Resources On Church Growth And Ordinary Means Ministry

Westminster Confession of Faith 1.7 says,

All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all: yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation, are so clearly propounded, and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them (emphasis added).

That phrase, “due use of ordinary means” was an important theme in Reformation theology that, because of the rise of Pietism, and later revivalism, the Holiness movement, and out of that movement Pentecostalism and the Charismatic movements, has largely been lost. By “ordinary means,” we meant to say “the divinely ordained means.” It was a way of capturing what Paul says in Romans 10:14–17:

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ (ESV).

Paul says that we cannot call on the Lord until we hear the gospel and we cannot hear the gospel until someone preaches is to us.
He takes it for granted that God has ordained a process, or means (or media), by which he brings his elect to new life (regeneration) and to true faith. The reason that the feet of gospel preachers are beautiful is not the feet themselves but the message they bring. In case we missed his point he puts a fine point on it: “Faith comes from hearing and hearing through the Word of Christ.” By his sovereign grace, God uses the sense experience of hearing the good news. That tells us how important are the means by which he has decided to work.

The Heidelberg Catechism summarizes Paul’s teaching this way:

Since then we are made partakers of Christ and all His benefits by faith only, from where comes this faith?

The Holy Spirit works faith in our hearts by the preaching of the Holy Gospel, and confirms it by the use of the Holy Sacraments.

It is the Spirit, the “Lord and giver of life” (Nicene Creed) who sovereignly gives new life and true faith. It is the Holy Spirit who unites believers to Christ but he uses the gospel to do it and he uses the sacraments not to create faith (contra the sacerdotalists) but to confirm and strengthen it. The means of grace are important as we come to faith and as we grow in that faith.

Table of Contents

Articles

  1. Idols of the Minister’s Heart: The Killer Bs—Buildings, Bodies, and Budgets
  2. What If “Church Growth” Methods Were Built On A False Premise?
  3. Church Growth Is Dead
  4. The Five Points Of A Calvinist (On Having A Care For Visitors)
  5. Growing Reformed Churches: Doing The Simple Things
  6. The Next Church Growth Trend?
  7. Easter: The High Holy Day In The Church Growth Calendar
  8. Is Efficiency A Virtue In The Church?
  9. Growing Reformed Churches: Doing the Simple Things
  10. A Partim…Partim Response to Zerochurch
  11. Ministry Is Not Mastery
  12. Death For Success
  13. “Jackson, Unto” And “Toward” in Ephesians 4:11–12, And Every Member Ministry
  14. A Seventh-Century Opinion On Every-Member Ministry
  15. Strategic, Authentic, And Confessional (1)
  16. Strategic, Authentic, And Confessional (2)
  17. Strategic, Authentic, And Confessional (3)
  18. Ministers All?
  19. Hodge On Every-Member Ministry (Ephesians 4:12)
  20. Does Acts 8 Provide a Warrant for Every Member Evangelism?
  21. From MLM To The Freedom Of The Christian
  22. Missional Monday: Should Evangelism Happen Only in the Church?
  23. Missional Monday: Easter, the High Holy Day in the Church-Growth Calendar
  24. Missional Monday: Who Has the Keys?
  25. Church Growth, The Theology of the Cross, and the Theology of Glory
  26. Seeker, Franchise, Or Reforming: Moving Beyond Some Current Models In Reformed Church Planting To Recover The Whole Mission
  27. John Owen Vs The Church Growth Movement
  28. Good News For The Reformed Churches: Small Is In Again
  29. On “Meta” Ministry, Docetism, VR Church, And The Communion Of The Saints
  30. Riddlebarger On The Reformed Altar Call
  31. Canons Of Dort (5): God Ordains Means To Call His Elect
  32. Canons Of Dort (22): The Application Of Redemption Is A Mystery Wrought Through Means
  33. Canons of Dort (23): God Not Only Sovereignly Gives New Life But He Uses Means To Do It
  34. Review: Redmond, God of the Mundane: Reflections On Life For Ordinary People
  35. Good News: Millennials Like Substantive Sermons
  36. Parachurch Or Pastoring? (Part 1)
  37. A Case for the Ordinary Means of Grace and the Marrow Controversy
  38. The Evangelical Fall From The Means Of Grace
  39. Prayer As a Means of Grace
  40. Seeker, Franchise, Or Reforming: Moving Beyond Some Current Models In Reformed Church Planting To Recover The Whole Mission
  41. Of Church Names, Christ, And Culture
  42. Secular When It Should Be Sacred
  43. The Church Growth Ethos, Presbyterians, & Narcissism

Audio and Video

Bibliography

  • Butterfield, Rosaria Champagne. The Gospel Comes with a House Key: Practicing Radically Ordinary Hospitality in Our Post-Christian World. Wheaton: Crossway, 2018.
  • Clark, R. Scott. Recovering the Reformed Confession: Our Theology, Piety, and Practice. Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2008.
  • Horton, Michael Scott. Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2014.
  • Redmond, Matthew B. The God of the Mundane: Reflections on Ordinary Life for Ordinary People. San Francisco: Kalos, 2012.
  • Tucker, Ruth. Left behind in a Megachurch World: How God Works through Ordinary Churches. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 2006.

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