Why I am a Christian: Something Doesn't Come from Nothing

I’ve decided to give myself a little writing task. In the last few weeks I’ve encountered no small number of people that have asked me, Why are you a Christian? I’ve given a constellation of answers to their inquiries, which made me decided to solidify my thoughts into a series of blogs.

Christianity fully satisfies me in three main ways: philosophically (it is reasonable), existentially (I’ve experienced its power), and Sociologically/Psychologically (It makes best sense of people and their emotional lives.)  First up, philosophical reasons.

Democritus, a Greek philosopher, noticed quite rightly that everything has a cause.  He set into motion the idea that nothing comes from nothing, or that everything in nature has a cause.  Fast-forward a few thousand years to modern-day cosmology and we’ve come to the understanding that the universe began to exist some 14 billion years ago in a cataclysmic event we commonly refer to as the Big Bang.  Turns out that Democritus was right.  Nothing comes from nothing, and everything in our physical universe does, in fact, seem to have a cause.  For instance, you didn’t just arrive at the store, you drove there.  Driving was the cause that led to you being at the store.  The universe isn’t that different.

Which begs the question… what caused the Big Bang? Another way to put it is, the big bang requires a big banger.

Put formally, here’s how we’d put the case:

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.

2. The universe began to exist.

3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

(If you’re a dork like me, then you’ll note that this is called the Kalaam Cosmological Arguement and is most powerfully argued by Dr. William Lane Craig)

The atheist has to maintain some pretty unreasonable ideas, like: consciousness comes from non-consciousness, life comes from non-life, matter comes from non-matter, time comes from non-time, space comes from non-space, thought comes from non-thought, and on and on we go.

So, I find this to be true: something exists rather than nothing, so existence must be caused.  This cause must be non-spatial (because it made space) and outside of time (because it made time).  So, to explain the origin of the universe we’re looking for a timeless, space-less, immaterial something.  That is, the box-maker can’t be in the box he made.

Only two things are space-less, timeless, and immaterial, and only one of them causes stuff to happen: minds.

So, we’re looking for a space-less, timeless, non-physical mind.  Who does that sound like to you?

For a more detailed treatment of this argument have a look at Dr. Craig’s article here.

Ezra and Team Church Planting

(Reposted at Aletheia Boston)

I’ve been reading the book of Ezra, and something interesting popped out at me.

Here’s the situation: Ezra, a priest of God, has been called by God to go back to Jerusalem and begin to re-establish worship of God in the city. He’s been called to go to a broken, dark, and destroyed place and proclaim the words of God to the people.

A slightly intimidating task, no doubt.

…this Ezra went up from Babylonia. He was a scribe skilled in the Law of Moses that the LORD, the God of Israel, had given, and the king granted him all that he asked, for the hand of the LORD his God was on him. (Ezra 7:6)

So, God’s favor was on Ezra to do what he had asked him to do. But, here was the part that jumped out…

And there went up also to Jerusalem, in the seventh year of Artaxerxes the king, some of the people of Israel, and some of the priests and Levites, the singers and gatekeepers, and the temple servants. (Ezra 7:7)

God, in his goodness, had the good sense to not just send Ezra to the city, but sovereignly  to stir up the hearts of all sorts of other people crucial to the mission to move there as well.

See, in church planting a lot of pressure is put on the lead guy, as it should be. But let us not forget that it takes a team around that guy, orchestrated by God himself, to make the mission actually happen. In short, it’s one thing for God to have called me to lead a church plant, but its going to take a whole team of radical, called, and focused people to make it happen.

Might you be one of those people to whom God is speaking to help us plant this church? As he’s called us, could he be calling you?

Finish Well

As you may know, Hope and I are in a period of transition.

I’ve decided I love/hate the word transition. I love the part of something new and exciting coming, but I hate leaving people, places, and work that I love. So how do you transition well? This is something that I’ve been giving a lot of thought to lately.

In order to transition well, I have resolved myself to do the following:

Work harder. Because I know that I will soon no longer call this place home, nor call these people my mission field, I will work hard to preach, demonstrate, and point my life toward the gospel of Jesus Christ. I will preach harder. I will study more. I will invite more people. I will be more bold.

Give it away. I will train others up to do what I do.  I will lead by example, and invest my final moments in this place with those men I’ve been investing in for years, to make sure that when I leave, they accomplish more than I ever could.

Sleep. I trust that God will continue the good work that he has started, and I will therefore sleep.

Joy in Suffering

Rejoice always.

Seriously?! Is there any command of Scripture that’s more detatched from reality? How can God expect us to actually obey that command when we live in world with real pain, death, sin, and struggle.  How can a woman who has just lost her child, a husband who lost a wife, someone who is dying of cancer, rejoice? How do you do that?

My daughters and I play a game called “Jesus is better than…” Here’s how the game goes: you think of something you really like, and then say, “Jesus is better than that.“  In my kids’ case, that is often ice cream, barbies, or their favorite movie. Why do we play this game? Because in this little game is the secret to joy that never fails.

If Jesus is really better than all your favorite things, then you can’t have your joy taken when you lose them. We suffer when we lose what we love. If we love what we can’t lose, then suffering will only be momentary, light, and passing, because no one can ever take Jesus from you.

Kicked out of the UK

So, yeah…

OUR VISAS HAVE BEEN DENIED. After a rather long and drawn out exercise with the UK Border Agency, we have found out that we will not be able to remain in the UK after November of this year. As you may recall, in the process of applying for new visas, the UK government changed their rules for us missionaries to remain in the country, and WE WILL HAVE TO LEAVE THE UK IN NOVEMBER.

As you can imagine, we are both shocked and surprised, as we were quite hopeful that we would be able to remain here until we were ready to move to Boston next year. We trust that God is sovereign and good in all this, and we know that He is in control of our lives and that he loves us.

To prepare for our coming transition we’re going to have to believe God for a lot of provision. WOULD YOU PRAY INTO THESE AREAS WITH US?

• $13,000 – for our moving costs and plane tickets from the UK to the USA
• GRACE – we will be moving with a newborn (our new son will only be 6-8 weeks old)
• CAR – for our family in the USA
• RENTERS – as our house is unlikely to sell in such a short time.

After Scotland, we will be taking some time out to prepare to plant a great church in Boston, but for now, we’re hoping to MAKE THE MOST OF OUR REMAINING TIME HERE, and to work hard to bear as much fruit as possible.

We know that God causes all things to work together for our good (Romans 8:28), and that God is well able to meet all our needs according to his glorious riches in Christ (Phil 4:19). While we are a bit dazed and confused, we are most certainly not without hope. For those of you who are our partners, THANK YOU SO MUCH for continuing to stand with us and support this ministry.  You know who you are, and you rock.

As we walk through transition from one mission field into another one, we can’t tell you how excited we are. Even though we can’t see the whole future, we are trusting in God and look forward to what he will do.

I’d love to hear any questions you might have.  But, that’s where we are.

Suffering and the Sovereigty of God

Further from my previous post on suffering, here’s a link to my most recent sermon at church:

Suffering and the Sovereignty of God.

I’d welcome your thoughts.

45.5 Million Martyrs in the last 100 Years

Suffering. Without a doubt, understanding the goodness of God and a world with suffering is the biggest stumbling block to faith for most people.  It has been said that people aren’t really struggling with the existence of God, but the goodness of God.

In this article, we’re told In two millennia of Christian history, about 70 million faithful have given their lives for the faith, and of these, 45.5 million — fully 65% — were in the last century.

That last part was the most shocking to me. To put that in perspective, that means that 9 times the population of Scotland died in the last 100 years as Christian martyrs.

I’ll be following this up with a theological look into suffering, but I’m curious for your thoughts.

The Adequacy of Inadequacy

Have you ever been utterly and completely aware of your inadequacy?

Recently, I have been feeling the weight of what God has asked me and my family to do. No doubt our personal calling is weighty, but if I’m honest, so is yours. Jesus has commanded you and I to go into all the nations, be holy, be merciful, walk in love, be honest, serve the world, and to give our lives away. Do you honestly think you can do that?

It’s one thing that know that we’re called to do all this, but its another thing to look into yourself and find, in vacuous absence, the tools you need to fulfill the commands. I simply can’t go that far, love that much, serve so well…  What’s the deal with that? Why would God ask us to do so much knowing that we’re capable of so little?

Despair. Angst. Self-doubt. I have known them well recently.

Then, whispers from eternity come to my ears…  Exactly. Of course I’m inadequate to the task, and so you are you.

Inadequacy is the very thing we need, because its only the empty buckets that can be filled up. That is, only in our inadequacy can God’s grace come to make us able. If our lives are so full of rediculous confidence in self, then God simply can’t pour grace in.  We’re too full of self. But only when we see and realize the vastness of our lack and need can God fill us with the greater measure of his grace.

So, rejoice in your inadequacy, because God is well able to more than make it up and accomplish you and I something greater than ourselves.

More Visa Drama

As you may know, we’ve been going through some visa drama for the last few months.

At this moment, my family needs your prayers.

A while back, I was informed that the British government changed the rules which allow us ministers to stay in the UK. At that time, I asked you to pray that our church would gain “sponsor status” which would allow us to officially invite missionaries like me to be in the UK. Thanks for praying, It worked! We got approved and now we can be officially invited.

But then a new problem popped up.

In the time it took for our church to obtain this status, our visas expired. Now, in order to get another visa, we can’t simply re-apply for the one we had because ours expired while we were waiting on CentrePoint Church to become sponsors. Now we have to apply for new visas. For us to do this, we would have to fly all our family members home (including our son who’s not been born yet), stay there for 6 weeks, apply for new British visas, pay fees, pay to stay in the USA, pay for flights, and for new biometric information to be taken for the visas. No problem, right? Wrong. For us to do this it would cost something on the order of $10,000, or just under. This would allow us to stay for an additional 6 months past our current tourist visas that we’re on. Just to be clear, that’s 6 months for $10k. Not something we’re prepared or able to do.

In about a week, I’m meeting with a visa attorney to discuss our options. These are the possible outcomes that I can think of:

1. Good – We file some kind of an extension to our tourist visas, and extend our legal stay into the new year sometime without the craziness of flying us all home and paying $10k.
2. Bad – Get a negative outcome, and be forced to move home at the end of November, when our current legal time limit here is up.

We need you to pray. We’re really not sure which way this is going to go. At this point, we are placing our fate firmly in the hands of our Jesus who loves us and knows what is best. Please pray for his will to be done. We really don’t want to move home in November, but we’re simply not prepared to pay that kind of money and time for only six more months.

Please pray.

Early in the Morning

I’m up this morning before my family, and while my coffee is brewing, I’m reminded of this Scripture.

Awake, my soul! Awake, harp and lyre! I will awaken the dawn. I will praise you, O Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples. For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth. – Psalm 57:8-11

It’s good to get up in the morning!