In combat, there are usually two times throughout the day where key leaders have briefings to discuss the significant activities, operations, and intelligence covering the previous 12 hours. These briefings—also known as BUBs (Battle Update Briefs)—provide information that leaders need to know in order to do their jobs more effectively in defeating the enemy.

These briefs also provide opportunities for the units to report on successes from particular missions and operations. Here’s a report by Army Chaplain Jeremy Miller on what is happening with the Military Mission in the trench he’s in:

A few months ago most chaplains in Arkansas had never heard of The Resurgence and the powerful biblical call that they have for not only men but people everywhere. Within weeks books started streaming to us,and many of our chaplains took the knowledge gained from books like Death by Love and were able to walk soldiers through the road to redemption from sin. In fact, the material got us all fired up for serving Jesus because it was such a great tool.

We started our first Vintage Jesus study with huge success. Over 12 weeks we saw soldiers’ lives change when they put to death their false gods and surrendered to Jesus as their Lord.

Booklets like Porn Again Christian and Pastor Dad do not stay on the shelf. Some days we have gone through a few hundred and had soldiers beg for more. In one case we had 4 soldiers reading aloud from the same book . . . sharpening each other.

To learn more about the Mars Hill Military Mission and find out how you can help, go here.

Resurgence Literature

Re:Lit is a ministry of Resurgence. There you will find a growing line of books to help guide the resurgence of the new reformed. Find out more.

"I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings." (1 Corinthians 9:23)

Bringing the Gospel to the Military

For those of us who have gotten the Afghan "moon" dust under our fingernails, or seen the sky turn orange during Iraqi dust storms, we see the necessity for the gospel to impact the military in significant ways.

By the grace of God, we at Mars Hill Church have been able to get over 3,500 of Pastor Mark Driscoll's books, 50 copies of the Vintage Jesus DVD curriculum produced by The Hub, and 100 ESV Study Bibles into the hands of men and women in the armed forces over the past year.

Gospel Fruit

We have heard about men deleting whole hard drives full of porn; being convicted of how they are leading their wives; and wanting to go deeper into the presence of their Creator. For that, all we can do is raise our hands and thank Christ for his work and letting us see it!

There's Work to Do

But the work is nowhere near done. Last month marked the most US deaths in Afghanistan since we got there 8 years ago. Combat affords us the opportunity to acknowledge death and contemplate what is important in our lives. So when the gospel gets a hold of us, we have no other choice but to spread the word. "When you are a starving man among starving people and you discover a banquet in the wilderness, you become a debtor to all." (John Piper, Desiring God)

Our goal with the Mars Hill Military Mission is not to thank service members for "protecting" our freedom and "serving" their country; rather, it is to have them share in the blessings we have so graciously—and undeservedly—been afforded by the blood of Jesus on his cross. Not only is there forgiveness of sins on the cross, there is new life at the resurrection.

Spread the Word

A "care package" should attempt to alleviate eternal suffering, not just temporal. Please help us spread the word to chaplains, service members, and churches as we call men in the military to understand their missional call and be rooted in the church.

How to help the Mars Hill Military Mission

1. Pray directly and intentionally for the service members who come across these resources to be changed by Christ.
2. Give to help us buy books, Bibles, and DVDs to send over at no charge to service members. To give, go to marshillchurch.org/give and choose “Military Ministry” under “Fund.”
3. Spread the word about the need for the Gospel in the military to your churches and family members.

If you are interested in finding out more, email me at al@marshillchurch.org.

Resurgence Podcasts

Get all the latest audio sermons, interviews, and lectures delivered straight to you as soon as they are released. Find out more.

Missional Living Is Unmistakable

The military is full of what’s known as "cultural Christians." They have been to church; they have said a prayer; they have been baptized; they own a Bible. But apart from these few truths, no one would ever mistake them for a disciple of Jesus Christ.

So as a man who has been bought, redeemed, forgiven, and then given a mission, what does it look like to be a missional believer while serving in a job where you can’t call in sick if you have a migraine, take vacation whenever you feel like it, walk in and give your two-week notice, and are surrounded by enough porn to be considered on par with Primetime TV?

Missional Living Is Grace-Centered

More often than not, we as believers emphasize what we’re against—drinking, smoking, cussing—instead of whom we are for and what he has done. And just like any other profession and walk of life, we need to refocus our gaze on the only perfect man to ever walk this earth—Jesus Christ.

Missional Living Sets an Example

One of the clearest ways to be missional in an environment with many eyes on you as a follower of Christ is through your job. Work was given to us by God before the Fall (Gen. 2:15). Before Jesus began his earthly ministry around the age of 30, he was a carpenter (Mark 6:3). During seasons of Paul’s ministry, he worked night and day as a tent-maker (Acts 18:3) in order to support himself and to give an example to others of what it meant to engage in work (1 Thess. 2:9; 2 Thess. 3:7-9). That is one reason he could say that if a man doesn’t work, he doesn’t eat (2 Thess. 3:10), and if he doesn’t provide for his family, then he’s denied the faith (1 Tim. 5:8).

Missional Living Serves Excellently

As men serving in the military, we should be striving towards being the best at whatever job we have—sniper, submarine officer, tank commander, chaplain, or cook (1 Tim. 4:12). This does not come from a sense of earning our righteousness—as our righteousness rests completely on Jesus—but rather from the fact that we are walking and talking reflectors of God and his glory—Imago Dei (Gen. 1:27). And that is a joyful responsibility.

Missional Living: Your Thoughts

I’m asking men from any walk of life for input on what a Missional Joe looks like in the military and on the job site. How are we in the world, but not of the world? How are we salt and light without becoming judgmental hypocrites? I’ll be exploring some of the aspects of what it looks like to be missional in the military without transforming the gospel into either a license to sin or a call to separate. It is the power of God for the salvation of all who believe (Rom.1:16).

Porn-Again Christian:

You are part of a culture that spends more money each year on pornography than country music, rock music, jazz music, classical music, Broadway plays, and ballet combined. Find Out God's view.

When you work with guys who can sit in a room with five other guys and watch endless amounts of porn as if they were watching 24, then you know you don't have the average job. This is the case for guys serving in the military, especially in Afghanistan, Iraq, or out at sea.

In order for the average guy—who doesn't read Grudem's Systematic Theology—to pick up and read a book about Jesus, you need to punch him in his gut, metaphorically.

It was this mentality that led us here at Mars Hill Church to ship out 800 of Pastor Mark's books, including Porn Again Christian, to men serving in the military. The majority of these books are heading out to Jonah's, Abraham's, and Daniel's old stomping ground of Iraq. Others are going to aircraft carriers, guys who are stateside prepping for an upcoming deployment, and other US installations around the world.

Part of our mission with sending these books is not to have guys simply reading these as an end in themselves, but rather to get them into Scripture.

I wanted to thank those of you who are backing us and have decided to support these men with these books and the Vintage Jesus DVD curriculum. These tools will enable them to grow as the husbands, daddies, and warriors their Lord wants them to be. It will also help them speak into the lives of guys they are serving with who have a very twisted view of who Jesus Christ is and what it means to be a man.

What Troops are saying:

Matt, US Army Ranger in Iraq:
“I grabbed Porn Again Christian and never put it down. I needed that book, and most of the guys I work with need it as well. I think there is a tendency in our desensitized culture to think certain images or magazines are just part of what it means to be a man today.”

Roger, US Army Chaplain:
“The copies of Porn Again will be perfect for our soldiers. Porn Again is awesome because nobody talks about that stuff, at least not honestly (and frankly nobody talks about masturbation).”

John, US Navy:
“I read Porn Again in its entirety right after I got it. I wish I’d have had it before our ship pulled into Hong Kong, but there will be many more port calls during this cruise where several thousand sailors could benefit from having that booklet’s content on their hearts and minds.”

Porn-Again Christian:

You are part of a culture that spends more money each year on pornography than country music, rock music, jazz music, classical music, Broadway plays, and ballet combined. Find Out God's view.

Nice Guys

Holy Joe. Ned Flanders. That annoying guy from the movie Bull Durham who leads a Bible Study in the clubhouse before games (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, rent the movie) and ends up marrying the local tramp—interestingly enough, kind of like Hosea! This is usually what the church expects of Christian men who are serving in the military. Your typical descriptions include:

• Neutered.
• Non-threatening.
• Doormat.
• Wuss.
• Polite.

But all it takes is spending some time in Scripture to recognize, scattered throughout our Bible, warriors whom God absolutely loves. One of His names is Jehovah Sabaoth—Lord of Hosts, commander of the angelic host and the armies of God.

Abraham—at an age when he’s supposed to be collecting social security—leads an elite team of commandos to rescue his inbred cousin Lot. Phinehas the priest takes a spear and impales an Israelite and his “from the wrong part of town” girlfriend, and God blesses him for it! David decides to go above and beyond the 100-foreskin requirement to marry Saul’s daughter, Michal, and decides to cut 200 Philistine foreskins!

For those who believe these were acts of a primitive “god” in the Old Testament, tell that to Ananias and Sapphira as well as the “Christians” in Corinth who die after taking communion.

The final picture of war we have in our Bibles is when Christ returns, wielding a sword that comes out of His mouth, splattered with the blood of His enemies before He tosses them into the eternal lake of fire and sulfur (Revelation 19).

Jesus – my key to heaven

The opposite approach to being the Holy Joe in your unit is to be so indistinguishable as a follower of Christ that it’s difficult to argue that you actually are one.

There is constantly going to be a tension between being the Pharisee in your unit sporting your King James Bible (with the secret stash on your laptop), and being the Sadducee who is down with Jesus as your savior after you die, just not your Lord (especially of your pants and on Sundays).

As service-members, we either become sectarians who don’t go far enough into our culture, or we become syncretists who go too far. Either way, we deny the power present in the Gospel to transform anyone’s life, and ignore Jesus’ call for us to be salt and light while not being of the world.

To properly love Jesus and the guys we serve with, we need to meet them in their culture. We don’t pound our Bibles on their heads, pass out a Chick tract, and call it a day. Neither do we watch porn with them, have a few too many, and hit up the strip club on Friday night.

Death

Only fortunate soldiers are in units that are not part of a memorial service while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is at these times that questions arise, such as “why him and not me,” “what is the meaning in all this,” “I don’t get it.”

As Christians, we should be the most fearless warriors in the service because of the many promises our God has given us. Such passages as Genesis 50:20 and Romans 8:28 anchor our faith in Christ and His plans for our good.

Both these passages came to mind as the truck being driven by my friend Shane, his TC (truck commander) SSG Martin, and gunner SPC Zylman passed over a copper wire laid across an Iraqi road, setting ablaze a 1500-pound bomb. The blast killed SPC Zylman, while badly injuring both Shane and SSG Martin.

A lot of time was spent with guys afterwards talking about how a good God could allow something like this event (and, oh, how there are so many) to go down. All three soldiers were highly respected men. I was asked by other guys who weren’t cutting it as soldiers why God would choose to injure these guys and let dirt bags live to breathe another breath. I regularly find myself feeling the same way about some folks, while quickly forgetting about the grace that I so undeservedly have received from Christ.

What kind of theological system do you use when an RPG round whizzes through the window in your Humvee only to sever the head of the guy you are sitting next to? What do you do with a Blackhawk helicopter going down during a routine mission, killing all thirteen soldiers on board? How do you break down being more than a conqueror (Romans 8:37) on that one?

The Buddhist ultimate fighter

Some of the best conversation I had while I was in Iraq came from the hour-long talks I would have with my good bud Tye. He is a professing Buddhist who enjoyed walking around our small COP (combat outpost) shooting wild dogs in the head, while tossing up 315 on the bench press. Not exactly your typical pacifist. We would actually speak about the possibility of literally ripping someone’s head off their body, which was regularly discussed regarding some leadership. I’m still praying for that guy as he goes through Special Forces training to become a Green Beret, and that the seed that was spread during those nights over coffee bring about some awesome fruit.

One of the reasons this guy would spend hours talking to me about Jesus and the sovereignty of God was because there was mutual respect. He knew I was unbending when it came to such things as recognizing Jesus as God and being faithful to my wife, while at the same time doing my job well and fulfilling my responsibilities as a non-commissioned officer.

Bottom Line

I’ve been blessed by God to be able to hear professions of faith from the mouths of guys I’ve served with and talked about Jesus with. I want to wrap this up by pointing to Scripture as our model of how to be warriors, pointing to Christ and loving others.

In both passages about the qualifications for elders and deacons (1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1), Paul begins the list with the qualification of “being above reproach.” In 1 Timothy 3:7, he says we must be “well-thought-of by outsiders.” And in Titus 2:7, Paul says that we need to be a “model of good works.”

This starts by being in the Word as much as possible with a set plan, because places like Iraq and Afghanistan usually don’t accommodate your average “quiet” time.

Here’s the classic: "Holy Joe"

Porn-Again Christian:

You are part of a culture that spends more money each year on pornography than country music, rock music, jazz music, classical music, Broadway plays, and ballet combined. Find Out God's view.

Continued from Part 1.

Service-Members Need the Gospel

There is on average one chaplain assigned per battalion (roughly 500 individuals). Other than a few exceptions, chaplains are normally in their mid-40s and from mainline liberal denominations. The guys they are assigned to minister to are not being presented the Jesus who is enthroned, exalted, and getting ready to come back covered in the blood of His vanquished foes. They are being fed the marginalized Jewish carpenter, who has given us some nuggets of suggestions to help us live good lives.

We, as the church, have a responsibility to disciple others. There is a golden opportunity for us to rise up and assist not only the chaplains currently serving, but also men who are called to rise up in the ranks as leaders. The church dropped the ball by not welcoming in and discipling Vietnam veterans, causing many service-members to actually feel at odds with the church.

The church is not designed to be a place for you to go once you have your life put together. It is designed to be the headquarters, sending men out and receiving men in who are trying to piece together their shattered selves through the finished work of Jesus on the cross. We should actually be recruiters who enjoy what we are recruiting folks into, since we don’t deserve the grace Jesus has given us.

While our government has set up measures to help both service-members and veterans through the Department of Veterans Affairs, it is ill-equipped to address the core needs of service-members. The church needs to man-up and lead the nation in restoring the emotional, marital, and familial health and dignity of our veterans. We as the church have what service-members need: the Gospel.

How To Support the Troops

I will be posting about issues pertinent to both active-duty service-members and veterans in order to raise some awareness for Americans who think they are supporting the troops.

Most folks think they are supporting the troops by putting a magnet on their car, forwarding a prayer chain email for the troops that asks you to pray one minute each day for them, or randomly sending a care package full of baby wipes and mints to soldiers in Iraq (to these folks, please go read James 2:16).

This is not support. The support needed looks more like the early church from Acts 2 (committed to community and fellowship), and less like you giving a buck to the homeless vet on the side of the freeway as you drive away sipping your venti $5 coffee. Hopefully I can give you guys some idea of what this support looks like.

After exiting the Army, I have struggled at times to communicate openly with my wife of five years, and even to just feel “normal” in civilian life. I have been extended grace in not only employment, but also in protection from falling into sin.

As I read about the growing numbers of returning warriors from Iraq and Afghanistan who are struggling with the reintegration process and wondering what is the purpose of their suffering and their service, my heart is wrenched as I meditate on the grace which has been poured out and is being poured out over me and my family. I know that I could easily become the man on the off-ramp of the freeway asking for change.

As the church, God has called us to engage the warriors serving and the veterans who have served (Romans 10:14-17). He does not need us or our “help” (Acts 17:25) but has allowed us to be involved in His kingdom-building and the spreading of His glory. I pray that God raises up men who will accept this mission.

Watching the Twin Towers crumble to the ground like a couple of Jenga towers, I knew that my future would be in the military. It didn’t help that Band of Brothers was currently playing on HBO, and I would have felt like a wuss if I hadn’t joined the military. After finishing college and joining the Army, it wasn’t long before I found myself in northern Afghanistan.

It was a couple of surreal weeks during my first month in Afghanistan. I was conducting missions during the day, reading the book of John at night, and watching porn before I went to sleep. It was during this time that Jesus took my heart of stone, gave me a heart of flesh, took the scales off my eyes, and gave me the ears to hear His call.

During these sleepless nights in Afghanistan, as I went through C. S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity, I came face to face with having to decide who I thought Jesus Christ actually was. Through the grace of God, I knew that if He was indeed Lord (and not a liar or a lunatic), the way I had been living my life—commonly referred to as sinning—was putting me at odds with the Creator of the universe. This was when I became a Christian.

King Jim

I started getting plugged into a Bible study with our battalion chaplain, who was a King James-only Baptist dude. I still love the guy to this day, just not some of his theology. He had some arguments for why every other Bible translation was actually from Satan, and as a new Christian I believed him. Thankfully, as I continued to read God’s Word, speak with other believers, and read what other folks had to say, I realized that there's more to Christianity than this.

A year after getting back from Afghanistan, I found myself in a remote base in northern Iraq, which used to be a granary but was now occupied by 500 Iraqi Army soldiers and 75 US military personnel. We had a solid chaplain assigned to our unit, but he was only able to visit our base about once a month.

Jesus laid it on my heart to just start pulling guys together on a regular basis to open the Bible, read it, and have it transform our lives. Over the 14 months that I was in Iraq, our group would fluctuate from 3 guys to 15 depending on our OPTEMPO (operations tempo). We started with the book of John, and chewed our way through 1 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Matthew.

Gals with shaved heads

Right before we actually got to Iraq, I started to listen to some sermons on my iPod that I had randomly downloaded off of iTunes from this guy from a church in Seattle called Mark Driscoll. The first sermon I listened to was out of 1 Corinthians 11, in which Paul is speaking about head coverings and symbols of authority. As soon as Pastor Mark made some comment about butch ladies and bucking authority, I was hooked on this guy’s teaching.

My wife started burning anything she could get her hands on from Mars Hill, from audio sermons to video sermons, and mailing them out to me in Iraq. We started rounding up the guys and showing at least one sermon a week on a laptop through a projector with speakers hooked up to it, and this was our Sunday church service. There were nights when we would even just chill, drink some coffee, and go through a few sermons.

The floodgates opened up with the guys as we worked through porn, masturbating, beer, Calvinism, the exclusivity of Christ, being a husband and daddy, and war, just to name a few topics.

Gigs of Gospel

When guys are deployed, a lot of them have external hard drives that they keep all their media files on (music, movies, pictures), and they share these with one another. Guys are notorious for having gigs upon gigs of porn—all classified appropriately by gal, act, you name it.

One of the coolest things I got to experience was seeing guys borrow external hard drives from one another, not to get the latest porn, but rather to make sure they had all of the vodcasts posted by Mars Hill from the “Christians Gone Wild” series (1 Corinthians), the “Redeeming Ruth” series (book of Ruth), or the “Vintage Jesus” series. Instead of filling their brains with endless hours of garbage, they were watching Pastor Mark preach through the Word.

Continued in Part 2 here
_______________________

Find out how you can work with Al to help the soldiers