The Guideposts Of God

THE GUIDEPOSTS OF GOD

Read Jeremiah 31:15-22

Read Jeremiah 31:15-22

Set up road markers for yourself; make yourself guideposts. Jeremiah 31:21

Perhaps the religious periodical that best illustrates the moralistic, therapeutic deism we spoke of yesterday is the popular magazine Guideposts, founded by Norman Vincent Peale, the father of “positive thinking.” Its monthly collection of feel-good stories, testimonies of nebulous faith on the part of celebrities and moralistic tales feed the pseudo-Christian faith of many Americans. The magazine takes its name from Jeremiah 31:21.

Ironically, the guideposts Jeremiah had in mind were a far stretch from the theology of positive thinking. What the prophet pointed to was the guidance of the ancient paths (“the road by which you went”). Jeremiah’s prophetic reasoning seems odd to us: The good way forward is found in the old ways of the past. This is the message we need in the Church today.

Stephen J. Nichols teaches at the Lancaster Bible College in Pennsylvania. His book, published this year, is titled Jesus Made in America: A Cultural History from the Puritans to “The Passion of Christ” (Intervarsity Press). Nichols was interviewed by Ken Myers on volume 92 (July/August 2009) of the Mars Hill Audio Journal. In that interview, Nichols spoke of American Evangelicalism’s love for innovation—newer is better, cutting edge is everything—and its constant need to reinvent itself and its message. Nichols thinks this desire to reinvent and remake Evangelicalism makes it highly susceptible to cultural movements and moods. He comments: “Sometimes we have a vision of the reformation that might need some correction here. As American evangelicals, we like to celebrate the reformation, and rightly so. But even the reformers, and in their sense of reforming the Church, were really not talking about something new but something that had been lost. They did not like to be called innovators or creators. They wanted to sort of get back to something that was lost. But I think that in American evangelical sensibilities being an innovator is something that we champion, something that we want to be.”²⁸

Historian Sidney Meade credited this weird American fetish for the new with what he called “America’s historylessness”––a lack of tradition and a loss of the value or importance of tradition. Jeremiah would not make a very good American evangelical.

The prophet calls the Church not forward but backward. Back to the old guideposts back to the ancient “highway” back to “the road by which you went” (i.e., the road you long ago travelled upon). What would these guideposts look like today, these road markers that point “this way” for the people of God? Let me suggest several to you:

• Sabbath-keeping: Putting God and Church back into our weekly schedules (and lives) with both morning and evening worship services, something virtually lost in the PCA.

• Community: Building a Church around relationships and shared lives rather than big buildings and programs.
• The means of grace: Focusing more on preaching, prayer, the sacraments and fellowship than on music (Acts 2:42).
• Ministerial Fellowship: Pastors getting together to pray and encourage one another and not compare or compete.
• Multi-generational communion: Building a congregation into a trans-generational family rather than catering to age groups with niche marketing techniques.
• Confessional: Rediscovering the ancient creeds and confessions rather than the latest pop-psychology or church-growth technique.
• Discipleship: Majoring on maturity rather than numbers; membership and not attendees; holiness over happiness.
• Local Impact: Planting churches in communities that will take “ownership” of a neighborhood and practice the theology of presence.
• Tradition: Old hymns, the church calendar and a reverence for things proven and rooted in history.

Impossible? I think not. As the American church reinvents itself to the point of no identity, these old guideposts and road markers will point the way back to authentic Christianity. As in Jeremiah’s age, it is only a matter of time before the saints desire to find the way back, to “return to these your cities.”

PRAYING FOR THE PCA

CEP: Praise God for CEP’s biblical training and resources that equip women in the church to mature in Christ. Pray for local churches to value these tools.

CC: Pray for the Advancement Office as we go about fundraising efforts, that we will promote a giver’s heart in our donors and in ourselves. We believe that God gifts some with financial resources and the means to support Kingdom efforts. Where Covenant College programs match the hearts of donors, pray that we will be clear; where they do not, pray that will encourage fellow believers to give to the cause that God has laid on their hearts.

MNA: Pray to the Lord of the Harvest to raise up laborers for Hispanic American Ministries in the PCA and that the rate of growth in number of churches with Hispanic American ministries will multiply rapidly.

PCAF: Pray that the Lord will encourage the PCA Foundation’s Business Manager, Mark Bailey, as he assists the PCA Foundation’s President with various administrative responsibilities, implements new information technology systems and helps keep the Foundation’s operations effective and efficient.

RH: Pray for the success of the capital campaign as it completes at the end of the summer.