***Disclaimer: ‘Shame’ is a movie released late in 2011 on the topic of sex addiction and it’s rated NC-17 for explicit sexual content.  I want to be clear, I have not, nor have any intention of viewing this movie and I do not recommend it.  However, much buzz has surrounded this movie, including possible Oscar nods, and I think it speaks volumes about our sex-absorbed culture in such a way, that I wanted to write a piece on it.***

There’s an ongoing debate regarding culture among evangelicals.  Do movies, music, art, sports and numerous other aspects of our society simply reflect the standards, norms and issues of our culture or do they influence and drive the ideas of the people living within the culture?  I would argue they do both.  They both reflect where our culture is at, being a piece of work created by the culture, which in turn, has the ability to influence the culture in various ways, though I believe different aspects of culture do this to different degrees, even down to the individual work of art itself.

With that said, I wanted to take a look at a particular film that was released late last year.  For it’s rating, it’s influence has been reaching with reviewers calling it bold, disturbing and powerful.  Simply put, Shame is a film about sex addiction, and the downward spiral of one man (Brandon) who finds himself quickly spinning out of control.  His nightly visits with high-end prostitutes and marathon sessions on the internet lead to immense depression, sadness, brokenness, leaving Brandon wondering what the point of such a pointless existence.   Donald Munro of Fresno Bee says it well: “(Shame is) An exercise in sadness so deep and aching that it’s like plunging ever downward into a midnight-black lake and never touching the bottom.”  

Sally Hill of Your Houston News sums up the movie here: “Fassbender (“Inglorious Basterds,” “X-Men: First Class”) is…a Manhattan yuppie with a problem. We first see him lying in bed, barely covered by a sheet. He doesn’t look happy. When he gets up and walks around his lovely, but sparse apartment in the nude, he doesn’t look happy. When he is in the shower, he doesn’t look happy. You get it; he’s not a happy guy. And the sex he is having with prostitutes, women he picks up in bars, chat rooms, whatever, wherever doesn’t make him happy. It’s never enough. He needs more.”

This is precisely the point.  The blistering irony is, a sex-obsessed, relativistic culture that constantly declares that sex has no limits has created a movie about a man who is living the natural progression of such a lifestyle.  Shame wants to paint Brandon likely as a man who’s simply gone too far, but the logic of his lifestyle tells otherwise, and the truth is our culture is filled with men and women who are using sex to fill a void that can only be filled by Christ, and the end result parallels Romans 1 ever time.  Sin always destroys.  And the unrestrained, no-holds-barred sexuality of our culture has it’s consequences.

Brandon’s scenario is not unique.  He is not special.  He is the guy sitting behind you in church, or the co-worker on the other side of the cubicle. He does not need the right prescription or the right therapy.  He does not need to find a local SA group.  He desperately needs Christ.  He is moment to moment, drinking from a broken cistern; the kind God warns his people against. ”My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water” (Jeremiah 2:13)  Shame reveals in a clear way that drinking from broken cisterns only leads to hopelessness, depression, and destructive unhappiness.  This is always the pattern of sin, and it is always the result of living outside the bounds of how God created humanity to live.  When we worship the creation rather than the Creator (Rom.1), when we seek satisfaction for our souls in anything outside of Christ, we are always left empty and wanting more.  This is the ironic and haunting reality of those who pursue sex outside of God’s design: the very physical act which is meant to breed intimacy, love and passion actually creates loneliness, emptiness and is void of satisfaction.   We see this characterized over and over in Scripture.  Romans 3 describes the lives of those far from God as an ‘open grave’ and ‘their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known’.  Which is the complete opposite of how God intended life to be.  When living within God’s rules for sex and marriage, there is satisfaction and joy!  It’s beauty, passion and intimacy.  The one thing it’s not, is shame.

During the discussion, many members of the group who grew up  in church expressed their own internal frustrations when sharing the Gospel.  One frustration that many of us shared was the desire to use flowery, ‘churchy’ language when explaining the Gospel, and what a hindrance that could be, and it sparked a lot of thought for me.

In our defense of the Gospel, as we are sitting with a friend or co-worker unpacking the truths about God’s redemption, we must not in our thinking or in our words, assume a religious point of reference  in those we share with, even in a culture like the South where cultural Christianity still exists.   What does that mean?  It means we should simply take careful consideration with the words we use and not assume the person hearing them understands what they mean.

Words such as ‘saved’, ‘sanctification’, ‘justification’, etc. are true and right words.  But if the hearer does not understand what they mean, they can be more hindrance than help, and you’ll find yourself (as I have) spending more time explaining the words you’re using, than you do the story of the Gospel.

Through this series, we’ve emphasized using the phrase: Jesus in my place.  The Gospel in four words.  This phrase gives us an incredible starting point to actually explain    the deep truths of redemption, the fact that the Gospel means that Jesus stood in my place, took my punishment and gave me his righteousness.  This gives me a tool to ‘give a defense for the hope that is within me’, rather than merely using ‘church words’ as a crutch that most people in our culture won’t understand.

So give it a shot this week.  The Gospel in four words: Jesus in my Place.

Our first stop was to the North Carolina Art Museum.  We’ve never been to the museum before, but got to venture through it last night and it was incredible.  Every Friday night they have an event called Art in the Evening with a live bluegrass band, drinks and appetizers.  It was a great night and they worked hard with me to make this evening particularly special.

After being reminded how inept we were at interpreting art, we moved over

to a little Italian bistro called Bella Monica, where they wrote her name in sidewalk chalk (though

rain ruined this moment), lined our table with confetti, purchased a dozen of her favorite flowers (gerber daisies) and donned her table with a free Birthday Canoli (amazing).

This night was great, not because of what we did, but because I got to celebrate the 25th year of my wife’s life.

It was 25 years ago God brought her into the world, and now that he has entrusted her to me as her husband, I don’t want to take one day for granted.  Birthdays are a big deal around the Coalson house, because it’s an opportunity to CELEBRATE LIFE, particularly the life of the most important person in the world to me, my bride.

Baby, I thank God I have the privilege and overwhelming honor of calling you my wife.  May I spend my life giving myself to you in selfless love that shows you the beauty of Christ.  You’re amazing.  I love you. 

I posted this video yesterday, being greatly stirred by Bethke’s passion, fervor and zeal.  We too often don’t see this in guys our age (20 somethings) and I quickly wanted to share.  I think his heart and motive still focuses our sights on Christ through his artistic poem of grace and redemption.  However, I wanted to link to a few critiques of Bethke’s use of the word ‘religion’ in his video.

Jared Wilson writes:

It’s important not to push back on Jefferson Bethke and his video simply to be contrarian or to avoid liking something because everybody else does. The heart displayed in the video is solid, and he says a lot of right things. But he says a few wrongs one too, and while they aren’t wrong enough to overreact, they are wrong enough to note with some cautions.

You can read Jared’s whole post here.

Voddie Baucham also weighs in inadvertently by writing a post for his church on whether or not Christianity is a religion or not.   Honestly, it’s full, honest and excellently written, and we learned much from reading it.  Check out his article here.

My thoughts are this:

• Bethke’s video was a poem.  Works of art are not meant to be expansive, but typically highlight certain elements of whatever topic you’re passionate about.  I.e., a love poem may highlight one or two elements of why you love the individual such as warmth, beauty or personality , and may never touch on the topics of sacrifice, devotion, and the many other things that make a committed loving relationship work.  Poem’s typically focus on the aesthetics of the subject, and should not be viewed as something that will deliver a full, comprehensive definition of it’s subject.  The video was, in fact only 4  minutes long.  Some bloggers critique Bethke’s video for not referring to repentance, or sanctification, or sin more.  I don’t think that was his purpose in creating the video, and certainly we can’t expect him to crank out a full definition of every element of the Gospel.  His purpose, as cited on YouTube, was to  contrast Jesus and ‘false religion’.  Which leads me to my next point.
• My primary critique of Bethke’s poem was it’s premise was to contrast Christ and false religion, when instead he contrasted Christ and Religion, which set’s up the assumption that Christ is anti-religion.  Religion is man’s attempt to get to God, Christianity is God’s attempt to get to man, etc. etc.  Were he to simply follow through on his premise of Christ vs. false religion and place the word ‘false’ before every use of the word ‘religion’, it would had been much more accurate.
• As Jared Wilson notes, we shouldn’t overreact unless there is a need to overreact.  Jefferson’s video seemed to be heartfelt, genuine and sincere.  Our desire should be for Gospel-clarity and a clarity for what Christianity is and is not, not to critique for critiquing’s sake, because I hope theta Jefferson’s passion is contagious and God uses him to ignite the hearts of many more wandering 20-something’s in our generation.

By and large, the experience, knowledge and training I received was at the hands of the multi-talented, half-crazed, detail-obsessed,  Starbucks stock owner, slightly-balding,  germaphobe and pastor: @letmebefranks.  In truth and a moment of full-disclosure, Danny Franks taught me much over my tenure, and I thought I’d jot some leadership-First Impressions tidbits he passed along to me.   Here we go…

1) Overplan and then go-with-the-flow:  Danny and I planned a few events in our time, like Church at the Ballpark, Christmas at the Summit, and about a hundred weekly services.  In this time D-money emphasized to me that to plan heavily on the front-end of an event, frees you up to simply go-with-the-flow during the event.  You’ve done all you could do, with the time you were given and were able to trust the details with God.  This was incredibly helpful, because things get a little crazy around the Summit!

2) The sermon starts in the parking lot: If our First Impressions team heard this once, they heard it 100 times.  The sermon doesn’t start with the music, it doesn’t start with the lights, and it doesn’t start when the pastor takes the stage. No, the sermon starts in the parking lot.  This is where volunteer (the body of Christ) has the opportunity to love on the guests who visit our church, and if we miss that opportunity, then we could potentially distract people from hearing the Gospel by our lack of planning, intentionality and love.

3) The caution of misapplied effort: During my  2011 annual review, Franks compared my attention span to that of a hyper-active furry animal of sorts, constantly going…but not always going in the most beneficial tasks.  This was a double insult and the low-point of our review.  I immediately purchased two more drinks on his Starbucks Gold Card after this comparison.  Yet, rubber met road and I finally consented: I may have issues with focus from time to time.  Danny cautioned me from having my hand in everything, being intentional with my time, and developing systems to make my day run smoother.  Energetic or not, if misapplied we are less effective.

4) You’re only as good as your leaders:  Leadership development was by far the most enjoyable part of my job and the opportunity to develop our leadership team was exciting and stretching.  But it became very apparent early on in my role as First Impressions Director, that in order to succeed in this role, I needed the right leaders.  Ministry is not a one-man show..  And, in order for our growing team of 150+ volunteers to get the attention and discipleship they needed, leaders would need to be put in place to make sure that happened.  It’s much easier to lead a group of leaders leading the team, then it is to lead an entire team by yourself.

5) Kill the Sacred Cows  – Ok, so this one he swiped from Larry Osborne.  And to be fair, some cows I didn’t just kill, I hacked to death. But I digress, Danny is a patient guy. Seriously though, there are things in all of our churches that may have been a great idea.  Ridiculously effective idea..five years ago.  And now?  It’s a sacred cow that no one wants to ax.  I’m here to tell you, kill it.  There is no point in continually doing something if it doesn’t fulfill it’s purpose.  So I challenge you, walk around your church and ask: Why are we doing this?

8) Choose the right leaders -  Better to have empty positions, than poorly filled ones.  Danny instilled in me a fervent desire to find the right leader, not just any leader.  Here’s the thing about empty positions – they can nag at you for a while.  But , through prayer and development of those around you, you can cultivate the right leader.  Poor leaders are hard to remove, and never fully support the team.

9) Diversity matters - Ok, I got this before working for The Summit, and there were, eh hem…times where Danny and I may have disagreed on how to achieve this very Gospel-rooted goal, but regardless, our church has seen massive amounts of growth in diversity since making racial diversity a priority.  Danny is passionate about this. His little girl helps quite a bit!

So, there ya go.  Two years and 9 bullet points later, these are just a handful of the lessons I learned from @letmebefranks.

Danny, thank you.  You’re also hired to do First Impressions at our future church plant.  It involves incredibly long coffee sessions at Starbucks.

To read more about Danny, check his blog here.

“What Christians offer is an understanding that the world is not ours, that we are not the ones that give things value.” -Wendell Berry

“The ‘already,’ the definitive accomplishment of redemption in Christ, is our motivation for obedience.” – John Frame

“A church that is not on mission misrepresents God.” – Trevin Wax

“Christianity is the greatest intellectual system the mind of man has ever touched” – Francis Schaeffer

THE ALL-GOOD

“My God,

Thou hast helped me to see,

that whatever good be in honour and

rejoicing, how good is he who gives them,

and can withdraw them;

that blessedness does not lie so much

in receiving good from and in thee,

but in holding forth thy glory and virtue;

that it is an amazing thing to see Deity

in a creature, speaking, acting,

filling, shining through it;

that nothing is good but thee,

that I am near good when I am near thee,

   that to be like thee is a glorious thing:

This is my magnet, my attraction.

Thou art all my good in times of peace,

my only support in days of trouble,

my one sufficiency when life shall end.

Help me to see how good thy will is in all,

   and even when it crosses mine

   teach me to be pleased with it.

Grant me to feel thee in fire, and food and

every providence,

and to see that thy many gifts and creatures

are but thy hands and fingers taking hold of me.

Thou bottomless fountain of all good,

I give myself to thee out of love,

for all I have or own is thine,

my goods, family, church, self,

to do with as thou wilt,

to honour thyself by me, and by all mine.

If it be consistent with thy eternal counsels,

the purpose of thy grace,

and the great ends of thy glory,

then bestow upon me the blessings of

thy comforts;

If not, let me resign myself to

thy wiser determinations.”

Hope you are intentional with your movies this year as well.

Here’s the list.  Let me know if you’ve seen any and what you thought!

1. The Godfather
2. Citizen Kane
3. Schlindler’s List
4. Animal Kingdom 
5. The Grapes of Wrath
6. Tree of Life 
7. Midnight in Paris 
8. Chinatown
9. 2001:A Space Odyssey 
10. Fight Club
11. Moneyball 
12. Chariots of Fire
13. Vertigo 
14. Rabbit Hole
15. Magnolia
16. Hugo 
17. Let Me In
18. The Ides of March 
19. City Lights
20. Unforgiven
21. Sophie’s Choice
22. High Fidelity 
23. Dogville 
24. City of God 
25. Amelie

I.e. – Exercise, yep…it made the list again.  But this year, for a much different reason.  Not to boost pride in physical abilities or to look better in the clothes I wear, but because God intentionally designed my body to run a certain way, and because my body the temple of God and my daily treatment of my body is just as much worship to Him as is the songs I sing every Sunday.

So, I challenge you this year.  To plan and evaluate your life, but to also observer the motives in your heart for doing so and to make your primary goal this year to fall deeply, intimately, recklessly in love with your Father.

Men, I challenge you this year: Resolve to feast on the Word.  Resolve to disciple your wives.  Resolve to pursue holiness at all costs and seek to bring hope and justice to the oppressed on God’s behalf.  Know that you alone will be responsible on judgement day for the discipleship of your children.

Women, I urge you this year: Resolve to make the Word the most desired book in your home.  Intercede fervently for the husband you love and support.  Resolve to make your home a fiery marker for the Gospel within your neighborhood and community.  Resolve to open your home, despite your lack of time to deep-clean.

May 2012 awaken in us a renewed passion to know our Creator.  To feast on his Word.  To align our lives more and more with the heart and mission of the Gospel so that when our bodies are wasting away in the ground, and our souls in eternity, we can know the legacy we left behind was not for glowing retirement accounts or ESPN or politics or remodeling our home (all of which are good gifts from God, but must not be the linchpin on which our lives hinge), but was fervently focused on knowing God, enjoying him forever and declaring his glory both here in our cities and communities and around the world.

If you’re in the process of making your resolutions this week, here are some things that will give you some great parameters.

1. Jonathan Edward’s Resolutions
2.  Trevin Wax’s New Year’s prayer
3. George Guthrie’s Bible Reading plan – one of the best I’ve ever used!