Beneath the cross of Jesus I fain would take my stand,
The shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land;
A home within the wilderness, a rest upon the way,
From the burning of the noontide heat, and the burden of the day.

O safe and happy shelter, O refuge tried and sweet,
O trysting place where Heaven’s love and Heaven’s justice meet!
As to the holy patriarch that wondrous dream was given,
So seems my Savior’s cross to me, a ladder up to heaven.

There lies beneath its shadow but on the further side
The darkness of an awful grave that gapes both deep and wide
And there between us stands the cross two arms outstretched to save
A watchman set to guard the way from that eternal grave.

Upon that cross of Jesus mine eye at times can see
The very dying form of One Who suffered there for me;
And from my stricken heart with tears two wonders I confess;
The wonders of redeeming love and my unworthiness.

I take, O cross, thy shadow for my abiding place;
I ask no other sunshine than the sunshine of His face;
Content to let the world go by to know no gain or loss,
My sinful self my only shame, my glory all the cross.

Let us worship the Lamb that was slain for us…

Jim from Old Truth writes:

Every once in a while you run across a leader in the Church Growth Movement that has a verbal slip which reveals their thinking, and exposes the rotten root structure that this movement is based on. Now perhaps this church leader doesn’t realize what he’s just said, and his statement may not reflect his true beliefs, but have a look at point 3 in his list. He says: “It’s important to learn from churches bigger and smaller then you. Churches that are smaller have to be even more creative, because their success depends on it”. I certainly hope he doesn’t believe that ANY church’s success depends on human creativity. The Apostle Paul never talked like that; he spoke as though success depends on God, and he didn’t want to do anything that would replace or “enhance” the Gospel with human wisdom and cleverness. …

What Jim wants you to believe is that this particular writer believes that churches are the product of only man’s effort. But right there within the same article he quotes from is this:

I couldn’t open the doors that God has to help us grown and learn from people who are way smarter then us.

Wait a second Jim, you just told me that this guy believes that a church’s success is dependent only on man, so why is he crediting God with “opening the doors”? Maybe this was just a mistake.

We need to Lord’s help to get a full year at the school and then more help to renovate some huge building in town.

Wait. What? What’s going on here?

What’s going on is that Jim has either done some real sloppy investigative journalism, or he’s been deliberately deceptive about what the author is communicating. It gets even worse as the author responds to some of Jim’s disciples.

Most people tend to take the naive approach when listening to church planters or people in fast growing churches. Instead of assuming that we all want to see God move and that we are still preaching the same Gospel as First Baptist Somewhereville, they just throw the pastor under the bus for working harder.

Every church wants to grow. Differing methods don’t mean one church must be teaching out of the Koran instead of the Bible or that they are “entertaining” instead of praising God. It’s obtuse to think that pastors have forgotten that God is still sovereign [emphasis mine].

Of course this was written after Jim’s commentary, but I’m sure if Jim was just mistaken rather than malicious we’ll see an update shortly apologizing for his mistake and retracting his comments.

How do we come to understand truth? And once we come to an understanding of truth how do we communicate it? How can we combat our own subjectivity? What part should others play in our journey to get understanding? And can our lives be a reflection of Biblical truth and the One who is called “Truth”?

Read more.