Category: Preaching

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Happy Birthday, Francis Schaeffer!

Some great Schaeffer quotes collected by Doug Groothuis:

We as Bible-believing evangelical Christians are locked in a battle. This is not a friendly gentleman’s discussion. It is a life and death conflict between the spiritual hosts of wickedness and those who claim the name of Christ. It is a conflict on the level of ideas between two fundamentally opposed views of truth and reality. It is a conflict on the level of actions between a complete moral perversion and chaos and God’s absolutes. But do we really believe that we are in a life and death battle? Do we really believe that the part we play in the battle has consequences for whether or not men and women will spend eternity in hell? Or whether or not in this life people will live with meaning or meaninglessness? Or whether or not those who do live will live in a climate of moral perversion and degradation? Sadly, we must say that very few in the evangelical world have acted as if these things are true. Rather than trumpet our accomplishments and revel in our growing numbers, it would be closer to the truth to admit that our response has been a disaster.

-Francis Schaeffer, The Great Evangelical Disaster (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1984), pp. 31-32

Truth demands confrontation; loving confrontation, but confrontation nevertheless. If our reflex action is always accommodation regardless of the centrality of the truth involved, there is something wrong. Just as what we may call holiness without love is not God’s kind of holiness, so also what we may call love without holiness, including when necessary confrontation, is not God’s kind of love.

-Francis Schaeffer, The Great Evangelical Disaster (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1984), pp. 64-65

Most people catch their presuppositions from their family and surrounding society the way a child catches measels. But people with more understanding realize that their presuppositions should be chosen after a careful consideration of what world view is true. When all is done, when all the alternatives have been explored, “not many men are in the room” — that is, although world views have many variations, there are not many basic world views or basic presuppositions.

-Francis Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live? (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2005), p. 20

Suppose we awoke tomorrow morning and we opened our Bibles and found two things had been taken out, not as the liberals would take them out, but really out. Suppose God had taken them out. The first item missing was the real empowering of the Holy Spirit, and the second item the reality of prayer. Consequently, following the dictates of Scripture, we would begin to live on the basis of this new Bible in which there was nothing about the power of the Holy Spirit and nothing about the power of prayer. Let me ask you something: what difference would there be from the way we acted yesterday? Do we really believe God is there? If we do, we live differently.

-Francis Schaeffer, The Church at the End of the Twentieth Century, in The Complete Works of Francis Schaeffer, vol. 4, p. 40

 

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What Are People Demanding to Know?

In November I attended a Charity tax and legal seminar hosted by Carters of Orangeville, Ontario. It was a day in which great information, though not exactly entertaining or gripping, was presented. It is held annually in a large church, and is often sold out at $25 per seat.

I’ve spoken to a few people who have offered seminars in their churches free of charge or for a nominal fee. The length of these meetings ranged from a few hours to the entire day. Without exception, the reported attendance has been dismal. Our own congregation offered two such seminars last Spring, the first was “Get Out of Debt,” and was presented by representatives from Scotiabank. The second was Children, Food Additives, Nutrition and Behaviour. It was presented by Shelly Linehan, ND, of Full Circle Health in Hamilton. Both were really well presented, extremely well publicised, appreciated by those who were there, and poorly attended.

Now I can understand why more than 800 people would pay to hear lawyers, accountants, and insurance agents talk about liability and tax law for charities. In today’s climate, a mistake can spell the end of a charity and perhaps the financial well-being of its directors. What I am wondering is, what interests people enough to come out on a weekend or weeknight, that is obviously connected to the Gospel. There are many implications of the Gospel in life, and it’s pretty obvious that we have far to go in our understanding of those implications; and much further in working them out.

So to all you leaders out there: what will motivate people to education beyond what they receive on Sundays? I want to continue our Lifelink™ courses—I think the concept is relevant, and I thought the topics were as well. Any advice? In the past we have had “Community Outreach Seminars” presenting talks on the Dead Sea Scrolls, the DaVinci Code, the James Ossuary, etc. As outreach, these were not stellar performers, although better attended than the Lifelink courses. It could be the time of day—the Community Outreach Seminars (dull name) were held on a weeknight, while the Lifelink courses were held on a Saturday.

Awaiting your wisdom,

Scott