Friday, November 29, 2019

But Telling Isn't Training


Firefighting skills require not only telling (verbal instruction), but guided practice (training). Telling isn't training. It's only the beginning, and not even half the job. Training is standard fare for good schools. But in church, it's exceedingly rare.

How can people think it's OK for male athletes to impersonate females and compete against women in sports? No word better describes this than "delusional."

Delusional thinking comes from delusional starting points. People with high IQs professing themselves to be wise become fools. God "gives them over" to their self-imposed absurdities (see Romans 1).

Delusional thinking starts here:
  • animate life came from inanimate things and inanimate things self-developed out of nothing
  • since there is no Creator, we create our own "right" and "wrong"
  • God's Word is Truth for some people, but not for all people
  • Jesus is not King of everything (just Sunday service, and my personal life)
In 1994, Randy Phillips wrote: 

"When Alexander Solzhenitsyn sought an explanation for the devastating revolution that destroyed his native Russia, he recalled what those who had lived through the Bolshevik takeover had said: 'Men have forgotten God, that's why all these things happened.' Solzhenitsyn admitted that after decades of study he could not offer a better explanation…Solzhenitsyn's conclusion is certainly a lesson to heed: when men forget God, some very terrible things happen. Leadership becomes corrupt. Marriages end. Families suffer... Eventually, an entire nation crumbles." (Men of Action Newsletter)

Can the U.S. continue to "forget" God and not collapse from within?

If we think so, we too are delusional. 

Let’s understand what we’re up against here. We’re dealing with strongholds of the mind that can only be brought down through the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, in cooperation with the Acts of Believers. 

We’re not fighting against flesh and blood, but against "principalities and powers of the air." Yes, real demons. 

Nothing else accounts for the uber-irrationality of Critical Theory. 

In 2 Cor. 10:5, Paul declared: "We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."

 Paul knew the minefield is the mind-field.

 This is where training comes in. "Taking thoughts captive to Christ" is a learned skill requiring guided practice. We desperately need students, parents, teachers, business leaders, film-makers and civil servants who are trained in how to "take thoughts captive to Christ," and practiced in the art of "demolishing arguments and pretensions." 

But telling isn't training.  

What's training?

 1. Trainer talks, trainees listen

 2. Trainer shows, trainees watch

 3. Trainees do, trainer provides feedback

 4. Trainees do again--in real situations

 Stay tuned.
  

Am I an alarmist?

 I hope so.

Our communities are on fire. Our nation is on fire.

Followers of Christ need activist training now. Forget the "seeker sensitive" stuff. Perhaps people seeking meaning for their lives would like to find a group of people committed enough to use their prime time on Sunday morning for activist training. Maybe a lot of young people who are currently leaving the church might decide to stay.

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