the most beloved hymns of Christendom on 18th-century tavern songs.

"There is a widespread misconception, and I heard it at conferences everywhere this summer, that the Wesleys used drinking songs," says Dean McIntyre, a music officer with the denomination's Board of Discipleship. "That is a myth. It just is not true." John and Charles Wesley, Anglican vicars whose preaching led to the founding of the Methodist Church in the late 1700s in England, wrote some of the most enduring hymns of the church, sung in churches of all Christian denominations. McIntyre, in a telephone interview from Nashville, says many Methodists today, inspired by the Wesleys' evangelism aimed at the common man, want to believe they sanctified boisterous and drunken tavern songs with new lyrics to save souls.

"Many have cherished the idea that the Wesleys were so evangelistic that they engaged in this practice," he says. He first wrote on the topic last year and sent out another memo to church music experts this month as the myth persisted.

"This idea is that tavern songs can be used to justify using popular music today as a way to reach people, which I have no problem with," McIntyre says. "But the tavern argument is a myth."

Even life itself must be secondary!

"China is not to be won for Christ by quiet, ease-loving men and women … The stamp of men and women we need is such as will put Jesus, China, [and] souls first and foremost in everything and at every time—even life itself must be secondary."

I am reading "Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret" this week. What a man. Here is a great Christian History piece on him.

Atheist decides Africa needs God!

Atheist decides, disbelief or not, Africa needs God. http://tinyurl.com/8awby2

Five reasons Muslims convert

Some good info here.

A survey of 750 Muslims who converted to Christianity shows five predominant reasons they chose to follow Christ.

1. The lifestyle of Christians. Former Muslims cited the love that Christians exhibited in their relationships with non-Christians and their treatment of women as equals.
   


2. The power of God in answered prayers and healing. Experiences of God's supernatural work—especially important to folk Muslims who have a characteristic concern for power and blessings—increased after their conversions, according to the survey. Often dreams about Jesus were reported.
   


3. Dissatisfaction with the type of Islam they had experienced. Many expressed dissatisfaction with the Qur'an, emphasizing God's punishment over his love. Others cited Islamic militancy and the failure of Islamic law to transform society.
   


4. The spiritual truth in the Bible. Muslims are generally taught that the Torah, Psalms, and the Gospels are from God, but that they became corrupted. These Christian converts said, however, that the truth of God found in Scripture became compelling for them and key to their understanding of God's character.
   


5. Biblical teachings about the love of God. In the Qur'an, God's love is conditional, but God's love for all people was especially eye-opening for Muslims. These converts were moved by the love expressed through the life and teachings of Jesus. The next step for many Muslims was to become part of a fellowship of loving Christians.
   

The respondents were from 30 countries and 50 ethnic groups. The survey was prepared at Fuller Theological Seminary's School of Intercultural Studies, and reported in Christianity Today.

Muslims are now 21 percent of the world population, increasing from 12 percent in the past 100 years. And the growth rate of Islam is higher than that of Christianity (1.81% per year, compared to 1.23%). Christians still outnumber Muslims, with one-third of the world population naming Christianity as their faith.

In some parts of the world, significant pockets of Muslims are turning to Christ, including North Africa, South Asia, and Indonesia.

—info from J. Dudley Woodbury, Russell G. Shubin, and G. Marks at ChristianityToday.com.

Bifurcation can be such an unholy word

"It is not a matter of engaging in both the gospel and social action, as if Christian social action was something separate from the gospel itself. The gospel has to be demonstrated in word and deed. Biblically, the gospel includes the totality of all that is good news from God for all that is bad news in human life—in every sphere. So like Jesus, authentic Christian mission has included good news for the poor, compassion for the sick and suffering justice for the oppressed, liberation for the enslaved. The gospel of the Servant of God in the power of the Spirit of God addresses every area of human need and every area that has been broken and twisted by sin and evil. And the heart of the gospel, in all of these areas, is the cross of Christ." - Christopher J. H. Wright International director of John Stott Ministries (from Knowing the Holy Spirit Throught the Old Testament)

This, actually reminds me of the E. Stanley Jones quote: Evangelism without social action is like a body without a soul. Social action without evangelism is like a soul without a body. One is a corpse, the other is a ghost. We don't want either one.

So - why do we so often settle for ghosts and corpses in our ministrues?

Last song on the lips of John Wesley

This hymn by Isaac Watts (1714) was on Wesley's lips when he died:

I'll praise my Maker while I've breath,
and when my voice is lost in death,
praise shall employ my nobler powers;
my days of praise shall ne'er be past,
while life, and thought, and being last,
or immortality endures.

Why should I make a man my trust?
Princes must die and turn to dust;
vain is the help of flesh and blood:
their breath departs, their pomp, and power,
and thoughts, all vanish in an hour,
nor can they make their promise good.

Happy the man whose hopes rely
on Israel's God: he made the sky,
and earth, and seas, with all their train;
his truth for ever stands secure,
he saves th'oppressed, he feeds the poor,
and none shall find his promise vain.

The Lord has eyes to give the blind;
the Lord supports the sinking mind;
he sends the laboring conscience peace;
he helps the stranger in distress,
the widow, and the fatherless,
and grants the prisoner sweet release.

He loves his saints, he knows them well,
but turns the wicked down to hell;
thy God, O Zion! ever reigns:
Let every tongue, let every age,
in this exalted work engage;
praise him in everlasting strains.

I'll praise him while he lends me breath,
and when my voice is lost in death,
praise shall employ my nobler powers;
my days of praise shall ne'er be past,
while life, and thought, and being last,
or immortality endures.

Notice the compassionate themes (the poor, the wicked, the fatherless) and also notice that at the end of the day, an evangelist's final message is that of praise.

Hallelujah!

Questions to ask to stay spiritually sharp

In the middle of the twentieth century the Christian Business Men's Committee urged each other to confront themselves with these questions daily:

1. Does my life please God?
2. Do I enjoy being a Christian?
3. Do I cherish in my heart a feeling of dislike or hatred for anyone?
4. Am I studying my Bible daily?
5. How much time do I spend in secret prayer?
6. How long has it been since I led a soul to Christ?
7. How long since I had a direct answer to prayer?
8. Do I estimate the things of time and eternity at their true value?
9. Am I praying and working for anyone's salvation?
10. Is there anything I cannot give up for Christ?
11. How does my life look to those who are not Christians?
12. Where am I making my greatest mistake?
13. Do I place anything before my Christian duties?
14. Am I honest with the Lord's money?
15. Have I neglected any known duty?
16. Is the world better or worse for my living in it?
17. Am I doing anything that I would condemn in others?
18. Do I hav e a clear conception of my place in the Lord's work?
19. What am I doing to hasten the coming of Christ?
20. Am I doing as Christ would do in my place?

(David R. Enlow, Men Aflame: The Story of CBMC (Zondervan).

Performing Orthodoxy

Action-provoking article from CT.

The reason Christians need to read The Hermeneutics of Doctrine is because of Thiselton's argument that, properly understood, doctrine involves the disposition of belief, which always includes formation and leads on to transformation. Each doctrine he examines, whether he says so with clarity or not, maps how these three terms are at work. In so doing, Thiselton reminds us that any piece of theology that does not lead to worship, absorption of God's work on the cross of Christ, and sanctity in life in community, is not genuine theology.

What does it mean to "believe" a doctrine as true? Belief, as Thiselton has learned from H. H. Price, is an utterance that is "inextricably embodied in patterns of habit, commitment, and action, which constitute endorsement, 'backing,' or 'surroundings' for the utterance." To "believe" is to take a stand in the face of opposition. He quotes Price: "If circumstances were to arise in which it made a practical difference whether p was true or false, he [the believer] would act as if it were true." To believe is "performatory" in character. Thiselton puts it like this: "Belief, then, is action-orientated, situation-related, and embodied in the particularities and contingencies of everyday living." He adds one more component, which, if he's right, shapes everything he says and everything we believe: belief in a doctrine involves "communal commitment and communal formation."

Or, as an old professor of mine named Robert Traina would say: You do what you believe, and you believe what you do.

Spiritual warfare and the mission field

Just attended a forum today where eight current and former missionaries were asked, among other things, about spiritual warfare. This is what they said:

1. Spiritual warfare starts with your own spiritual life. If it is vital, you will be impactful. If it is not, watch out.

2. The weapons of spiritual warfare are daily prayer and Bible study ("which allows you to continue in the fight and keep your joy"), fasting is integral, sabbath-keeping and local church involvement (participation and accountability and community-friendships).

3. Much of the world thinks more holistically than Americans. Address the spiritual problem head-on ("or they will go to a witch doctor or whatever to get those needs met) but don't neglect that the spiritual, physical, intellectual run together for many peoples of the world.

4. Many cultures are very "spiritual." Pay attention to the people you've been sent to so they can teach you about spiritual warfare.

5. Don't get over-focused on evil. To do so gets you into all kinds of strange thinking and doctrine. We are a faith of love (God and neighbor).

6. Pull on the same end of the ministry rope as your family...not against them. Keep your family spiritually and emotionally happy. Take time for your marriage.

7. People may try to put you on a pedestal. Don't let them.

When Muslims convert...

From 1991 to 2007, Fuller Theological Seminary's School of Intercultural Studies conducted a survey among 750 Muslims who had converted to Christianity. Those surveyed represented 50 ethnic groups from 30 different countries. Here were the nine most-cited reasons for conversion to the Christian faith:

1. Christians practiced what they preached.

2. Christians appeared to have loving marriages in which women were treated as equals.

3. Christian-to-Christian violence was less prominent than Muslim-to-Muslim violence.

4. The prayers of Christians had healed the disabled and delivered others from demonic powers.

5. The Koran had produced profound disillusionment because it accentuates "God's punishment more than his love, and the use of violence to impose Islamic laws."

6. God had used visions and dreams to influence the converts' decision.

7. Muslims can never be certain of their forgiveness and salvation as Christians can.

8. As they read the Bible, the converts had been convicted of its truth.

9. The converts were attracted to the idea of God's unconditional love.

Jennifer Riley, "Analysis: Why Muslims Follow Jesus," The Christian Post (11-16-07)

Good advice from Fulton Sheen?

Richard John Neuhaus in First Things seems to think so:

A priest on Long Island tells me that, when he was newly ordained, he had the chance to visit with the legendary Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, who was famed for, among other things, winning many converts to the Catholic Church. Sheen was in the hospital and, as it turned out, on his deathbed. “Archbishop Sheen,” my friend said, “I have come for your counsel. I want to be a convert-making priest like you. I’ve already won fifteen people to the faith. What is your advice?” Sheen painfully pushed himself up on his elbows from his reclining position and looked my friend in the eye. “The first thing to do,” he said, “is to stop counting.”

Preaching that melts...

From George Whitefield's Journal:

Tuesday, November 27, 1739 - ...I preached from a balcony to above six thousand people. God strengthened me to speak nearly two hours, with such demonstration of the Spirit, that great numbers continued weeping for a considerable time.

Tuesday, April 30, 1740 - Towards the conclusion of my discourse, God's Spirit came upon the preacher and people, so that they were melted down exceedingly.

May 14, 1749 - I believe there were near twelve thousand. I had not spoken long before I perceived numbers melting. As I proceeded, the influence increased, till, at last, thousands cried out, so that they almost drowned my voice...What tears were shed and poured forth after the Lord Jesus...After the last discourse, I was so pierced, as it were, and overpowered with the sense of God's love, that some thought...I was about to give up the ghost. How sweetly did I lie at the feet of Jesus. With what power did a sense of His all-constraining, free, and everlasting love flow in upon my soul! It almost took away my life.

What kind of preaching melts hearts today?

Why we don't make disciples

1. Our world view is all wrong. "Be holy as I am holy" is not a core conviction.

2. We prefer the things that are "more exciting" - like worship, harvesting tithes, building buildings, getting on the latest trendy movement of evangelicalism.

3. Not intentional enough. We think Sunday school or the regular programming dynamic of the local church will do the trick to transform lives.

4. We read the gospels for many reasons but not to find the methodology of Jesus for changing the world.

5. Hard to brag about discipleship in the statistics manual of district conference.

6. It is hard work.

7. We were not discipled therefore we don't have a clue what is meant by discipleship or how to do it.

8. American society is a time stealer, and discipleship, alas, takes time.

A third group of growing churches...

This from GROW magazine, a publication of the Nazarenes:

For many years, our Research Center has known that new churches and large churches grow faster than the res of the denomination. But recently, a third group of growing Churches of the Nazarene was discovered.

Three groups...routinely exceed the average denominational growth rate in the U.S. Churches organized less than ten years (or not yet organized), churches reporting at least 500 in worship the previous year, and those churches reporting no more than 50 in worship the previous year....In seventeen of the past twenty years these smaall churches have grown faster than the denominational average. As recently as 2000, their growth rate was higher than that of our largest churches.

Progress!

"It took 18 centuries for dedicated believers to grow from 0% of the world's population to 2.5% in 1900, only 70 years to grow from 2.5% to 5% in 1970, and just the last 30 years to grow from 5% to 11.2% of the world population. Now for the first time in history there is one believer for every nine people worldwide who aren't believers...we're talking about Bible-reading, Bible-believing stream of Christianity." (Ralph D. Winter and Bruce A. Koch/Perspectives)