Is Our Kingdom Failing His Kingdom
We need young believers trained and equipped and envisioned with the gospel strategy; to die to self in service of the Gospel and Christ’s bride – the church (and not just the comfortable, good looking bits).
Church planting is all about dying to self. It means leaving something comfortable and which we love [don’t plant a church, or join a plant, because you are unhappy with where you are] to start something new. It means labouring with a smaller team, a smaller budget, a smaller leadership, and having to establish all... Continue Reading
A High Ecclesiology in the Digital Age
Our digital efforts should reinforce the work of the embodied local church, not replace it.
As members of Christ’s body, we should connect ourselves as members of a local expression of that body. Digital space disconnects us from our bodies, communities, and physical locations, and swirls us about in cyberspace, but the church roots us in reality, grounds us in love, and is ground zero for our life with Christ. ... Continue Reading
Building Counter-Institutions
Building durable new institutions in a corrosive environment requires a dangerous embedding of counter-mainstream DNA.
If the old institutions are dying or losing their traditional formational functions, why will not any new ones rapidly meet the same fate? Indeed, we are seeing that many evangelical institutions go into decline rapidly. Many of the earlier 1980s vintage megachurches already have “mainline disease” – an aging member base, fewer families with children,... Continue Reading
The Worship of Worship
You can have fulness of joy in God, but not fulness of joy in your fulness of joy.
I fear many people today are caught in the childish rut of worshiping their emotions. For this reason, they dislike the sober worship of conservative churches, because such worship seldom inflames the emotions to the intensity desired. Why? Plato told us: “Beautiful things are hard.” God is beautiful, and a singular focus on His beauty... Continue Reading
In Search of Community: A Place for Our Girls
Our girls—as girls—need to experience the God-designed, genuine community in our churches so they can recognize the counterfeit community of the world
Our girls are to be cared for, esteemed, sought after, taught, seen, discipled, valued, just as any member of the body of Christ is. If they are believers, just because they are young and maturing does not diminish their value or position in the body of Christ. If they are not yet believers, our prayer... Continue Reading
The Rise and Fall of the Evangelical Elite
It is now plain to everyone that the obsequiousness of the evangelical elite to their hostile secularist counterparts is harmful to the country, to churches, and to the advance of the Gospel.
It is obvious now, looking back at the post-9/11 and pre-Obergefell era, that the leftward drift of this movement was inevitable. The end of Renn’s “neutral world” and the beginning of a negative world hostile to Christianity began soon after the Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision in 2015 and accelerated rapidly with Trump’s 2016 victory. Changed... Continue Reading
A Primer on Reformed Liturgics: Lessons from the Past Applied in the Present (Part One)
Our liturgies should proclaim that our salvation (in terms of deliverance from the wrath of God) comes only through faith in Jesus Christ—God incarnate.
The heart of Christian worship is the act of asking for forgiveness of sin because the shed blood of Jesus alone washes it away, and because the spotless righteousness of Christ covers our unrighteousness. This conviction of sin arises from a reading of God’s law with opportunity given for all those present to confess their... Continue Reading
Could the Fallible Universal Church Have Failed to Receive the Canon?
When accompanied by the power of the Holy Spirit, the testimony of the received canon by the one holy catholic and apostolic church is a profound confirmation to the Christian.
Jesus promised to build his church and told his apostles that those who received them were receiving Him. (Matt. 10:40; Matt. 16:18) The implication is that the building project of the Lord was to be founded upon the message of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus being the chief cornerstone. (Eph. 2:20) Consequently, the... Continue Reading
Subtle Attack against Motherhood
Our children are not the enemy. Do not allow them to be the spoils of this spiritual war.
There is a sinister underlying message in the trend of “mommy humor.” My sweet friend, just under the surface of that humor is a lie. It whispers that motherhood should make us happy—eventually. But motherhood can never produce what we will only ever find in the Lord. Who Is Our True Enemy? Sweet sister, we are... Continue Reading
Reflections on Reformed Catholicity as Commonly Conceived
Given that many evangelicals are not only ignorant of catholicity but actually take offense at it, convincing them that the concept is a real attribute of the church is best approached by establishing its scriptural validity.
But the disagreement, itself part of a larger debate about catholicity, does highlight the problems with that doctrine as it is often presented. By catholicity I mean the attribute of the church by which it is not limited to any one nation, class, or era, but is present wherever and whenever there is true faith... Continue Reading
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