Movements and the Means of Grace

Evangelicals love movements. I suppose it's because it makes us feel a part of something big or at least bigger than our church. Don't misunderstand. I like a good conference as much as anyone. I have benefited from good conferences. I appreciate Together for the Gospel, not least of all because their ambition is fairly limited to a conference every other year. They make no effort to be a quasi-denomination. I hope it stays that way. But the evangelical church, particularly in the United States, seems to birth more movements than we can keep up with. Some movements come on like gang busters and then just a quickly fade away (Remember Promise Keepers?).

What is this appetite for movements? Is it our craving for the ever new? Probably. Now that the Young Restless Reformed movement is no longer new there is evidence of former enthusiasts departing for greener pastures. Let's face it. Now that the Young Restless and Reformed are Middle-aged and exhausted it does not seem quite so cool as it once did.

But I think the more likely culprit in our craving for movements is our poor ecclesiology, particularly related to God's ordinary means of grace. I had never heard the phrase "God's ordinary means of grace" until I was introduced to the reformed faith. As a result I had no doctrinal or experiential category for the true significance of those ordinary elements that make up the corporate life of a biblically informed church. If you are unfamiliar with the term "ordinary means of grace" it refers to those elements of our gathered worship to which the Lord has attached his blessing: the preaching and reading of God's Word, the sacraments (Lord's Supper and Baptism), prayer, praise, and fellowship.

These ordinary means of grace are the things that the Lord has given his church. They are not the inventions of man. We call them means of grace because the Lord has appointed them as means by which he blesses and builds his church. We call them ordinary because there is nothing about them that is spectacular. They are not rare like miracles. They are ordinary. They are to be practiced regularly in our Lord's Day gatherings precisely because we regularly need what God offers us through them. But these are gifts not given to movements. God has given these means of grace to his church.

Movements tend to focus on a preferred market niche like women, men, black, white, young, fans of loud music, students, the balding, etc. Interestingly I don't see many movements targeting for its core the elderly or poor. But that's another post. I'm not saying that a meeting or conference tailored specifically for men or women is wrong. But it must not supplant the church, for a movement is not the church. Movements are not the inheritors of God's promises nor are they the stewards of God's oracles and his ordinary means of grace.

Christians need to be very cautious about movements. This is especially true when a movement seeks to minimize doctrinal distinctives in favor of a poorly defined quasi-mysticism. This came to my mind (once again) when I read an article about the IF Gathering.

"I hear enough people telling me how to be a good Christian mom. I don't need that," said Andrea Burkly, a Catholic who traveled from Wheaton, Illinois, to attend the Austin event. "This is a call for revival and unity, and it lined up with what's in my heart right now."

In between sessions, the mostly-young crowd discussed with each other their own sense of calling as well as hindrances such as fear and comparison. They worshipped together with hands lifted high and kneeled to pray for the Holy Spirit's guidance.

 

The origins of IF, as well as Allen's recently released book Restless, date back to 2007, when she woke up in the middle of the night with the vision to "gather, equip, and unleash" this generation of Christian women. Allen, 37, holds a master's in Biblical Studies from Dallas Theological Seminary and had been a stay-at-home mom leading a women's group at her church Austin Stone, an Acts 29 congregation.

Since then, she published a series of Bible studies through Thomas Nelson and built up the connections necessary to organize a movement around that initial vision, one she sees echoed in the words of her friends—new and old—across the Christian blogosophere.

 

"We've been slow to step into our giftedness or strengths. For a long time, that wasn't an option," said Allen. Now, though, "there is something happening in our generation, and I believe it's a manifesto in a way, a call for us to link arms and to spend our lives beautifully and well for the glory of God."

I was not surprised to see the connection between the movement and a recently published book. Now a major publisher will be stepping in to create a series of studies feeding into the movement. Perhaps I am cynical but there is often much money to be made in these ventures. You will notice also the vague language of revivalism - "something happening in our generation," "unleash this generation," "step into our giftedness." I honestly don't know what any of that means.

I know I will be perceived by some as criticizing a move of God. But I assume that critics of Finney faced the same rebukes. I am troubled by movements which promise fresh experiences with God or a new movement of God and then market products to support this new outpouring. Those of us raised in conservative but non-confessional evangelicalism were steeped in that language. Everything had to be new and fresh. A steady sanctification wrought by God's ordinary means of grace in a local church was simply not a part of our diet.

I was raised attending the obligatory annual Spring and Fall revivals. There were camps and retreats and choir tours and mission trips. The underlying assumption was that in those events we would feel especially close to God; we would have a particularly "meaningful," "intimate," "authentic," etc. experience with God that was not generally available on the ordinary Lord's Day. As a result (and I was far from alone) I never considered what happened in our regular Sunday gatherings as anything particularly special.

I am happy to be part of a movement. It's called the Presbyterian Church in America. We have a rather detailed confession of faith called The Westminster Confession of Faith. We have a well thought through structure for polity, governance, dispute settling, instructions for public worship, etc. It's called the Book of Church Order. We have a growing ministry to university students called Reformed University Fellowship (RUF). We have a church planting agency. We have a missions sending agency for North America (MNA) and the World (MTW). We produce curriculum for Christian education and discipleship (Great Commission Publications). We have a university and seminary. Not too shabby.

Believe it or not, that was not a commercial for the PCA. Rather it was a means by which I might force a question: Why another movement? Why a movement without a proper confession of faith? Why a movement that would take time away from that to which I already belong? And most importantly, why a movement that is detached from oversight of a church? Why a movement that minimizes the ordinary means of grace which Jesus has entrusted to his church?

An understanding of the church that is all too common

This will probably be the last thing I post on Donald Miller's recent revelation that he does not attend
church. No promises, mind you. Miller's two posts provide us with a rich source of understanding the bitter fruit of the consumer church. As such, reflection on this can be a fruitful endeavor. Miller's doctrine of the church is actually quite prevalent among conservative evangelicals.

Mike Cosper, author if Rhythms of Grace has written a helpful piece engaging Miller's thoughts on the purpose of the church's Lord's Day gatherings.

Cosper writes:

 [It's] no small irony that Miller, a paragon of the "me" culture of memoir, has essentially said he left church because it didn't work for him. I fear that Miller doesn't have the self-awareness to see how narcissistic and condescending his posts are, and how consumeristic his critiques of church are.

I wonder, though, if Miller's thoughts don't say as much about our contemporary worship culture as they do about Miller himself. His description of a church gathering is two-dimensional: we listen to a lecture and sing songs that connect us to God. Miller says he stopped attending because he doesn't learn from lectures and doesn't feel like he connects to God through singing.

This description of the gathered church is anemic and shabby, but it's also the description that many American evangelicals would use to describe Sunday mornings. Rather than a robust engagement with God's people, God's word, and God's Spirit through interactions with one another, songs, prayers, scripture readings, and the Lord's Supper, we think of Sundays as merely preaching and music. Rather than an immersive, formational environment shaped by the physical architecture of space and the spiritual architecture of a Gospel-shaped liturgy, Sunday Morning is a platform driven spectacle, led by mega-celebrities at mega-churches and would-be-celebrities and smaller churches. Rather than a challenging and diverse diet of milk and meat, celebration and lament, confession and assurance, we're fed a pump-up-the-jams hype fest that culminates in a "You can do it!" sermon and a marketing pitch for membership. It's an environment that feels hostile to doubt and suffering, unless your goal is to overwhelm them both with enthusiasm...

I think Miller needs to be challenged and corrected. But I also think his comments reveal the tragic lack of spiritual formation in many of our churches today. They remind us that many Christians have no meaningful vision for why the church gathers; for why we sing, preach, and pray.

The solution isn't trying harder to please religious consumers and church shoppers. Instead, we need to look to the old paths, where the good way is, and keep telling the only Story that gives us a sense of ultimate hope in this tragic and broken world.

Read the entire article HERE.

On the church with Donald Miller

By now most of you know that Donald Miller doesn't much go in for church. I wrote a response to Miller over at Ref21. Actually it's not much of a response to Miller as it is a critique of his doctrines of the church and worship. Today, Miller, recognizing that his post was receiving a lot of attention wrote a post going into more detail. Rather than clarifying or correcting his troubling doctrine, he offers more troubling and misguided theories. He digs in on the idea that the Bible really does not have anything specific to say about the gathering, structure and leadership of the church. This is, of course, nonsense and I have a hard time believing Miller actually thinks this. Of the various responses offered to Miller I have found Jonathan Leeman's to be most helpful.

In his "P.S." to Miller's follow-up Leeman writes:

P.S. Just saw your reply to a number of critics, posted around the same time as my letter. Again, some diagnoses I agree with, like, churches over-programatize. But you keep saying no one's church looks like the church in Acts?! But many churches I know do. People gather to hear the teaching of the apostles. And they scatter to enjoy fellowship and hospitality and care for one another's needs. They baptize as a way of declaring who belongs to "their number." And they exercise discipline when a professor lives falsely (okay, here I'm borrowing from the epistles, unless you count Peter's responses to Ananias, Sephira, or Simon as discipline!).

In other words, Don, the main thing I want to highlight in response to both of your posts is the difference between what you call "community" and what the Bible calls the "church." Jesus actually gave authority to those local assemblies called churches (Matt. 16:13-20; 18:15-20). The assembly is not just a fellowship, but an accountability fellowship. It's not just a group of believers at the park; it preaches the gospel and possesses the keys of the kingdom for binding and loosing through the ordinances. It declares who does and does not belong to the kingdom. It exercises oversight. And exercising such affirmation and oversight meaningfully means gathering regularly and getting involved in one another's lives.

Your idea of community, to my ears, honestly, sounds more American and Romantic (as in the -ism of the 19th century) than biblical. All authority remains with the individual to pick and choose, come and go, owing some of the obligations of love, perhaps, but always on one's own terms, happy to stay as long as the experience "completes me" and my sense of self.

Last thought, friend: I do think you're overplaying the "people have different learning styles" card. You've read Hebrews. Talk about tough trudging, right? But it's a sermon! And you know the original hearers didn't have as much education as most Americans. But for some reason the Holy Spirit thought it was adequate for everyone.

Best to you.

It's good to be a Presbyterian

Mark Jones, author if the recently published Antinomianism, has written a helpful article entitled "Why You Should Be a Presbyterian." If you are a Presbyterian you ought to read it to be reminded of the distinctives of Presbyterianism. If you are not a Presbyterian, then read with care. Your mind may change.

Jones writes:

What mechanism is in place to protect and build up the unity of the visible church if congregationalism is accepted? False teaching destroys unity, but the mechanism for dealing with false teaching under congregational ecclesiology is left to the congregation itself. Particular congregations need the protection of other congregations, just as pastors need the protection and (sometimes) discipline of other pastors. It's good that my congregation can appeal to my presbytery if my teaching becomes suspect and the elders and I refuse to see my problem. That other elders can have authority over matters of doctrine in our church is our strength, not a weakness—for they may provide a more objective assessment of the problem in question (Prov. 11:14).

Moreover, in many congregational churches it's entirely possible for the Calvinistic minister to leave, only to be replaced by an Arminian one. Presbyterians have mechanisms for preventing such a drastic shift. I've learned a lot from my congregational friend Hunter Powell (the leading scholar of Puritan ecclesiology today), such as how much the Congregationalists needed the state to regulate true religion in the hope of achieving ecclesiastical unity. With today's separation of church and state, however, congregationalists have no such recourse for establishing wider church unity. And so one of the flaws of congregational ecclesiology is its crass independency and inability to regulate true religion on wide scale. Presbyterianism has a better mechanism in place to deal with false religion and establish true religion (such as the Westminster Confession of Faith).

Guy Waters observes, "Presbyterianism is essential to the well-being (bene esse) but not to the essence (esse) of the church. Non-acceptance of Presbyterianism is, therefore, no barrier to receiving a non-Presbyterian person as a Christian, or a non-Presbyterian church as a true branch of the church, provided that he in fact holds fast the only Head of the church, Jesus Christ." Thus, in the PCA we welcome any who are Christians as a regular member in our church, even if they are an anti-paedobaptist. If someone belongs to Christ we have no grounds for barring him or her from visible communion in Christ's body. Our desire for unity—objectified in our terms for membership—is our glory and Christ's glory (John 17:20-22), and this glory is best realized in the form of government known as Presbyterianism.

Read the entire article HERE.

I Blame His Church

The evangelical circus may be making an addition to their increasingly grotesque sideshow. Apparently, the world needs another reality show. Ed Young Jr. of Fellowship Church in Grapevine, TX is in talks with a major network to bring his big life to the small screen.

While Ed Young Jr. is a grown man and fully responsible for his decisions, I nevertheless blame his church for this latest publicity stunt. You may remember that Ed and his wife Lisa have made headlines in recent years for things like the week long sex challenge they gave their church, the 24 hour bed-in on the roof of Fellowship Church, and the controversy surrounding their lavish lifestyle. All of this would be a bit more understandable if Fellowship Church were an independent word/faith congregation a' la Kenneth Copeland. But Fellowship Church is a member of the Southern Baptist Convention.

 I understand that things happen gradually, but didn't any of the controversies (24 hour bed-in on the church's roof, the mansion by the lake, the partnerships with prosperity preachers, the million dollar condo in Miami, the private jet, the unaccountable board) merit a rebuke from his congregation? Ed Young did not become Ed Young Inc. without the permission of his church.

I offer the following observations in hopes that other churches will not follow Fellowship Church's example:

1. Fellowship Church should not have allowed their pastor to embrace prosperity preachers.
Fellowship Church should have done something when Pastor Ed embraced prosperity preachers like T.D. Jakes and the Houstons of Hillsong Church. These relationships seem to have only emboldened Ed to further his embrace of certain aspects of prosperity teaching.

2. Fellowship Church should not have allowed their pastor to appoint his own board of directors.
Fellowship Church has a strange and dangerous system of government. The men to whom Pastor Ed reports, the men who set his salary, are appointed by him. They are mega-church pastors from other churches living in different states. Ed should never have exploited his church in such a self-serving way. But Fellowship Church should never have allowed it.

3. Fellowship Church should not have made their pastor wealthy.
To be sure, church's are called to take care of those elders who labor in preaching and teaching. My own denomination admonishes churches to care for their pastor's financial needs so that he is not distracted from his calling by the cares of the world. But providing responsibly for a pastor so that he can afford a home and send his children to college is not the same as burdening his soul with an excess of material wealth. Scripture makes it clear that wealth, while not inherently sinful, does present a particular form of temptation that many cannot not find tolerable. Riches are dangerous for the pastor. Just as too little money can burden him, so too will great wealth. There is also the pastoral consideration of a church making its pastor wealthier than 95% of his congregation. We pastors are sinful creatures and we need our brothers and sisters to help us. Riches are a great temptation to any human soul. A church should not tempt their pastor to sin by paying him too little or too much.

4. Fellowship Church should not have allowed their pastor to become an exhibitionist.
One of the justifications Pastor Ed is offering for the proposed reality show is, "I don't mind showing anybody anything." Frankly, this mystifies me. There ought to be all manner of things in our lives that we don't want broadcast into millions of homes. I'm not suggesting that pastors should have hidden lives of shame. God forbid! But what happened to the idea of modesty? Is there any value in privacy anymore? I suppose in our celebrity saturated culture exhibitionism is simply the job description for the reality TV wannabe. But a pastor ought to have more wisdom than this.

So is it fair of me to blame Fellowship Church for its pastor's behavior? I believe so. They made a bargain that they now have to live with. They agreed to allow their pastor to be a celebrity (perhaps encouraged it) so long as he treated them like spectators in his own show.

I close with a description of a typical Sunday at one of Fellowship Church's new satellite locations (a Southern Baptist congregation):

Church happens inside a theater with plush leather stadium seats. As approximately 50 congregants trickle in — hipster dads with Sunday-morning stubble and retro eyeglasses, women in designer jeans with their hair pulled into ponytails — an extended remix of Justin Timberlake’s “Suit & Tie” thumps through the sound system. (The church embraces secular music.) The house music fades. A band in front begins a set of contemporary songs, some with vaguely spiritual lyrics. The leader of this morning’s service is 32-year-old Landon Pickering, whose title at Fellowship is global youth pastor. He is also the pastor at this branch and at the church’s downtown Dallas location. Pickering (he goes by “l_pick” on Instagram) welcomes the crowd with enthusiasm. They hand it back. Pickering has movie-star looks, tatts on his arms and speaks in a sort of urban dialect. He is also dating his boss’s eldest daughter, LeeBeth Young, 27, who works in communications and video for the church and is on hand this morning to help out.

The screen darkens. A video with better special effects than most Syfy channel shows begins. It depicts a set of bones magically being enveloped in tendons, then flesh, then skin, until a whole man — naked and ripped, but shown in chaste tight shots — stands upright. Music swells. Cross-dissolve. Ed Young is now on-screen, live, at the Grapevine church, flanked by two medical-supply skeletons. The hashtag for today’s sermon and the handles of Ed’s Twitter and Instagram accounts remain posted in the screen’s lower corner. Want to accept Christ into your life at the end of the service? Hit #32898 on your smartphone and ushers will assist. Young wears a black hoodie with shiny zippers, snug rust-colored pants and chunky lace-up black boots. Later that morning, for the 11:30 service at the mother church, he will don a new outfit: blue oxford button-down, plaid vest, jeans cuffed at the ankles and wingtips with no socks. (One of Young’s side projects is a blog he started, called pastorfashion.com.) Ahead of his arrival? An elaborate production number interpreting “Radioactive,” an end-times anthem and hit song by Las Vegas rock band Imagine Dragons. A young woman on-stage sings the apocalyptic tune while laser lights slice through a thickening mist from a fog machine. Behind her, three jumbo screens flash disturbing images of gas masks. At stagefront, two breakdancers in yellow biohazard suits contort and gyrate, and simulate drum-beating on large toxic-waste barrels.

Why Church Membership Matters

From Jonathan Leeman:

In the last post, I answered the question, What Is the Local Church? That brings us to the next question: what is church membership?
Answer: It’s a declaration of citizenship in Christ’s kingdom. It’s a passport. It’s an announcement made in the pressroom of Christ’s kingdom. It’s the declaration that a professing individual is an official, licensed, card-carrying, bona fide Jesus representative.

More concretely, church membership is a formal relationship between a local church and a Christian characterized by the church’s affirmation and oversight of a Christian’s discipleship and the Christian’s submission to living out his or her discipleship in the care of the church.

Notice that several elements are present:

• a church body formally affirms an individual’s profession of faith and baptism as credible;
• it promises to give oversight to that individual’s discipleship;
• the individual formally submits his or her discipleship to the service and authority of this body and its leaders.

The church body says to the individual, “We recognize your profession of faith, baptism, and discipleship to Christ as valid. Therefore, we publicly affirm and acknowledge you before the nations as belonging to Christ, and we extend the oversight of our fellowship.” Principally, the individual says to the church body, “Insofar as I recognize you as a faithful, gospel-declaring church, I submit my presence and my discipleship to your love and oversight.”

The standards for church membership should be no higher or lower than the standards for being a Christian, with one exception. A Christian is someone who has repented and believed, and that’s who churches should affirm as members. The only additional requirement is baptism. Church members must be baptized, a pattern that is uniform in the New Testament. Peter said to the crowds in Jerusalem, “Repent and be baptized” (Acts 2:38). And Paul, writing the church in Rome, simply assumes that everyone who belongs to the Roman church has been baptized (Rom. 6:1–3). (I'll consider this requirement of baptism further in the next post.)

Church membership, in other words, is not about “additional requirements.” It’s about a church taking specific responsibility for a Christian, and a Christian for a church. It’s about “putting on,” “embodying,” “living out,” and “making concrete” our membership in Christ’s universal body. In some ways, the union which constitutes a local church and its members is like the “I do” of a marriage ceremony, which is why some refer to church membership as a “covenant.”

It’s true that a Christian must choose to join a church, but that does not make it a voluntary organization. Having chosen Christ, a Christian has no choice but to choose to join a church.

Church Discipline And The Means of Grace

From Carl Trueman:

 Apparently, a church in Oregon is suing a former member and her daughter for defamation on a blog. Apart from the difficulty of mounting a successful suit for defamation under the US's admirably lax defamation laws (where not only factual error but deliberate malice must be proved), the whole idea of suing a former member on this kind of thing is most unbiblical and arguably strengthens the woman's case that this is not a church which behaves like a church should.

Going to law is a tricky issue for the church. It is quite possible that a church might need to serve a restraining order on someone who posed a serious physical threat to a congregation, but suing for defamation seems to collide with what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6 and, indeed, with the entire thrust of a significant strand of New Testament teaching -- that the church should expect to be slandered, libeled and generally trashed in this world and to accept the same in a spirit of humility and joy. The only real response to such slander should be 'Did they spell my name correctly?'

It also speaks eloquently of a failure to understand the nature of biblical discipline, presumably as a result of failing to understand the biblical nature of the church and the means of grace. The church is marked by two things: the word and the sacraments. These are the means of grace. When someone is unrepentantly committed to a pathway of extreme sin, the church's weapons are those whereby that person is excluded from the means of grace. That is all the church can do. By refusing this woman the word and the Lord's Supper, the church has done all she can.

While we are on the subject of church discipline, it seems that this is, as noted above, historically connected to the means of grace. So what happens to church discipline when the means of grace start to be expanded beyond word and sacrament? When we include art, or music or even sports? I have no sympathy whatsoever with such an expansion; but, given the emphasis on these emerging in certain quarters and, indeed, the arrival of arts and sports pastors on the scene, I wonder if those who do in practice seem to see these things as means of grace have really thought through the practical consequences for church discipline. Perhaps we have to stop people looking at pictures (unless it is something by Thomas Kinkade?), listening to anything but 70s disco music, and playing anything but American football? Answers on a postcard.

"What is that difference?"

Kevin DeYoung has written one of the most insightful posts I have read in a while concerning the problem of what he calls "squishy evangelicalism." And it describes far too many churches accurately.

The audience I have in mind are those Christians, pastors, and churches that continue to affirm the basic contours of evangelical faith. They’ve never read Fosdick or Tillich or Schleiermacher. They don’t read the Christian Century. They don’t know much about Deutero- or Trito-Isaiah and don’t really care to waste any more time with documentary hypotheses. They think Paul wrote Ephesians and John wrote John. They love Jesus and want other people to love Jesus. If you ask these Christians, pastors, or churches if hell is forever and people must be born again, they’ll say yes. If you ask them whether you can trust everything in the Bible, they wouldn’t dare say no. They have no problem with any of the historic creeds and confessions. The people and institutions I have in mind gladly affirm penal substitution, the bodily resurrection of Christ, and a real historical Fall. The folks I want to address are energetic about evangelism. They want to see churches planted and people come to Christ. They think small groups, accountability partners, and mission trips are excellent. And at least in private conversation they’ll tell you that homosexuality is not. These Christians, pastors, and churches are not liberal...

Have you ever been talking to a pastor or someone from another church and it seems like you should be kindred spirits. The person you meet is obviously a warm-hearted, sincere Christian. They don’t have a problem with any of the doctrines you mention as precious to you and your church. They don’t affirm liberal positions on major theological questions. They nod vigorously when you talk about the Bible and prayer and church planting and the gospel. And yet, you can’t help but wonder if you are really on the same page. You try to check your heart and make sure it’s not pride or judgmentalism getting the best of you. That’s always possible. But no, the more you reflect on the conversation and think about your two churches (or two pastors or two ministries) you conclude there really is a difference.

And what is that difference?

That’s something I’ve thought a lot about over the past few months. I’m sure I don’t have all the answers, but here are ten things that distinguish between what I would call a vibrant, robust Bible-believing church and one that gets the statement of faith right but feels totally different.

1. The mission of the church has gotten sidetracked. Recently I stumbled upon the website for a church in my denomination. Judging from the information on the site I would say this church thinks of itself as evangelical, in the loose sense of the word. Their theology seems to be of the “mere Christianity” variety. But this is their stated missional aim: “[Our] Missions are designed to connect people and their resources with opportunities to respond to human need in the name of Jesus.” A church with this mission will be very different from one that aims to make disciples of all nations or exists to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples.

2. The church has become over-accommodating. I’m not thinking of all contextualization (of which there are some good kinds and some bad). I’m thinking of churches whose first instinct is to shape their methods (if not their message) to connect with a contemporary audience. And because of this dominant instinct, they avoid hard doctrines, cut themselves off from history and tradition, and lean toward pragmatism.

3. The gospel is assumed. While the right theology may be affirmed in theory, it rarely gets articulated. No one believes the wrong things, but they don’t believe much of anything. When pressed, they will quickly affirm the importance of Jesus’ death and resurrection, of penal substitution, of justification by faith alone, but their real passions are elsewhere. What really holds the church together is a shared conviction about creation care or homeschooling or soup kitchens or the local fire station.

4. There is no careful doctrinal delineation. Theology is not seen as the church’s outboard motor. It’s a nasty barnacle on the hull. You will quickly notice a difference in message and methods between the church whose operating principle is “doctrine divides” and the one that believes that doctrine leads to doxology.

5. The ministry of the word is diminished. While preaching may still be honored in theory, in many churches there is little confidence that paltry preaching is what ails the church and even less confidence that dynamic preaching is the proper prescription. No one wants to explicitly pooh-pooh preaching, teaching, or the ministry of the word, but when push comes to shove the real solutions are structural or stylistic. How often do those engaged in church revitalization begin by looking at the preaching of the word and the role the Bible plays in the practical outworking of the congregation’s ministry?

6. People are not called to repentance. It sounds so simple, and yet it is so easily forgotten. Pastors may call people to believe in Jesus or call people to serve the community, but unless they also call them repent of their sins the church’s ministry will lack real spiritual power. And this should not be done by merely encouraging people to be authentic about their brokenness. We must use strong biblical language in calling people to repent and calling them to Christ.

7. There is no example of carefully handling specific texts of Scripture. People will not trust the Bible as they should unless they see it regularly taught with detail and clarity. Churches may still espouse a high view of Scripture but without a diet of careful exposition they will not know how to study the Bible for themselves and will not be discerning when poor theology comes along.

8. There is no functioning ecclesiology. If you put two churches side by side with the same theology on paper, but one has a working ecclesiology and the other has a grab-bag of eclectic practices, you will see a startling difference. Careful shepherding, elder training, regenerate church membership, a functioning diaconate, purposeful congregational meetings–these are the things you may not know you’ve never had. But when you do, it’s a different kind of church.

9. There is an almost complete disregard for church discipline. If discipline is truly one of the three marks of the church, then many evangelical congregations are not true churches. All the best theology in the world won’t help your church or your denomination if you don’t guard against those who deny it. If we are to be faithful and eternally fruitful, we must warn against error, confront the spirit of the age, and discipline the impenitent.

10. The real problem is something other than sin and the real remedy is something other than a Savior. The best churches stay focused on the basics. And that means sin and salvation. Sadly, many churches–even if they affirm the right doctrine on paper–act and preach as if the biggest problem in the world is lack of education, or material poverty, or the declining morals in our country, or the threat of global warming. As a result we preach cultural improvement instead of Christ. We preach justice without Jesus. We lose sight that the biggest problem (though not the only problem) confronting the churchgoer every Sunday is that he is a sinner in need of a Savior.

If you read through this list and think you have everything down already, don’t be haughty. If we get all these right and are proud about it, we’ll rob ourselves and our churches of God’s blessing. But my prayer is that somewhere out there in the frozen tundra of the internet a pastor or a congregation or a church leader will read through these ten items and think, “You know, this may be what we’re missing.” The evangelical church needs depth where it is shallow, thoughtfulness where it is pragmatic, and conviction where it has become compromised. A casual adherence to a formal set of basic doctrines does not guarantee real unity and does not ensure genuine spiritual strength.

The Church by Mark Dever

The first chapter of Mark Dever's important book The Church is available on-line HERE.

"I’m not sure that I know anyone who has read more on ecclesiology, from the whole breadth of Christian tradition, than Mark Dever. So, his exegesis is not done in isolation but in conversation with twenty centuries of Christian thinking. As a Presbyterian, I would encourage non-Baptists and non-Congregationalists to read and engage with Mark's work, not only because it is so well done, biblical, and helpful, but also because of a huge evangelical blind spot the book addresses. Ecclesiology is indisputably one of evangelicalism’s great weaknesses, in part because of subjectivism, individualism, and pragmatism. Mark offers a robust corrective to this, and even where you may disagree you will find yourself edified and instructed. Mark approaches this subject not simply as a skilled historical theologian and systematician, but also as a local church pastor who has fostered a vital and healthy embrace of biblical polity in his own congregation, with happy results. He is no ‘dry-land sailor’ or impractical theoretician but a faithful shepherd. The growth and life and fruitfulness of his flock testify to this."
- Ligon Duncan, Senior minister, First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, Mississippi

Lessons from and questions for the seeker church

Kevin DeYoung has written a thoughtful reflection on James Emory White's new book, What They Didn't Teach You In Seminary. Dr. White is a mega-church pastor who happens to be in sympathy with seeker church movement. He is certainly an intelligent man who no doubt cares deeply about the church of Jesus Christ. DeYoung lists a number of lessons that we can learn from the seeker church. He also includes some vital questions for those within the seeker movement to ask themselves.

In his conclusion, DeYoung writes:

I’m not sure how to move forward with the impasse between the YRR [Young, Restless, and Reformed] world and the church growth world. No doubt, there are unfortunate stereotypes on both sides. For our part, we could learn from our seeker church brethren when it comes to administration, strategy, being honest about stagnation and lack of evangelism, and being sensitive to the way we are perceived by outsiders. We can be intellectually snobbish and blissfully unconcerned about whether the church grows, reproduces, or multiplies.

As for those on the seeker church side: I encourage you to read ten theological books for every business book. I encourage you trust in the word of God to do the work of God. I encourage you to listen not just to this culture of Christians, but to the centuries of Christians that have come before. I encourage you to explicitly, unapologetically love theology and teach your people to do the same. I encourage you to worship in such a way that it won’t be out of date in five years. I encourage you to use the language of Zion instead of the language of Collins. I encourage you to proclaim, not just to communicate.

And lastly, I encourage all of us to take a hard look at all the deep theological things we learned in seminary (or should have learned) and consider whether their seeming irrelevance is owing to the them, to our people, or to us.

Why Is The Church Here?

Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert's new book, What is the Mission of the Church is now available at a deep discount HERE.

"In what appears to be a growing tension over what the mission of the church encompasses, DeYoung and Gilbert bring a remarkably balanced book that can correct, restore, and help regardless of which way you lean or land on all things ‘missional.’ I found the chapters on social justice and our motivation in good works to be especially helpful. Whether you are actively engaging the people around you with the gospel and serving the least of these or you are hesitant of anything ‘missional,’ this book will help you rest in God’s plan to reconcile all things to himself in Christ."
— Matt Chandler, Lead Pastor, The Village Church, Highland Village, Texas

"Among the many books that have recently appeared on mission, this is the best one if you are looking for sensible definitions, clear thinking, readable writing, and the ability to handle the Bible in more than proof-texting ways. I pray that God will use it to bring many to a renewed grasp of what the gospel is and how that gospel relates, on the one hand, to biblical theology and, on the other, to what we are called to do."
— D. A. Carson, Research Professor of New Testament, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

The Mission of the Church from The Gospel Coalition on Vimeo.

The Mission of the Church OR Why the Gospel is not "escape from social oppression"

Dr. Albert Mohler and Jim Wallis will be debating each other soon on the question of whether social justice is a necessary part of the mission of the church. It is an important debate because it has direct implications upon the nature of the gospel. Again, the question is not whether it is good for the church to be engaged in matters of justice when it can, but whether it is integral to the mission of the church to do so.

From Denny Burk:

Oftentimes the differences between progressives and evangelicals on this question are not only about the mission of the church, but also about the nature of the gospel itself.

Tony Campolo’s recent critique of the Southern Baptist Convention’s immigration resolution is a case in point. He felt that the resolution did not go far enough and focused too narrowly on “spiritual salvation.” Embedded in his critique, Campolo offers what he thinks the gospel is:

Salvation for the soul is important to Southern Baptists, as it should be for all Evangelicals, but most of us call for a more holistic gospel that not only explains the way of salvation from sin, but also explains the way to escape from social oppression. To simply tell the undocumented immigrants in this country that we want to save their souls, but we have nothing to say about the fears they have of deportation is a cop-out. The Jesus that they love offers deliverance from both spiritual and social oppression, and the Southern Baptists should do the same.

I do not think that Campolo has a fair characterization of the resolution or of Southern Baptists, but that is not the main point here. The item I want to highlight is Campolo’s definition of the gospel. For him it is not merely “the way of salvation” but also “the way of escape from social oppression.” In other words, the gospel is not merely the promise of eternal life rooted in Jesus’ death and resurrection for sinners. The gospel is also the promise of deliverance from poverty, from social inequality, from racial injustice, etc. on this side of the new heavens and the new earth.

Campolo’s view of the mission of the church is decisively shaped by what he thinks the gospel is, and that is why the aforementioned debate is important. We draw our view of the church’s mission in part from our understanding of what the good news actually promises. This no doubt is a part of what the Mohler-Wallis debate will be about.

Read Denny's entire post HERE.

What is the church for?

The Mission of the Church from Ben Peays on Vimeo.

"Without the Word"

In the Jan/Feb 2010 issue of Modern Reformation Charlie Mallie comments on the necessity of the Scriptures to form not only the doctrine but the practices of the church as well. He reflects on his own coversion to Christ and his struggle to find a place in the church.

As an adult convert I can say that my first hundred or so encounters with Christians or with various churches didn't impress me much. When I had courage enough to darken the doorway of some assembly, often I found the teachings shallow and gimmicky. There was so very little of the Word, if at all. I remember one mega-thon in Southern California where the "youth dude" was standing in for the main pastor one particular Sunday. When it came time to "do the supper," he had us all bow our heads and "in our hearts intensely remember Jesus," and then he looked up and yelled, "Here's to Jesus," as if toasting the skylight with the little plastic cup filled with Welch's. That was the last church I walked out of with five-thousand-plus people watching. So began the years of my church fast--and my struggle to find genuine biblical Christianity, one that was saturated through and through with the Word of God.

It occurred to me back then (now over fifteen years ago) that the very aspect of what pulled me with great velocity out of those churches seems to be what draws so many others to them. The emphasis on marketing rather than teaching, offering choices, rather than calling for commitment, entertainment rather than substance flows like a chapter out of Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death. If you look at it from 40,000 feet, regardless of the individual manifestations of the malady, the source is always the same: a lack of teaching founded on the whole counsel of God or at the very least an inoculation against such teaching.

Mallie goes on to explain the dangers of a church bereft of the Word of God.

How dangerous is it to have a church that isn't completely shaped by the Holy Word of God in doctrine and in practice? What's the big deal? Can't we just form a group of Christians based on whatever we feel will best serve our needs?...

Maybe not...Somewhere in your background the Word of God came to you. Some pastor preached on a given text and it took root. You read your Bible and the Word was implanted. That living and active Word, the vehicle of the Holy Spirit, was buried in the soil of your heart and it grew...Because of that gift of being taught by the Holy Spirit through his Word, you can look at such silly assertions and say, "I think not."

But that's really the key, ins't it? The Word. It all turns on the Word of God. Not just a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path, but the very means that guard our steps as we walk with Christ who is the Way, the Truth, the Life. The Word, the Word, the Word!...

Without the Word, we are sitting ducks for all sorts of trouble. If it is true that the devil roams about like a lion seeking to devour whomever he will and that the only weapon we are given is the Word of God--that double-edged sword of the Spirit that proceeds from the mouth of Christ--then without the Word we are truly vulnerable. Worse than that, we are helpless against whatever wind of doctrine blows through the doors. But I can only know such things from the Word. I will not come to the conclusion of such things by a careful contemplation of the starry sky--sorry, Mr. Kant. Without the transcendent enteral Word dropping down from the lofty realm of the neumena confusion, heresy, even apostasy becomes commonplace and talk of absolutes degrades into discussions of preference. Without a raft of revelation to sail me through this sea of doubt, there is no distilling ought-ness from is-ness.

Do we love the church?

From Reformed Forum:

Christ the Center had the pleasure of interviewing Ted Kluck, author and athlete, about his recent publication, Why We Love the Church: In Praise of Institutions and Organized Religion, co-authored with Kevin DeYoung and published by Moody Press. We discussed the recent wave of books, blogs, articles, and interviews calling for the rejection of the institutional church in favor of an individualistic Christianity. Ted explained that while we may experience frustration with our churches from time to time, that rejecting them is no option for the Biblical Christian. The panel also conversed about the relationship of this trend to the emerging church phenomenon, a topic Ted and Kevin DeYoung touched upon in their previous book Why We Are Not Emergent. God created the church and it cannot be so easily dispensed with.

Listen to the interview HERE.

Why the church is vitally important...

Good stuff from Carl Trueman...

It is all too easy for the theological student to end up remembering God as an object of knowledge; it is quite another thing to remember him as the all-surpassing subject of existence.

This is why church is vitally important. OK, long-standing readers of Themelios know what is coming next: Trueman’s pitch for seeing the local church as the necessary context for the Christian life, not least for those called to study theology at the highest level. Well, here it comes; and just because I have said it before does not make it any less true or any less necessary to say it again. After all, some of you may—ahem—have forgotten the speech. As noted above, that’s what the Bible itself indicates as happening when predictable but important routines are abandoned or their content taken for granted.

Much modern theological scholarship, particularly—though not exclusively—in the areas of Old and New Testament studies is predicated on a culture of amnesia. What the church has said about the Bible between the close of the apostolic era and the present day can be, by and large, dismissed. These people did not have access to the documents we now have, they did not understand Judaism as we now do, some were simply naïve in how they looked at the world and how they read texts. These are the kind of arguments which pervade this culture.

Now, for the student studying for an MA or MDiv or PhD, these are not insignificant points; they have to be addressed if the student is to avoid being an obscurantist. But the student should also be aware that the framework out of which these kinds of arguments arise is not a value-neutral one; nor does it actually reflect a particularly biblical view either of the value of the past or the importance of the church as the Body of Christ in biblical interpretation, systematic doctrinal synthesis, or application. Thus, it is vitally important that such students make sure that they place themselves within a local church and under the sound preaching of the word and administration of the sacraments/ordinances on a regular basis. Why? Because otherwise their memories of who God is and what he has done over the years will slowly fade or distort as they simply accommodate to sinful, human expectations of who God is and how he acts.

To the research student, and even perhaps the one studying theology for a first degree, this all sounds terribly boring. To spend the week voyaging at the far reaches of intellectual seas of scholarship, and then the weekends listening to some person standing in a pulpit and simply expounding the text or serving bread and wine? What is the value in that? One can imagine the Israelites in the Book of Judges raising similar questions. Do we need to do that Passover thing again? Do we not all know what it means? Do we really need the law read to us so often? Surely once we know what it says, we can move beyond it? The net result in Judges is, of course, that the values of Sodom come to flourish within the very boundaries of the Promised Land and within the very practices of the Lord’s people, with fatal consequences for at least one young woman. Neglect of the boring, day-to-day routines led to absolute disaster.

It is the same today. I have yet to come across a student who struggled with, or even abandoned, the faith, who did not, at some early point in their struggle, abandon the mundane routines of the Christian life: regular attendance at the preaching of the word, prayer, etc. etc. Boring they may be, but they are God’s means of preventing amnesia; and we forget them at our peril.

Read the entire article HERE.

Reading Up on the Church

The following are some books that are helpful toward developing a better understanding of the church:

Nine Marks of the Healthy Church by Mark Dever

Twelve Challenges Churches Face by Mark Dever

The Church by Edmund Clowney

Life in the Father's House by Mack & Swavely

Priorities for the Church by Donald MacLeod

Do Evangelicals believe in the church? or What ever happened to ecclesiology?

Periodically I am reminded of the fact that those of us who were raised in evangelical churches often have a woefully undeveloped ecclesiology (theology of the church). The vast majority of what I know about the church has been learned outside of the ecclesiastical milieu in which I was raised. Along with the triumph of consumerism, this lack of understanding about the nature and roll of the church as defined in Scripture is a major factor in the flightiness of evangelicals. We are a generation of church shoppers and hoppers. I have not been in the Philadelphia area long enough to make an informed judgment about the northeast. But I can tell you that in Texas and the lower Midwest it seems to be the new normal for church members to move their membership around as their felt needs change or their expectations go unsatisfied.

Scott Clark from Westminster Seminary California has written two articles addressing what he calls "Churchless Evangelicals." Specifically he deals with the growing phenomena of church attendees who profess faith in Christ but refuse to join a church. His comments are worth considering.

The doctrine of the church (and sacraments) is where most evangelicals, even predestinarian evangelicals, “hit the wall.” They come so far toward the Reformation but no farther. Why? The biblical and confessional doctrine of the church challenges two cultural assumptions of North American evangelicals and two of the most sacred idols of the culture: autonomy, i.e. the notion that one is a law unto oneself, and the evangelical (and liberal) love for a disembodied Jesus.

The doctrine of predestination is inherently antimodernist but one can become a predestinarian evangelical without really confronting the issue because autonomy gets shifted from soteriology (the doctrine of salvation) to ecclesiology (the doctrine of the church). Hunting down human autonomy is like trying grab hold of mercury. It keeps squirting away. So, the autonomy of the churchless evangelical, even after having surrendered to the sovereignty of God in salvation, squirts away to re-assert itself when it comes to the church.

Were these churchless evangelicals to unite themselves to a local church they should have to relinquish their autonomy. They should have to submit themselves not only to a particular expression of the historic church (which is distasteful enough) but they should also have submit themselves to a “church order” (a way of doing things) and to elders and to discipline. Even more fundamentally, they should have to agree and submit to “means” or media of grace, to a human ministry(administration) of the Gospel and the sacraments. No longer can Christianity be a purely private affair. It would now be public and it would entail being accountable to humans and being served by Christ through human ministry.

Read the entire article HERE.

I Still Must Protest (2)

Recently, Pope Benedict XVI approved the release of a statement that has caused a minor stir among watchful Protestants and even some Catholics. The statement declares that the Roman Catholic Church is the only true church. To be precise the Vatican’s wording asserts that the Church of Rome is the only form in which the Church of Christ subsists, which is simply a more cautious way of saying that the only true church is the one whose leadership resides in the Vatican.

I am not calling attention to this because I am angry. Actually, it bothers me not one whit because it comes as no surprise. This is the position that Rome has always held. I and all my Protestant brethren were officially consigned to hell long ago by Popes and Councils of the Catholic Church. Now, in recent years the Church of Rome has moderated its language in an effort to be ecumenical. It even seems to hold forth that non-Catholics can actually be Christians. Unfortunately, they believe that sincere believers in all religions will be welcomed into heaven. The problem is that Rome has never officially repudiated all the anathemas declared in years past against Protestants. For instance, according to official Catholic teaching I am bound for hell because I deny such doctrines as transubstantiation and papal authority. What is more, I am also hell bound because I administer the Lord’s Supper and am not an ordained priest in the Catholic Church. I could go on and on.

Rome is in a bit of a Catch 22, however. It cannot repudiate the declarations and anathemas from the Council of Trent, for instance, because of its doctrine of revelation. Revelation is the theological word for how God makes himself and his truth known. In the Roman system, Popes and Councils hold equal authority as Scripture. And, as a practical matter, when Popes and Councils have differed from Scripture (and they often have) guess which source of authority is subordinated? (That was a rhetorical question. I assume you know that it is the Scriptures which get the shaft in such situations.) Anyway, if Rome were to say that Trent was wrong or is no longer relevant then what would that do to their entire doctrine of revelation? It would fall like the proverbial house of cards. “If Trent was wrong then what else was wrong? Perhaps our position on Mary is wrong. Perhaps our doctrine of purgatory is wrong.” You can imagine how confusing that could be. I will deal further with Rome’s opposition to Sola Scriptura in a future article.

The Vatican document on the church is quite brief. Its title is “Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church.” It was released on June 29th by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Defense of the Faith. According to the statement the Roman Catholic Church is the only legitimate church because of apostolic succession. It reads in part, “This Church, constituted and organized in this world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, governed by the successor of Peter and the Bishops in communion with him.” If you don’t already know, the Catholic Church believes that Peter was the very first Pope and so there has been an unbroken chain linking the Catholic Church directly to Jesus. Never mind those pesky historical inconveniences like the times when there were multiple popes leading a divided church or when there were decadent and unconverted popes.

Interestingly, the Catholic Church refers to the churches of Eastern Orthodoxy as “Churches” because they too claim apostolic succession. However, Protestant churches, or those churches born out of the years of reformation are the “red headed stepchildren” of the body of Christ and are referred to in the Vatican’s document as merely “ecclesial communities.”
“According to Catholic doctrine, these Communities do not enjoy apostolic succession in the sacrament of Orders, and are, therefore, deprived of a constitutive element of the Church. These ecclesial Communities which, specifically because of the absence of the sacramental priesthood, have not preserved the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic Mystery cannot, according to Catholic doctrine, be called ‘Churches’ in the proper sense.”

Again, this does not bother me in the slightest. Benedict XVI is a true theologian. He is a stalwart against liberalizing forces within the Catholic Church. Recently he has made controversial comments about Muslims and has advocated evangelizing Jews. These are not popular positions in our world. This recent statement on the church merely reminds Catholics and Protestants how important the issue is of Papal authority. I appreciate the fact that Rome is willing to reassert its historic position that any church which denies the authority of the Pope is no true church. It seems that Benedict understands what is at stake in this issue. I would be equally appreciative if my fellow Protestants understood the importance of this issue and were willing to assert that any church which bows to papal authority and infallibility is no true church.

I was watching EWTN, the global Catholic network, on Monday evening. (Incidentally, Catholic TV is much better than “evangelical” TV which is populated mostly by goofballs. Most of Catholic TV is filled with pretty stout teaching programs. They actually believe that doctrine is important). Anyway, Father William Stetson, Director of the Catholic Information Center in Washington D.C. was on to explain the Vatican’s document on the church. He was coy to say the least. His basic message was, “This statement on the church is a precise theological statement and the average person need not worry about it. Many Protestants will be saved because God will have pity on them for not being enlightened about such issues as the Mass and confession.” If you think I am exaggerating then go to EWTN’s website and check out the July 23rd “The World Over” program. Anyway, something tells me that Benedict XVI would not agree with Fr. Stetson that this it is not that big of a deal; that the average Catholic shouldn’t worry about it.

Many of our Protestant ancestors were mercilessly burned on wooden stakes until their fingertips and abdomens burst into the flames because they opposed papal authority and infallibility. We both dishonor their sacrifice and trivialize Scripture if we do not see this issue as one worth dividing over. Rome certainly sees it in those terms.

Dr. Albert Mohler of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky wrote recently, “I actually appreciate the Pope’s concern. If he is right, we are endangering our souls and the souls of our church members. Of course, I am convinced that he is not right – not right on the papacy, not right on the sacraments, not right on the priesthood, not right on the Gospel, not right on the church.”