flickr: The Arches
A few years ago, our family of six left a congregation full of parents with young children, and joined a church made up mostly of university students.1 This wasn’t an ideological statement on our part: it was simply because my husband works in university ministry, and that’s where we needed to be at the time. But it’s made me aware of some of the benefits and costs of going to church with people from a different age and stage from your own.
If you’ve been going to Sunday church services for as long as I have, you will no doubt have a list of things that you don’t find very edifying (i.e. things that drive you nuts). But what should we do about this all-too-common lack of quality in our church gatherings? (more…)
In all the Solas of the Reformation (by Scripture alone, by faith alone, by grace alone, through Christ alone, glory to God alone), there’s nothing about Christians being alone. Quite the opposite: we are brought in to a new community with others. Hebrews 10:19-25 shows us the twin bases of confidence we have for approaching God that then impact on Christian fellowship: the blood of Jesus provides a new way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place; and we have a great high priest over the house of God. (more…)
A pastor friend has some book money in his budget and wants to stock up on books he can freely pass out to people he is discipling or those who come through his office. He asks me about my choices. (more…)
Late last year a conference was put on with the title Exploring Effective Ministry Under God. There were a number of presentations about church membership, training, mobilisation, and lots more from a range of contributors, spearheaded by Tim Sims (who conducted the research on Sydney Anglican churches published recently in The Briefing). (more…)
This is the original, longer version of the edited article that appeared in print.
There are three common mistakes when dealing with the legacy of previous generations, whether it is in the area of theology or any other endeavour. The first is uncritical acceptance, where all that was said or done by the great ones who have gone before us is treated as so true and perfect that none of it can be questioned. Some confessional theology can be like that. I remember listening to a series of addresses on baptism in which the constant refrain was “the Reformed faith teaches…” Now I’m happy to identify myself as standing within the Reformed tradition of theology, but after about the fifth address (there were twelve!) you couldn’t help but wonder whether this system was so set in stone that it would be impossible to question it on the basis of the Bible. I had the impression that to do so would be considered a betrayal of Calvin, or Turretin, or Hodge or Warfield and what they have bequeathed to us. And yet each one of those men would have rushed to protest that their own teaching needed to be tested by the one true standard of doctrine, the teaching of the Scriptures. Now if you think that is just typical of the conservative edge of the Reformed tradition, I’ve heard people do similar things with the theology of Karl Barth. Barth’s theology sometimes seems to be made of Teflon—no criticism is allowed to stick. But Barth himself famously spoke of how the angels laughed at those who spend more time thinking about what Barth said than about what God has said. That’s the first mistake to make when considering the legacy of the great ones who have gone before us. (more…)
Dealing with our history, and charting a course that avoids blanket repudiation and blind acceptance, requires careful thought. Mark Thompson shares with us the legacy for today of Donald Robinson and Broughton Knox with regard to the church. (more…)
We Christians are very interested in church, and we have vested interests in church. So the question of what is church—and what is it for—is important to us. But is it the right question? (more…)
There have been many predictions about the next evangelical crisis. Perhaps correctly, many have predicted that it will again be on the nature and authority of the Bible. Is the telltale sign of this the fact that the post conservative post-modernists have tried to change the argument from being about the reliability/accuracy of the Bible to the interpretation of the Bible, all in the name of wanting to be an insider of this “evangelical” club? (more…)
None of us wants to be the cause of another person’s sanctification – at least, not unintentionally – and yet, so often, that is what we are.
Is this one of the reasons that God allows us to become weak, dependent and forgetful as we grow older? Is it so we can place a necessary burden on those who were once dependent on us: a burden of forbearance and loving care? (more…)
Scott Newling’s recent essay (in Briefing #390) about devoting ourselves to the public reading of Scripture has got a lot of people talking. One obvious implication of Scott’s piece is that we need to raise the standard of our public Bible reading. Here Tony Payne interviews Russell Powell, who has some expertise in this area. Read on to learn more. (more…)
I’ve been following the discussion of Philip Percival’s last two posts on ‘worship’ with interest (here and here). And having once more heard some of the points in favour of retaining ‘worship’ language to describe singing and/or church, and also having gone back and read some of the best arguments that are made to justify the practice, I’ve decided to throw in the towel. You guys win. I’ll stop trying to convince you of the complete folly of labelling our church services as ‘worship services’ or our song-leaders as ‘worship leaders’. Your arguments are just too clever. (more…)
So was it important that the excellent things that Bob Kauflin was saying at the TWIST pastor’s conference were being said by a ‘Reformed charismatic’? (more…)
If you had told me 10 years ago when I was on the Board of Emu Music that in 2011 we’d be putting on a TWIST music conference for pastors and inviting the ‘Director of Worship Development’ from a major charismatic US church to be the keynote speaker… well I’d have been a little surprised, to say the least. (more…)
Tim Sims, a businessman and corporate strategist, has applied his analytical skills to the Anglican Diocese of Sydney, and asked why churches have been growing no better than the population as a whole. Tony Payne outlines and engages with his research. (more…)