Yesterday I got an email from a confessional Reformed Christian in Germany. It’s a “big deal,” because there aren’t very many Reformed folk left in Germany. His letter was a plea for help. It’s his impression that the confessional Reformed churches in . . . Continue reading →
mission
Office Hours: Reaching Secular Israelis with the Gospel
There is more than a little romanticism among American evangelicals about “Israel.” For Christian tourists, Israel is a vacation spot, a place to try to see where redemption took place. For Reformed Christians in Israel, however, it isn’t a tourist spot but . . . Continue reading →
Ventura URC Bible Study (UPDATED)
UPDATE Glenda Mathes has an update. Unfortunately, things are a little more uncertain now than they were in late 2009. Brothers and sisters, God is sovereign and can do what he will but in his ordinary providence church planting fraught with difficulty. . . . Continue reading →
Something for the "Missional" Movement to Consider
Wes Bredenhof has a provocative post regarding the influence of Harry Boer (a theologian in the CRC who attacked aspects of the doctrine of predestination as unbiblical) on some contemporary ideas of “mission.” He writes, “In Boer’s view, mission is not so . . . Continue reading →
The Impetrative Offer of the Gospel in Isaiah 55
“‘Come to me a you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest’ or ‘I will be your rest.’ How good are we at pleading with people? Do people get the impression from us not only that there is a feast but that God wants them there and that you want them there?” Continue reading →
HB Classic: Holograms, Gnosticism, Celebrity, and Mission
[Originally published March 6, 2010] In view of a recent post by Carl Trueman concerning virtual preachers now seems a good time to republish this HB classic. § Two jarring facts came to my attention in recent days. The first of these is . . . Continue reading →
Does Acts 8 Provide a Warrant for Every Member Evangelism?
An HB Classic
During his recent excellent interview with Darryl Hart, Mark Dever made reference to Acts 8 in regard to every-member evangelism (EME). The question of the nature of evangelism is a popular one on the HB. I’ve addressed the problem of hyping the great . . . Continue reading →
Pastor Willour is Reading RRC!
Pastor Geoff Willour is pastor of Lake OPC in Cleveland. He writes: “One of the things that I have noticed in recent years has been lots of discussion (both on the internet, and through numerous books and articles) on two trends in . . . Continue reading →
Heidelcast 16: Being Relevant is Harder Than It Looks
An HB Classic
This episode of the Heidelcast, from January, 2010, takes a look at Chicago radio legend Steve Dahl’s reaction to being forced to go to church for Christmas. It’s useful to hear how silly Christians appear to unbelievers when we try to be . . . Continue reading →
American Evangelicalism: From David Joris to David Koresh
NPR has a story today reminding us that the Branch Davidian episode was twenty years ago (HT: Ann Althouse). The story is worth hearing. Ann Althouse raises the question whether NPR is turning our attention to the Branch Davidians in order to . . . Continue reading →
On Saving the City (UPDATED Again)
UPDATED 11 May (see below) 10 May 2013 (see below) Original Post 6 May 2013 So I Googled “redeeming the city” and produced 5 million results. The first link, from 2006, captures the spirit and the rhetoric of the movement. The writer . . . Continue reading →
So You Want To Plant A Church?
The confessional Reformed churches face many struggles. In Recovering the Reformed Confession I classified some of them under two headings, QIRC and QIRE, the quests for illegitimate religious certainty and experience. There are others. We are still playing Whack-a-mole with the Federal . . . Continue reading →
Progress In Cincinnati
Guest post by Zac Wyse, who is a licentiate in the United Reformed Churches. He’s a recent WSC graduate and he’s planting a new congregation in Cincinnati. § We are a new church that belongs to a growing federation called the United . . . Continue reading →
Abandoned Churches: From Mission To Museum
For years we drove past this old, abandoned church just north of I-80 near Milford, Nebraska. It was always a lonely vista but it was just one among many. I have often wondered about it, briefly, as we have driven west from . . . Continue reading →
One Reason Why Unbelievers Don’t Want to Talk to Us
Mark Vander Pol recently pointed us to a wiki page titled, “How to Avoid Uncomfortable Conversations About Religion.” This page is useful on a variety of levels. On the most common level, some people are pests and it offers some good advice for dealing . . . Continue reading →
Heidelcast 39: Confessional Church Planting In Cincinnati
An important part of recovering the Reformed confession is calling the churches back to our theology, piety, and practice. Church planting is a part of that practice. We’ve always been “missional.” We were missional before there was a cool word for it. . . . Continue reading →
Must We “Translate” the Gospel?
David Fitch says and assumes, “yes,” but I doubt it. The “missional” movements are not really fundamentally different from the middle-class, pedestrian “church growth” movements of 25 years ago. They all seem to assume that accommodation is something that we do as . . . Continue reading →
Hyper-Calvinism, Rationalism, and Anti-Predestinarians
By etymology, “hyper-Calvinism” is that doctrine which goes “beyond” (hyper) Calvin. Often, however, it is used incorrectly by critics of predestination to describe anyone who believes in reprobation. If teaching reprobation makes one “hyper-Calvinist” then Calvin would be “hyper-Calvinist” and that’s just . . . Continue reading →
Office Hours: Ministry And Mission
What happens to WSC students after they graduate? Most of them go on to become pastors in confessional Presbyterian and Reformed congregations. Most of them spend the rest of their lives in faithful service to Christ, preaching the gospel, administering the sacraments, . . . Continue reading →
Your God Is Too Small (To Reach Millennials)
Chasing coolness won’t work. In my experience, churches that try to be cool end up with a pathetic facsimile of what was cool about 10 years ago. And if you’ve got a congregation of businessmen and soccer moms, donning a hip veneer . . . Continue reading →