The Shallow Christian

Here's an excerpt from Laughing with Sarah: Chapter 10 - "Getting Deep."

"I want to go deeper."
"I wish my pastor would go deeper in his preaching."
"That church is shallow. They don't preach the whole gospel."

I've heard comments like these for years – especially since the contemporary church movement began a couple of decades ago. Contemporary and seeker-friendly churches are often accused of preaching a watered-down version of the gospel. Heavy on grace and light on sin. The promise of heaven but not a peep about hell. Liberal with love and little judgment.

Several times a year, someone will approach me and say, "Pastor, I want to go deeper." My response is usually, "What do you mean by that? Do you mean you want to get in over your head? That could be dangerous."

- - -

So what does it mean to live a deep Christian life? We may get all kinds of answers to that question. Maybe it helps to ask, "What is a shallow Christian?"

A shallow Christian is one who claims to know Christ and who can point to a time in his life when he understood the basics of the gospel and internalized it and even publicized it (through baptism and church membership), but he has not taken the necessary steps to grow up in Christ. Instead, the shallow Christian has learned enough of the gospel to know how he should act in public but has no passion or desire to know Christ at an intimate and personal level. The shallow Christian fills a pew each Sunday. He serves, and even leads, some of the church’s committees. He gives regularly to the church. He attends the church’s special events and supports all the ministries of the church. He may even brag to his associates and friends about his church. He is a churchgoer, but he is not a "God-goer." He does not pray intimately much, if at all. He does not carve out time in his schedule to study his Bible. His efforts at personal and corporate worship are minimal at best. He makes little spiritual impact on those around him, and he has never personally shared the gospel with another person. He may know Christ as Savior, but he does not allow Christ to be Lord of his life. His life may be filled with church activities, but it is not filled with the Holy Spirit.

Sad but true. Our churches are full of shallow Christians. Each Sunday, church pews are occupied by millions of believers who have little or no interest in living a fully devoted life to Jesus Christ.

Hey! Maybe that is the definition of the deeper life. A life fully devoted to Jesus Christ. A passionate follower of Christ. Spiritual depth comes when you make loving and serving Christ your everyday mission. Going deep means living every minute of every day with the awareness that Jesus Christ is Lord and Ruler of your life. Getting deep means totally relying on, trusting in, and depending on God's Spirit to move and work in every area of your life.

There is no magic formula to living the deeper life. This is not something that you are going to accomplish by the time you finish reading this chapter. It is work. It is time-consuming. It is a lifestyle. It's a journey.

Find out what it means to "get deep" here.

Because THEY said so...

One of the first faculty members (a well-known marketing guru) that I met at the BRMCWC last week looked at my blog and said, "You need a newsletter!" I told him that I had one years ago and didn't like the additional burden. Plus, it was a pain keeping up with email addresses, updates, etc. That was around the turn of the century.

Well, things are supposedly easier now with services like Constant Contact so I bit the bullet and designed a newsletter this morning based on my new friend's advice. "Everybody's doin' it," he told me. "They say it is essential for today's writer."

So I'm doing what THEY say. You can subscribe to my occasional newsletter on the right side of this post.

The Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference 09

My brain is fried today after a week packed full of instruction, inspiration, and networking at the 2009 Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference. I left town immediately after church last Sunday and arrived in the mountains around 5 PM. It was pretty much non-stop all week. Classes, workshops, interviews, and general sessions filled the calendar as about 350 writers, agents, editors, and publishers gathered to learn how to continue expanding the gospel through the art of writing.

Pictured with me is Angela (Angie) Hunt. Angie taught "The Sophisticated Novelist" class Monday-Thursday morning. She is an excellent teacher and incredibly accomplished writer. Angie has sold over 3 million books! She is a best-selling author of more than 100 books. She was a delight to sit under and we hated it when it was time for the class to be over. Angie's husband is a youth minister in Florida. I told her that I was going to call him and make him an offer he can't refuse at TNC so that I could have her around as my personal writing coach! (Watch out, Tommy Wafford!)

I encourage you to add Angie's books to your summer reading list. Check out her website.

I also spend some time talking to and hearing from Chip MacGregor. Chip was recently listed as the #2 literary agent in the country by Publishers Weekly, the "Bible" of publishing. I read Chip's blog every week. He is a wealth of information regarding the publishing/writing world. He was one of our keynote speakers as well as a classroom instructor. I appreciate the time that Chip invests in this business and wanted to give him some props. By the way, this guy is really funny. I was in tears laughing at him during his keynote speech.

If you are a writer or if you are interested in becoming a writer, this conference is a great start. This was my third time at this particular writing conference. I highly recommend it.

Some other folks that I learned from and laughed with are:
Steven James
Terry Whalin
Cecil Murphey (author of 90 Minutes in Heaven and 111 other books)
Ron Benrey
Al Gansky
Jonathan Clements (My favorite person at the conference - because he's my agent!)

A Little PR in the Chronicle

The Augusta Chronicle posted this article in the paper this morning. It includes my mugshot and an audio clip from Laughing with Sarah.

Excerpt from Laughing with Sarah

Here's a section from Chapter 4 in Laughing with Sarah:

God Works through Our Disabilities

I do not have great eloquence or superior wisdom. I can tell you that many times there is weakness, fear, and trembling. I’ll never forget my first real experience as a preacher. My first official appearance as a professional pulpiteer was in Los Angeles, California. I was a South Carolina boy from a Texas seminary in La-La land as a revival preacher/evangelist scheduled to speak at a week-long revival meeting. Nine services in a row, Sunday morning, Sunday night, and every night through the next Sunday morning.

For some reason, I thought I needed a different suit for each service. I didn't own any luggage, so I arrived from Dallas/Ft. Worth airport at LAX with my wife's matching pink luggage including pink hanging bag with nine suits. I was confident enough in my masculinity to carry pink suitcases through LA, but my confidence in my evangelistic skills were cause for concern. I was anxious before my first appearance that Sunday morning and worried about blending with the California culture with a Southern accent. Ten minutes before the service began, I overheard a senior adult lady say to a friend, "I'm glad this year's preacher is from Texas. The fellow we had last year was from South Carolina, and I couldn't understand a word he said."

Enter nausea.

Believe it or not, God used this pitiful excuse for a revivalist that week. God spoke to some people and lives were reinvigorated - at least temporarily. It was definitely not because of my great eloquence or superior wisdom. It was totally because of God working through a rookie preacher from the Deep South.

The truth is, I've heard a lot of popular speakers who are not the most eloquent, entertaining, or scholarly presenters. But God uses them because they are usable. That is what God wants, availability. You let him have your abilities, no matter how feeble they might be, and make yourself available, and he will use your humble service to draw others close to him.

Believe it or not, Paul was not an outstanding orator. He mentioned in one of his letters to the church in Corinth that some say, "His letters are weighty and forceful, but in person he is unimpressive and his speaking amounts to nothing."

Paul writes that he did not intend to preach "with wise and persuasive words but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power." He did not want to speak in such a way that his human effort would persuade people. He depended on God’s Holy Spirit and divine power to do the work.

What does this mean for us in our everyday lives? You should live obediently for Christ, loving him, worshipping him, serving him, and trusting him. You should live out your faith within your own unique personality in the places where God has placed you with the people that God has put around you and depend on his Holy Spirit to speak through your life with wisdom and power.

You do what you know you should do, and God will take care of the rest. You will be amazed at what God can do through ordinary you.

Writing a Book

I guess you've figured out by now that I announced the publication of Laughing with Sarah last week. Since then, many people have asked me about writing. How long does it take? How many have you written? How do you get published? etc. I started writing freelance articles for magazines about 15 years ago, but I still consider myself a novice.

How long does it take? It depends. If you write 3 pages a day, you can have a 300 page novel in 100 days. At that pace, you could write about 3 books per year. That's what many novelists do. For me, I only have a few hours each week to write, so it takes longer.

How many have you written? About 4 1/2. But only two have been published so far. I have one non-fiction work that is about 90% complete. One novel that my agent, Jonathan Clements with The Nashville Group, is attempting to sell to a major publisher. I'm about halfway through another novel. I have pieces of other books that I've started. Hopefully, they will be completed one day.

How do you get published? There are several ways: You can get an agent to represent you. Approach the publisher yourself. (However, most major publishers will only consider agent-represented works.) Or you can publish yourself. There are advantages to each situation. It depends on your goal for each book.

The hard part: Selling. It's one thing to write a book. It's another thing to sell it. Whether you publish yourself or have a major publisher, the author is the primary sales person. That's why you will get sick of seeing me promote LWS. Sorry. That's just how it works.

The fun part for me is the Dedication. I dedicated Laughing with Sarah to my dad. Since he is such a Bible scholar and LWS is based on Bible teaching, I wanted it to be dedicated to him. I took his copy to him last week and showed him the dedication page. That's been one of the highlights of this experience thus far for me.

Wife Swapping

My motorcycle is listed for sale in the IWANTA, the local classified ad paper. Here's a conversation I had this morning with a caller.

"Are you interested in trading your motorcycle or do you just want cash?" I was asked by the caller.
"I want the cash," I said.
"Well, I was just wondering," the caller said. "I've got a '96 Geo Tracker convertible I thought you might want to trade for."
"If it was a Jeep Wrangler, I might be interested," I said. "My wife doesn't like to ride my bike with me but she told me if I got a Jeep, she would go on trips with me in the Jeep."
The caller replied, "My wife wants me to sell the Geo because she wants to ride with me on a bike."
"Maybe we should trade wives," I told him (joking, of course!!).
The caller laughed. "She likes to fish too!" He added.
"Sounds like you need to keep her," I told him. "Thanks for calling."

The bike is still for sale.