Top Ten Books of 2013--# 6 - A Call to Resurgence - Mark Driscoll
The next book that comes in at the #6 ranking was a book
that I again judged it by its cover and then made the purchase. The title in itself gave me pause for
consideration but the subtitle will jolt you.
Coming in the form of a question, the subtitle is: Will Christianity Have a Funeral or a Future? No matter whether you are in a thriving
church, one that is merely maintaining, or one that is in decline, this ought
to cause all of us to think. As I think
of it now, many of the books that I read this year had to do with the need for
revival and the overall decline of Christianity in America. While we can listen to all the cheerleading
sessions that we want to, the overall picture in America concerning Christianity
at large is very grim.
The author of this book is a commonly referred to in the
Reformed circles as a brash badboy who needs to grow up. However some of that is related to the area
that he hails from. Seattle is one of
the most liberal areas of our nation that has become home for legislation that
legalized the use of marijuana and has “lawfully” sanctioned homosexual “marriage.” So given that environment, Mark Driscoll,
probably has a reason to be as brash and impetuous with his preaching that is
sometimes peppered with slang words that would make many of us in the Bible-belt
cringe.
Author: Mark Driscoll
Publisher: Tyndale, 2013
Driscoll immediately comes out of the chute with his chapter
title to opening the book with Christendom
is Dead—Welcome to the United States of Seattle. Under a heading (One Nation, Under God?) in
this chapter, Driscoll gives this observation:
On January 21,
2013, Barack Obama placed his hand on a Bible he may not entirely believe to
take an oath to a God he may not entirely know.
Jesus alone will judge his soul one day, but in the meantime we are free
to be confused by a man who says he’s a Christian while ending his speech to
America’s largest abortion provider with, “Thank you , Planned Parenthood. God bless you.”
Driscoll ends this section with the following:
January 21, 2013
was more than Inauguration Day. It was also
a funeral. The highest office in the
land made it clear: “inclusion and
acceptance for all Americans” no longer includes Bible-believing, evangelical
Christians.
All through the first chapter are very troubling stats
that are footnoted by Driscoll. I have
come to appreciate footnotes over the years because it allows you to put your
feet into something concrete instead of pulling some nebulous, vague number out
of the air to stir the emotions. I
marked up this book and wrote in multiple places in the margins. Here is what I wrote at the top of page
15: Way too many Pentecostal kids have
come along and have borrowed faith from their parents and grandparents. They are as lost as many sinners except they
don’t know it yet. I realize that such a
blanket statement is going to draw some fire but there is something to be said
about the Pentecostal experience and it has to be replicated in their
lives. It has to be more than just the
fact that they attend a Pentecostal church every week. Our kids need to know that there is a
necessity of the New Birth which occurs initially when they speak with tongues,
the importance of baptism by immersion in the name of Jesus, and a godly
pursuit of holiness that is going to make them different from the rest of the
world and Christendom. Furthermore, when
visitors come into our churches, they don’t need to be confused as to what kind
of church it is. If we keep trending
toward the idea that tongues, passionate preaching, demonstrative worship, intercessory
prayer, separation from the world, the operation of the true gifts of the Spirit,
and so forth is “old-school” or “throw-back” then we are going to effectively
render a funeral of our apostolic Pentecostal churches. I was greatly grieved as I read through
Driscoll’s assessment of the evangelical church in America.
Following is a sampling of some of the statistics that
Driscoll listed:
·
More than 40% of professing US evangelicals do
not attend church weekly.
·
More than 60% of professing mainline Christians do
not attend weekly.
·
One Christian leader noted that millions who consider
themselves Christians limit their church attendance largely to holidays,
weddings, and funerals.
Driscoll also noted the in United Kingdom the demise of
Christianity.
·
Barely 8% attend church regularly.
·
2/3’s of those polled had not been to a church
in the past year except for baptisms, weddings, or funerals.
·
Despite these stats, 53% identified themselves
as Christians.
Here is what we must understand which the book makes a
point of: without inward conversion there’s no reason to expect outward devotion. I find all of this very troubling that church
has become nothing more than a social outlet with very little spiritual fruit
or growth. This makes me uncomfortable
as a pastor knowing that much of this mindset is prevailing in the church that
I pastor. My only hope is for a
God-sent, Heaven-rained, sin-convicting, and prayer-committed revival and
harvest to take place in the church that I pastor. Furthermore it needs to grip the entire
Pentecostal movement, the UPCI notwithstanding.
If we ever needed men in the pulpits who were committed to prayer, the
Word, spiritual passion and hunger, it is now!!!!
Driscoll’s book with stoke you up concerning the absolute
need for this! As a disclaimer, I read a
lot of books but I also read a lot of Word too.
Therefore there are some ardent doctrinal and theological positions that
Driscoll has concerning salvation, the Godhead, and so forth that I am in
complete disagreement with but since I couldn’t find a Pentecostal writer who
was addressing the issues he does, I bought his book. This book makes me want to taste revival and
spiritual transformation in the truest sense of the word and I think it will do
the same for you also.
Thanks for reading. . .
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