Fan or Follower....

    I thoroughly enjoy reading!  I remember the days that I hated it.  It was those days in high school and college where you had to read certain things that you little to no interest in.  It was painstaking.  Yet, I have found that reading is therapeutic!  It's also a good leadership principle.... Leaders are learners!  I have to ask you, what are reading?  Most often, I am reading something that will spiritually challenge me.  Every now and then I will read something that is just entertaining and can clear my mind.  I suggest that is not the norm though if you are seeking deep intimacy with the Lord.  Below are a few of my favorite books.  These are in no particular order.

Joey's TOP 10...

1. Crazy Love by Francis Chan
2. Radical by David Platt
3. Slave by John MacArthur
4. Mere Christianity by CS Lewis
5. Next Generation Leader by Andy Stanley
6. The Barbarian Way by Erwin McManus
7. Be Intolerant by Ryan Dobson
8. Forgotten God by Francis Chan
9. The Shack by William Paul Young (although not recommended as a theology work)
10. Not a Fan by Kyle Idleman

    The last book listed there is my most recent read.  It's one of those books that once you pick it up, it's hard to put it down!  It's an easy read, but heavy in ramifications!   I would suggest that you NOT read if you want a comfortable version of Christianity and you want to feel good about your faith.  It's not a "feel good theology" work!  Yet, it's refreshingly honest!  Kyle Idleman did an exceptional job challenging believers to move from "fan" to "follower" describing what each look and operate like!  This is not a book review, but I'd give it 5 stars! 

   I have to admit the entire work was convicting and challenging for me!  As a young pastor-to-be, God is shaping my ministry before I ever begin.  He is using books like this, incredible sermons, good seminary classes, and personal evaluation to mold me into what He wants me to be as a husband, father, pastor, and man!  The premise of Not a Fan is that there is a huge difference between BELIEVE and FOLLOW.  The Church has often watered down the message so that it won't be unappealing to the world.  Although it might be a good marketing technique, it should have no place in the Church!  We don't preach abandonment, surrender, and complete obedience anymore!  It's more of a "smorgasbord" at church, suggesting that people can pick out of the Bible what they want to live out.  Jesus doesn't just demand our belief, He died for our obedience!  He is LORD!  If you want to dive deeper into that connotation, read Slave by John MacArthur!  We are not bond servants in that we get to choose what we want to do.  We are slaves that work at the pleasure and glory of the Master! 

   Here is an excerpt from Not a Fan that I thought was incredible convicting....

"This is how many sermons are presented.  I think a lot of well-intended preachers adopt a Snuggie Theology when they find themselves in churches of a few hundred people and discover an incredible pressure to grow.  The attendance isn't what was hope for, and the offerings are down.  Before they know it has happened they gauge success not by their faithfulness to God's Word but by the weekend stats.  And so the sermons get sanitized.  Scripture gets edited.  The cross gets covered up.  The sermons are more about salvation, but never about surrender.  Often about forgiveness, but never about repentance.  Often about living, but never about dying." (165) 

   
 Again, I'd like to declare that I love the Church and this blog is not one of those "attack the Church" blogspots!  Yet, a generation of FOLLOWERS must rise up and through the Holy Spirit return the Church back to it's foundational principles and doctrines!  Watered down sermons make people feel good, but will do nothing for their eternal spiritual problem!  If we don't preach the full truths of the Gospel including the hard things like surrender, sacrifice, repentance, dying, and Hell, then we are doing similar to the Pharisees, when Jesus of them, that they were making "proselytes" that are "twice as much a child of hell as yourselves." (Matthew 23:15)  I'm not suggesting that "social gospel" preachers are lost, but I'm sure that we are compounding the problem by not standing up and preaching the Truth!  The late, great Adrian Rogers says it best, "It is better to tell a truth that hurts and then heals, then a lie that comforts and then kills."  Omitting the Truth is lying!  God's Word is declared as the Word of Truth!  Preach it!  Teach it!  Read it!  Love it!  Sure, it's painful because it exposes our sinful selves!  Yet, it draws us to repentance and forgiveness!  The goal of a Christian's life is sanctification, to be more like Christ every day as we continually put sin to death!  We need God's Word preached completely and truthfully!