December 4, 2014December 5, 2014 Peter Witkowski Christmas, Pain & Suffering

When Thanksgiving is Depressing

My heart was pained. Ironically enough, the cause of my anxiousness was an event devoted to the theme of thanksgiving. As I sat through three cycles of videos, testimonies, and songs, my heart sank deeper and deeper into despair.

I heard various Christians talk about the Jesus who gave grandparents great families, who gave widowers new spouses, and who made sick children new. But the Jesus who wept over his friend’s death, who suffered on the cross, and who ordained for the apostle Paul to be tortured, robbed, and shipwrecked was nowhere to be found during this holiday.

Moreover, the God who comforts the daughter who buries her father and her mother within a blink of each other was not mentioned. The God who promises to vindicate the abused child was overlooked. And the God who sustains parents as they place their newborn under a tombstone was omitted. In his place, I was offered a Jesus who looked remarkably like the genie from Aladdin (minus the blue skin and red sash). Rub the bottle; say the magic prayer; and poof, your best life now.

I was grieved because this shrunken view of God does injustice to both the gospel and our savior that I have come to love. If our boasts about God are always linked to material gains and physical health, we’ve missed out on the greatest benefits of the gospel. The beauty of the gospel is best seen when health, wealth, and physical happiness our ripped from our arms.The awesomeness of the gospel is having nothing and discovering joyful reality that God is everything. As Christians, we don’t have to brush our suffering under the rug, assuming we lack the faith of the super spiritual and hoping that our next year will be magically better. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10:

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

As we slide out from the Thanksgiving table into the Christmas season, we should thank God for our families, our health, and for everything and cross_jesus_wood_236183 anything that contributes to our happiness. All good gifts come from above! But we also must realize that the beauty of the Jesus does not end with the safe and serene pictures of the Christ child lying in a designer manger surrounded by non-smelly animals. Our savior went onto the bloody agony of the cross. And as he did, Jesus both experienced our pain and then defeated its source. Through his life, death, and resurrection, Christ offers hope, joy, and peace to the grieving daughter, the hurt child, and the heartbroken parents. Jesus offers us an eternal life that transcends our earthly trappings whether good or bad. Our greatest gain is not a great family portrait placed on fireplace mantel. It’s Christ! Him, we can never lose!

As we prepare to celebrate the holidays listed on our calendars, we should not assume that our churches exist to demonstrate the end of suffering. We exist to show world that Jesus triumphs over suffering through the cross! And when the unfathomably huge God of the Bible is proclaimed, I cannot help but be thankful!

November 6, 2014December 9, 2014 Peter Witkowski Parenting

What’s on the Inside?

My heart leaped for joy. With a little help from my devious hands, I was able to peak through just enough of the brown paper to confirm my suspicions. I was getting a castle for Christmas. The plastic walls, the sticker adorned knights and the flimsy drawbridge would all be mine! With my head buzzing, I settled into my daily routine of chores and holiday festivities, feeling as if Christmas would never come. Could the days pass any slower? Finally December 25 arrived with lighted Christmas tree and wrapped presents. I ripped open my gift and behold the castle in all of its very limited glory. Oh, the excitement!

Though the box sustained me for a few days, I found the reality of having a castle much more satisfying (albeit by a couple of months, but still). In the spiritual world, Christ is also all about what’s on the inside. He is not impressed with confessions of faith, baptism, or even tears on Sunday morning if we keep living for ourselves by lying, stealing, gossiping, and lusting. The outside trappings of our religion do not impress God when they are divorced from the internal realities of our hearts.

If I had opened the box and found only the brown insides of an empty box, my little heart would have melted into despair. In the same way, God deplores giving, confession, and aisle walking that is driven by an empty heart. Quoting from the Old Testament, Christ says worship not driven by a love of God (even when exciting or emotional) is work, “in vain” (Math 15:8-9). In God’s eyes, such expressions are more worthless than an empty box at Christmas.

As our children express interest in following Christ, we should be more excited than an 11 year old boy getting a castle. We should encourage our kids to seek after Christ by teaching them and by praying with them. But as we come alongside of our kids, we should not to make faith about the motions. Yes, baptism and the other signs of faith are important. But having a heart in love with God is even more important. As John Piper notes, “Worship is essentially an inner stirring of the heart to treasure God above all the treasures of the world” (p. 206). As J.D. Greear says, “Repentance doesn’t mean we amend our behavior, it means we begin to pursue God’s will with abandon” (p. 80). Repentance and worship cannot be manufactured through physical efforts. When we see that our children love God by loving family and friends and by placing a high priority on church, the Bible and prayer, then we should encourage them towards the more public expressions of faith and worship. We should get excited about what’s in the box!

Works Cited

Greear, J. (2013). Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart. Nashville: B&H Publishing .

Piper, J. (2003). Let the Nations be Glad: The Supremacy of God in Missions. Grand Rapids : Baker Academic .

October 28, 2014February 14, 2015 Peter Witkowski Children's Ministry, Discipleship, Parenting

Why is Children’s Church Good?

The idea of children being blessed by the church is firmly rooted in scripture. In Mark 10:13-15, Jesus welcomed the little children into his arms and blessed them. Christ’s message is clear: kids belong in church just as much as adults.

The Goal of Church

Although our children cannot physically interact with Jesus today, our kids can be introduced to his message, his character, and his very essence through the preaching of the word. This is the main benefit offered to kids with Christian parents: the preaching of the gospel of the glory of God! And while a child does not have to her forehead sprinkled or be dedicated to listen, she does have to be within earshot. For this reason, I believe welcoming children into church is a necessary, good, and blessed activity that all churches should pursue.

One Gospel For All

Now some may counter that kids learn differently today. Because of YouTube, twitter, and video games, they say kids need more music, more freedom, or perhaps they actually need more structure. Who knows? Regardless, many a good church is looking for ways to help their kids bounce out of the sanctuary. And while it’s true that kids are definitely more energetic than your average Baptist, it’s also true that there is one gospel and one name under heaven by which all men and women, and children get saved. As Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones once said, “There is no greater fallacy than to think that you need a gospel for special types of people.” Our kids don’t need the gospel message repackaged. They just need the gospel!

The Issue For Our Families

However with that said, I also recognize that many of the cute, smiling kids who accompany their parents are unredeemed. Others are unsettled because they have different parental rules every other weekend. And some simply lack the self-control needed to sit through a service for a variety of reasons. Our goal as a congregation cannot be to force children into our nicely sculpted programs. If we ask kids to sit through an hour service when they can’t sit still for more than 5 minute, we will frustrate them and their parents. Regardless of how valid our theology is, we will have failed to lovingly disciple these families seeking the community of Christ.

The church should always be a place where truth is infused with love and compassion. Although we need to encourage our preaching pastors to preach with children in mind and discourage our church members from scowling each time a child rustles some paper, we also need to be prepared to care for families the moment they enter our doors. The church should help kids and parents prepare for corporate worship. I think there is a need for nurseries and for children’s churches. By having limited kids’ programing during the main service, we can more effectively minister to our own church family and better welcome visitors.

Our Response

kids church In American culture, most kids learn how to sit through school by first grade. Consequently by 1^st grade, we think most kids possess the social and mental skills needed to attend church with their family. But until that time, we hope to structure our nursery programs and more specifically our children’s church to help prepare kids to excitedly join their families in worship. FBCE’S children’s church program will follow our churches order of worship. We will have offerings, prayer, singing, and teaching. And then at the end of the year, our children’s church will climax with the graduation of our rising first graders to church. Children’s Church exists not to provide an alternative to “Big Church” but to encourage our parents and to help our kids experience the beauty of the preached word.

Admittedly, no program can fully prepare a kid to obediently sit through a service. Only the redeemed will love the things of God. So parents, we will all have a few rough days. That’s ok. Don’t get discouraged or think you have failed as a parent. God’s word powerfully changes hearts. As long as our kids are exposed to the word, we have hope!