Jesus’s teaching consistenly attracted the irreligious people of his day.  However, in the main, our churches today do not have this effect.  The kind of outsiders Jesus attracted are not attracted to contemporary churches, even our most avant-garde ones.  We tend to draw conservative, buttoned-down, moralistic people.  The licentious and liberated or the broken and marginal avoid church.  That can only mean one thing.  If the preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners do not have the same effect on people that Jesus had, then we must not be declaring the same message that Jesus did.  If our churches aren’t appealing to younger brothers, they must be more full of elder brothers than we’d like to think.

- Tim Keller, The Prodigal God, 15-16.

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Church planting is not a physical war, but it is most definitely a spiritual war.  In this spiritual conflict, just as in a physical battle, there are enemies, weaponry, danger, fear, and a lot of pain.  But the way to win this spiritual war isn’t by powering up and being a “tough guy,” but by surrendering your will and becoming God’s guy.  You city’s battlefield doesn’t require churches planted by men who are known as heroes.  What we need today are churches planted by men who are known as humble.

Darrin Patrick, Foreword Church Planting is for Wimps

The modern day gospel says, “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.  Therefore, follow these steps, and you can be saved.”  Meanwhile, the biblical gospel says, “You are an enemy of God, dead in your sin, and in your present state of rebellion, you are not even able to see that you need life, much less to cause yourself to come to life.  Therefore, you are radically dependent on God to do something in your life that you could never do.”

The former sells books and draws crowds.  The latter saves souls.  Which is more important?

In the gospel God reveals the depth of our need for him.  He shows us that there is absolutely nothing we can do to come to him.  We can’t manufacture salvation.  We can’t program it.  We can’t produce it.  We can’t even initiate it.  God has to open our eyes, set us free, overcome our evil, and appease his wrath.  He has to come to us.

Now we are getting to the beauty of the gospel.

So how do we respond to this gospel?  Suddenly contemporary Christianity sales pitches don’t seem adequate anymore.  Ask Jesus to come into your heart.  Invite Jesus to come into your life.  Pray this prayer, sign this card, walk down this aisle, and accept Jesus as your personal Savior.  Our attempt to reduce this gospel to a shrink-wrapped presentation that persuades someone to say or pray the right things back to us no longer seems appropriate.

That is why none of these man-made catch phrases are in the Bible.  You will not find a verse in Scripture where people are told to “bow your heads, close your eyes, and repeat after me.”  You will not find a place where a superstitious sinner’s prayer is even mentioned.  And you will not find an emphasis on accepting Jesus.  We have taken the infinitely glorious Son of God, who endured the infinitely terrible wrath of God and who now reigns as the infinitely worthy Lord of all, and we have reduced him to a poor, puny Savior who is just begging for us to accept him.

Accept him? Do we really think Jesus needs our acceptance?  Don’t we need him?

I invite you to consider with me a proper response to this gospel.  Surely more than praying a prayer is involved.  Surely more than religious attendance is warranted.  Surely this gospel evokes unconditional surrender of all that we are and all that we have to all that he is.

David Platt, Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream (Multnomah Books, 2010): 32, 36-37.

During college I received some good advice from one of the professors: read at least one book on prayer a year.  Since that time I confess that I haven’t always followed his advice, but nonetheless I have read a variety of books on prayer.  Paul Miller’s A Praying Life is the first book on prayer that I have read and has actually motivated me to pray.  Usually, after reading books on prayer there is guilt accompanied by a rigorous praying schedule only to be followed a few days or weeks later by abject failure.

Miller’s book is different.

Here’s why:  Miller ties prayer together with the gospel.  Prayer is placed within the spectrum of our sin and absolute need for a savior.  Our dependency and need for Christ is the proper starting point for developing a praying life.  Because of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection we now have a relationship with the Father.  Now we have the freedom to pray.  Now we have the motivation to pray.  We are compelled to talk to our Father because of the beauty of the gospel.

A needy heart is a praying heart.  When we recognize that we are sinners saved by grace we will be constrained by the love of Christ to converse with our Father.  In many respects we don’t need a better understanding of prayer as much as we need a fuller, deeper, and more glorious understanding of our sin and God’s magisterial grace.  The gospel is impetus toward a praying life.

Miller’s book is also unique in relating our praying life to our suffering life.  He does not shy away from the hard reality of suffering or the mystery of “unanswered prayer.”  Miller’s own life stories provide a window into a normal, everyday praying life.  The stories of his family, especially the challenges with his daughter’s autism offer a real, honest, and encouraging look at prayer.

On a purely practical level, I really appreciated his idea of the prayer cards.  Prayer lists are mechanical and often depersonalized.  This is the way I used to pray; working my way down a list checking off things as I have completed my moral duty.  Miller suggests using prayer cards that implement praying scripture and specific requests for individual people and circumstances.  I believe this is a better alternative to prayer lists.

Arthur Morey narrated the book.  His reading was okay.  It seemed to lack a bit of verve and passion.  Nonetheless, it was the book itself that kept me coming back, not the presentation.

Pick up and read A Praying Life: audio version ~ hard copy

• Horses are vibrant leaders who pull a lot of weight and run fast.  Horses need to have character, sound doctrine, and agree with the vision of the church.
• Colts are emerging leaders who need training, testing, and opportunities to lead.  If properly broken in, a colt can be developed into a horse.
• Fish are non-Christians who are spiritually lost and often not actively looking for God.  Fish need a Christian friend to lovingly introduce them to Jesus and his church.
• Eagles are skilled leaders who are being developed within the Church with the express kingdom purpose of leaving the proverbial nest and leading a ministry elsewhere, such as missions work and church planting.
• Mules are faithful workers who dependably and continually do whatever is asked of them in the church.  Mules need to be thanked and protected from burnout.
• Cows are selfish people who wander from church to church, chewing up resources without ever giving back to the church until they kill it.  A fence needs to be built around the church to keep the cows out.
• Squirrels are people who are generally liked because they are nice, but they rarely do anything meaningful.  Squirrels need to be put to work in the church.
• Stray Cats are socially peculiar loners who linger around the church.  Stray cats need a friend to help bring them into the church and an opportunity to serve other people so they can be meaningfully connected to the church.
• Rats are people who appear to have the potential to have a fruitful ministry, but they lack dependability, humility, or maturity.  Rats need to be rebuked, and if they do not repent, they must be strategically ignored until they commit to no longer being as waste of time and effort.
• Sheep are people who have legitimate needs that require patient and loving support.  Examples of sheep include widows, orphans, and those who are seriously ill or fighting addictions.  Sheep need to be loved and served.
• Ducks are disgruntled people who continually quack about whatever they are unhappy about.  Ducks need to stop quacking, or the pastors must go duck hunting before the ducks drown out everyone and everything else in the church.
• Wolves are false teachers whom Satan sends into the church to devour Jesus’ sheep.  Wolves need to be quickly identified, rebuked, and if they are unrepentant, they must be shot before their false teaching destroys people in the church.
• Snakes are evil people sent by Satan on a mission to destroy the church through anything from sexual sin to starting rumors.  Leaders must stomp on the heads of snakes before they bite people and infect them with deadly venom.

I wholeheartedly commend the goals and purpose behind the project, creating a holistic, beautiful, sensitive, and balanced translation.  The problem is that I believe they have failed to do so by unclearly merging the words of Scripture with their own interpretations.  “The heart of the project is retelling the story of the Bible in a form as fluid as modern literary works yet remaining painstakingly true to the original manuscripts.”  While noble, I believe they have not succeeded at this twofold goal.  It is hard to say they have remained true to the original manuscripts.  There is a tightrope balance, which exists in all translations seeking to be readable and remain faithful.  In the case of The Voice, I believe they fell off on the side by seeking to produce a “fluid modern literary work” which came at the expense of faithfulness to the originals.

There stands the mysterious cross – a rock against which the very waves of the curse break.  He who so mercifully engaged to direct this judgment against himself hangs yonder in profound darkness.  Still he remains the Morning Star, announcing eternal Sabbath to the world.  Though rejected by heaven and earth, yet he forms the connecting link between them both, and the Mediator of their eternal and renewed amity.  Ah See!  His bleeding arms are extended wide; He stretches them out to every sinner.  His hands point to the east and west; for he shall gather his children from the ends of the earth.  The top of the cross is directed toward the sky; far above the world will its effects extend.  Its foot is fixed in the earth; the cross becomes a wondrous tree, from which we reap the fruit of an eternal reconciliation.

F. W. Krummacher, The Suffering Savior, 332.