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Author: Jeff Kennon

I am the director of the Baptist Student Ministries at Texas Tech University. I am married to Paige, and have three children, Krista, Justin, and Josh.

7 Ways To Advance The Gospel In Everyday Life

Published by Jeff Kennon on May 5, 2014

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Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison— that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.

Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

  -Colossians 4:2-6

In these verses, Paul encouraged those in the church of Colossae to live in ways that served to advance the gospel to those around them. They are…

1. Pray for opportunities.

We must be disciplined in prayer. Prayer is not something we fall back upon when all else has failed. It must permeate our lives as believers. And one thing we need to continually pray for in our lives is opportunities to converse about the gospel. Are you praying for opportunities each day?

2. Live lives that reveal the credibility of the gospel.

It’s not that perfection is required, but if we claim to follow Christ, our lives should be a reflection of His grace. We must be careful not to unsay with our lives what we espouse with our lips.

3. Pay attention to who is around you.

We must take note of those around us who are not-yet-believers. In the book Right Here, Right Now, authors Alan Hirsch and Lance Ford point out that “we don’t need to add ‘spiritual activities’ to our life as much as we need to make our actual, everyday life spiritual.” We must realize that the normal routines of life can present themselves with tremendous opportunities for spiritual conversations.

4. Develop a sense of urgency.

To develop a sense of urgency is about being intentional. A sense of urgency is not about you rushing around living a hurried life trying to save the world, but neither is it just sitting back waiting for someone to knock on your door asking you how to be saved. It has been said that “if men are to be won to Christ before he comes to judgment it must be done now.”

5. Be gracious.

Do we seek the good of others? When we talk with those around us are we really interested in them? When we share the gospel with those around us, are we seeking to just get our point across or do we really listen to them? A major ingredient of graciousness in conversations is us giving up our need for it to be all about us. No one-up-man-ship allowed! Our talk should be for the good of others.

6. Be lively.

I like what David Garland wrote in his commentary on Colossians. He wrote, “Many believe that obedience to God is ‘tedious, boring, dull’; and many believers ‘do their part to confirm this attitude by being tedious, boring and dull, seasoned with nothing. Godliness is not to be equated with stodginess.”

I don’t think this means that to share the gospel with others that we must be entertaining, but nonetheless, it should be something more than a formula we recite. Should we not as believers be most alive and enjoy more than anyone the life that God has given us? Shouldn’t such joy come through in our speech?

7. Be prepared.

No doubt, there are difficult questions that will come our way concerning our belief in Christ. As we live lives that reflect God’s grace and speak in graciousness and kindness the good news of who Christ is, there will be questions.

Responding to questions of the faith is more than just giving some type of “Sunday school” answer. And not all questions are the “hard questions” of the faith. However, for those hard questions that do come your way, be gracious in answering and be gracious and humble in admitting you don’t know the answer if such is the case.

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Have You Lost The Wonder?

Published by Jeff Kennon on May 4, 2014
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Have you lost the wonder?

Vance Havner, (1901-1986) an old southern preacher, preached a sermon entitled, Have You Lost The Wonder? In that sermon he refers to an evangelist by the name of Gypsy Smith. Here is what he says about him…

Gypsy began to preach at 17 and died at the age of 87. He was simple, original, and colorful. He said he was born in a field so don’t put me in a flowerpot.

The President of Fleming Revell, the publishing company who used to publish Gypsy’s sermons asked him one time, “What is the secret of the freshness of your preaching well into your eighties?” And Gyspy replied, “I have never lost the wonder!”

Jesus says in Matthew 18: 3 that unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Havner speaks of us not becoming childish, but childlike in that children have “not lost the wonder.” They “have not been here long of enough to get used to it. There is still a sense of surprise. Anything can happen.  Everything’s new. With a child, every turn of the road may hold some new discovery.”

As I thought about Havner’s sermon, I began to ask myself of whether I have lost the wonder of knowing God?  Do I stand at awe at the grandeur of His holiness? Do I marvel at His amazing grace exhibited on the cross?

For me, it’s easy to work at knowing so much about God, which I hold to be very important, that at times, I forget how marvelous the truths are that I am discovering. I should remember that even how I discover what I know about God should be held in wonder as that too is by His grace.

My prayer is that I not “lose the wonder” today and not take the grace of God for granted. To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever (1 Timothy 1:17).

 

 

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Mission Was Not Made For The Church

Published by Jeff Kennon on May 2, 2014

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“It is not so much the case that God has a mission for his church in the world,” writes Christopher Wright, “as that God has a church for his mission in the world.” In other words, “mission was not made for the church; the church was made for mission–God’s mission” (The Mission of God by Wright).

The church therefore, God’s people, have purpose. And that purpose is wrapped up in what God is doing in the world. So what is God doing? What is God’s mission?

Andreas Kostenberger, in his book Salvation to the Ends of the Earth: A Biblical Theology of Mission, has a fairly good summary of the mission of God. He writes,

The Lord himself is the missionary who gathers and rescues, not simply the dispersed of Israel, but also people from “all nations,” in order that they may see his glory. The goal of mission is the glory of God, that he may be known and honored for who he really is.  

I think it’s imperative we understand that this mission of rescue, redemption and salvation is God’s. It is for His glory. It is not something we created for ourselves, but was given to us as part of His plan.

Wright’s God-centered definition of mission is helpful at this point. He writes, “Mission means our committed participation as God’s people, at God’s invitation and command, in God’s own mission within the history of God’s world for the redemption of God’s creation” (see The Mission of God).

Though mission is wrapped up in who God is and his plan for brining back His people unto himself, this does not mean that we as the church do nothing. Did you notice how Wright mentions that we as God’s people join God in what He is doing? We, as the church, participate in this mission. It’s why we exist.

Jesus was fairly clear to his disciples as to what they were to be and do in this world. It’s why they were left behind (see John 17:15-19). Jesus said, Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you (Matthew 28:19-20).

It is this Great Commission of Jesus that has formed for many, and rightly so, the heart of what it means to join God on mission. Kevin DeYoung in his book What Is The Mission of The Church? writes,

The mission of the church is to go into the world and make disciples by declaring the gospel of Jesus Christ in the power of the Spirit and gathering these disciples into churches, that they might worship the Lord and obey his commands now and in eternity to the glory of God the Father.

“Christianity is in its very essence,” writes Michael Horton in his book The Gospel Commission, “a mission to the world.” The bottom line is that “if it is not reaching, teaching, baptizing, and multiplying disciples, it is not Christianity.”

The mission of the church is clear. And for many of us, this is not new information. What we must continue to ask ourselves however, is are we as the church living out why we were created? For me personally, mission is not a knowledge problem, but an obedience problem.

May God, therefore, grant us grace today to allow us to see his heart for the world around us. And may such a glimpse of his heart and his grace toward us for our own salvation push us to join Him in where he is working. For it is in participation with God in his mission to the world for which the church exists in this world and by which true joy springs to life.

 

 

 

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Around The Web

Published by Jeff Kennon on May 1, 2014

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“God’s Not Dead” and the Angry Atheist Professor: That Was Not My Experience – I’m concerned that the movie God’s Not Dead perpetuates a false stereotype: that of the bully atheist philosophy professor who is out to destroy every Christian student’s faith. I’m sure there are some of those professors out there. But I doubt that they are a majority.

I Didn’t Have Time – This actually means, “it wasn’t important enough.” It wasn’t a high priority, fun, distracting, profitable or urgent enough to make it to the top of the list.

Youth-Driven Culture – The trend of exalting youth and sidelining the elderly stems from a deeper problem summed up in the expression, “Newer is better.” We celebrate the new and innovative while looking down on the past and tradition. There is a compelling vitality to youth and to new ideas, but that does not mean there is no wisdom to be found in the past.

Why Some Teachers Are Banning Laptops From The Classroom – Notes taken by hand are almost always more useful than typed notes, because more thoughtful selectivity goes into them; plus there are multiple cognitive benefits to writing by hand. And people who use laptops in class see their grades decline — and even contribute to lowering the grades of other people.

My Students Don’t Know How to Have a Conversation –
Students’ reliance on screens for communication is detracting—and distracting—from their engagement in real-time talk.

The Best Jobs of 2014 – According to CareerCast’s “Best Jobs of 2014” report, employers are paying big bucks to lure employees that understand data, code and math (which really translates to “data analytics”). In fact, jobs that depend on these geeky skills comprise half of the top 10 jobs of 2014.

18 Principles From Pixar’s Culture – The new book from Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar, is a must-read. Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration is fascinating in its portrayal of Pixar’s history of successes and failures, and insightful in its boiling down of Pixar experience into transferable principles. Here are 18 lessons we can learn from the book. 

Cancer Is Terrible. Christ is Better.

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Biblical Churches Are Always Uncomfortable Places

Published by Jeff Kennon on April 30, 2014

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In our Western culture, it seems that being comfortable is of utmost importance to us. Just watch TV commercials. Many of them are working to convince us that we need some kind of product in order to make our lives a bit more “comfortable” or “easy.”

This is particularly true when it comes to commercials about technology. I find the new Samsung Galaxy commercial especially interesting. The bottom line of the commercial is that Samsung’s tablet can do what no one else’s can. Need to do two things at once? Samsung makes it happen. Need more pixels? Samsung has it! Need better apps? Samsung has them. Apparently, Samsung makes life much easier and enjoyable.

Now, I’m not against Samsung or any technology for that matter. I enjoy technology and use it daily if not hourly. I’m glad for what it provides and the many ways it makes it easier to be productive.

And I’m also not against comfort per se. I enjoy and am thankful for the conveniences that I have. However, I do think that we need to be careful not to make personal ease our chief end. I realize this can be somewhat difficult for us as our culture does a pretty good job of discipling us in pursuing that which brings the most comfort.

The reason comfort can be a danger is that, according to Ajith Fernando in his book Jesus-Driven Ministry, it can have an effect upon Biblical wholeness. He writes:

We are seeing more and more people today who are moving to churches “where they feel more comfortable.” When did comfort become such a high value in ministry and church life? Was it when we left the path of biblical Christianity? The gospel is too radical and the needs of the world too urgent for us to ever be comfortable! But many Christians today have come to think that a major goal of the church is to entertain people and supply them with services that they want, such as a good youth program or music program. In such an environment, we are going to see people moving to churches where they are comfortable. The result will be that churches are going to miss out on some vital sources of enrichment through discomfort. They will become unhealthy by missing out on biblical wholeness. Biblical churches always are uncomfortable places because they are always looking for biblical wholeness.

No doubt these are some fairly stern words. In reading them it might help to know that Fernando has a different ministry context than those of us in the West. Fernando has worked with Youth for Christ in Sri Lanka for over 35 years and as a result, has witnessed and experienced much discomfort during his ministry.

Sacrifice is a key component in the Christian life. It is the way of the cross. Following Christ and staying committed to one another in a local church is not always comfortable or easy. At times it can be quite a struggle.

But according to Fernando, if we are going to develop “Biblical wholeness,” which I will have to say leads to ultimate joy, then the sacrifice of personal comfort will have to be part of the journey.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Greatest Need In The Church Today

Published by Jeff Kennon on April 29, 2014

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What is the most urgent need in the church of the Western world today?

Improved evangelism programs?

More missional awareness?

Revived worship?

Growing social ministries (feeding homeless, etc…)?

Stronger age-group ministries (children, youth, etc…)?

No doubt, all of these are important and many would say they are urgent needs. But according to D. A. Carson, the church in the West has a greater need.  What is it? Carson writes:

We need to know God! We think rather little of what he is like, what he expects of us, what he seeks in us. We are not captured by his holiness and his love; his thoughts and words capture too little of our imagination, too little of our discourse, too few of our priorities.

David Wells, research professor at Gordon-Conwell Seminary, appears to agree with Carson’s assessment. He writes that God is now weightless.

It is one of the defining marks our Our Time that God is now weightless. I do not mean by this that he is ethereal but rather that he has become unimportant. He rests upon the world so inconsequentially as not to be noticeable. He has lost his saliency for human life. Those who assure the pollsters of their belief in Gods existence may nonetheless consider him less interesting than television, his commands less authoritative than their appetites for affluence and influence, his judgments no more awe-inspiring than the evening news, and his truth less compelling than the advertisers’ sweet fog of flattery and lies. It is a condition we have assigned him after having nudged him out to the periphery of our secularized lives.

Wells writes further that because God rests lightly upon us, we will eventually find him uninteresting. “A  God with whom we are on such easy terms and whose reality is little different from our own–a God who is merely there to satisfy our needs–has no real authority to compel and will soon begin to bore us.”

If Wells and Carson are correct, then we must seek to become churches who long to know God. Our desire must be as that of the Apostle Paul when he wrote: I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death (Phil 3:10).

For Paul, “to know Christ was the overarching and unfolding ambition of [his] life–a longing for an ever-deepening, ever-widening, personal knowledge of the Son.” It was his “passion to know [Christ] that energized [his] dogged devotion and his epic quest to take the gospel to the ends of the earth” (see Kent Hughes commentary on Philippians).

Could it be therefore, that the more we as the people of God know Christ the more all other needs in today’s church are met? Could it be that the compulsion to go deeper into the world with missions and evangelism springs from our intimacy with Christ?

Perhaps the prayer we need to pray for ourselves and for the church today needs to be based on Paul’s prayer for the church in Ephesus:

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe (Eph 1:17-19).

 

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How Jesus Led His “Small Group”

Published by Jeff Kennon on April 28, 2014

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In Christian circles, when one mentions a “small group,” we immediately know what he/she is talking about. It’s a group of 4-12 people who meet together to share life and study the Bible.

As the popularity of these groups has risen and as they have become an elemental part of church life, I continue to think through how Jesus’ led his small group of disciples. (I think small groups have always played a significant role in churches though we may not have officially organized them or labeled them “small groups”).

There has been no greater resource in helping me reflect upon how Jesus’ led his disciples than The Master Plan of Evangelism by Robert Coleman. The value in this book is not just “how” Jesus’ led his disciples, but “why?”

Jesus’ led his group based upon what God was doing in the world. For Jesus’, this group was bigger than just meeting for personal piety. Jesus called these guys together to change the world. They had purpose. He was leading them to become “fishers of men.”

Coleman points out 8 characteristics of Jesus’ leadership over his disciples. I find them helpful in thinking through leading a small group with the purpose of engaging in the mission of God.

1. Selection
  • Men were his method.
  • Concentrated upon a few.
  • “Everything that is done with the few is for the salvation of the multitudes.”
2. Association
  • Jesus stayed with them and was the model for them.
  • It takes time.
  • “When will the church learn the lesson? Building and growing people is not that easy.”
3. Consecration
  • Jesus required obedience.
  • Count the cost.
  • Where is the obedience of the cross?
4. Impartation
  • The giving of the Spirit.
  • “We must have Christ’s life in us by the Spirit if we are to do His work and practice His teaching. Any evangelistic work without this is as lifeless as it is meaningless. Only as they Spirit of Christ in us exalts the Son are men drawn unto the Father.”
5. Demonstration
  • Jesus showed them how to live.
  • Jesus showed them how to pray.
  • Class was always in session.
6. Delegation
  • Jesus assigned them work to do.
  • He gave them practical assignments.
7. Supervision
  • Jesus kept check on them.
  • Patience was required.

8. Reproduction

  • “The criteria upon which a church should measure its success is not how many new names are added to the roll nor how much the budget is increased, but rather how many Christians are actively winning souls and training them to win the multitudes.”

So, if you are a small group leader, or are in a small group, should your group not have the same focus of Jesus’ group? Shouldn’t the group’s focus be upon becoming involved in the mission of God? Shouldn’t your group be developing disciples who make disciples who make disciples and so on and so on?

I realize these are some tough questions, but they are ones I continue to ask myself in relation to why I do small groups.

Any thoughts?

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Let Me Learn By Paradox

Published by Jeff Kennon on April 27, 2014

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LORD, HIGH AND HOLY, MEEK AND LOWLY,

Thou hast brought me to the valley of vision,
where I live in the depths but see thee
in the heights;
hemmed in by mountains of sin
I behold thy glory.

Let me learn by paradox
that the way down is the way up,
that to be low is to be high,
that the broken heart is the healed heart,
that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,
that to have nothing is to possess all,
that to bear the cross it to wear the crown,
that to give is to receive,
that the valley is the place of vision.

Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen
from the deepest wells,
and the deeper the wells
the brighter thy stars shine;
Let me find thy light in my darkness,
thy life in my death,
thy joy in my sorrow,
thy grace in my sin,
thy riches in my poverty,
thy glory in my valley.

taken from The Valley of Vision

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