"Speaking the truth in love"

This is one of the ways in which we who are in Christ are to help one another become more like Christ: “speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the Head, even Christ” (Ephesians 4:15). We are to be “speaking the truth in love” to our fellow believers, in other words, so as to help one another “grow”.

And notice two aspects of this calling:

• we are to engage in “speaking the truth”
• and we are to do so “in love”

Now, none of us is immune to failure on either of these counts. And so I suppose that all of us sometimes fail at “speaking the truth” when we ought to; and that each of us also fails, at other times, to do so “in love”.

But I also reckon that, by nature, some of us find one aspect of this calling – or the other – more difficult.

Some Christians have the greatest trouble with the “speaking the truth” part. Maybe you are one of them. You are naturally timid. And thus you often find yourself so afraid of difficult or awkward conversations that you pull back from saying things that need to be said. Maybe you are sometimes afraid to address backsliding or sin in a fellow believer’s life. Or perhaps you are prone to shrink from correcting a fellow saint on some faulty way of thinking (v.14) which they are in danger of imbibing.

Other Christians struggle more mightily with the “in love” aspect of the calling. Perhaps you fit into this category. You are fairly assertive by natural disposition. And so, when something needs to be said, you are often quite ready to say it. Perhaps you don’t mind confronting sin, or correcting off-base theology, or tracking down a backslider. And yet you may sometimes be harsh in the way you do so.

But here’s the thing: No matter your natural disposition, you are still called, very plainly, to the task of “speaking the truth in love”! And so am I! A timid disposition doesn’t give us a free pass from “speaking the truth”; and neither is natural assertiveness an excuse for failing to do so “in love”.

And let us note that either sort of failure is a failure to love. We either fail to love by not “speaking the truth” that our brothers and sisters need for spiritual growth, or by speaking it in an unloving way!

Let us not fail one another in these ways, brothers and sisters! Let us, rather, live our lives “speaking the truth in love”.

"The majestic ones"

“As for the saints who are in the earth,

They are the majestic ones in whom is all my delight.”

Psalm 16:3

What David says in Psalm 16:3 is quite interesting, isn’t it? He calls “the saints” – the people of God – “majestic”! And he’s not using the word “saints” with the meaning that later came, often, to be attached to it – namely, as a designation for the super-heroes of the faith (as in Saint Augustine or Saint Patrick). He’s not just speaking, here, about the likes of Moses and Joshua. No, “the saints” here (and elsewhere in Scripture) are the people of God, in general.

And, says David, these people are “majestic”!

Now, we may not always feel like we (or our fellow believers) are all that “majestic”! And, of course, sometimes we’re not so “majestic”, it’s true! But there is a great deal to admire – a great deal that is “majestic” – in the lives of everyday Christians. Consider:

• the older man quietly taking a fatherless boy under his wing
• the saint who keeps worshipping the Lord, even with a broken heart 
• the disabled who push themselves so as to be in God’s house
• the family and friends who help them do so
• the grandmother who never gives up praying
• the person who unconditionally forgives
• the young person who takes an interest in the elderly
• the adoptive family that provides a whole new life for a child in need
• the spouse who remains faithful and prayerful under great trial
• the missionaries who give up much for the sake of the gospel
• our persecuted brothers and sisters who serve Christ no matter the cost

And on the list could go, couldn’t it?

By His grace, God’s people can be truly “majestic”! Let us notice them, and “delight” in them, and thank God for them, and look up to them, and imitate them, and encourage them to keep being “the majestic ones”!

Love for the Father and His Children

"Love for the Father and His Children" new today from Kurt Strassner in our 1 John series looking at 1 John 5:1. https://t.co/hnjIJnfdsG

— Servantsofgrace (@Servantsofgrace) June 12, 2018

Glad That We Came

“I was glad when they said to me,

‘Let us go to the house of the LORD’”

So wrote David in Psalm 122. He was glad when it was time to go to worship! Similarly, I have often prayed, in my pulpit prayers, that God would enable us to leave our Sunday gatherings ‘glad that we came’ – glad to have made our way, that day, to the house of God. And I do hope that that is your experience of Sunday worship – that you are glad to go to God’s house, and that you leave glad that you went! So let me give you three suggestions to help you be glad to go, and glad that you went, “to the house of the LORD” from week to week.

“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.” It will be much easier to be glad to go to worship, and to be glad that you went, if you are not thinking about getting get back home to watch the game; if you are not mulling what you need to pick up at the store that afternoon; if you are not stewing over a list of chores you hope you might complete by Sunday’s end. In short, you will be much more likely to soak in the blessings of the day if you don’t have anything else on which you are fixated, anywhere else to be, or anything else to do on the Lord's Day; if you’ve organized your Sundays such that soaking up spiritual blessings is the order of the day. The less your bread is saturated with distractions, the more capacity it will have for sopping up the honey of the things of God!  See Isaiah 58:13-14.

Walk with God the rest of the week. Enjoy the honey Monday through Saturday, and you will be all the more eager to come to the honey festival on Sunday! “Taste and see that the LORD is good” all week long, and you’ll have a hankering for the big meal on Sunday. But if you satisfy your taste buds with other things all week, don’t be surprised if you feel rather meh about coming to the Sunday feast.

Pray for your Sunday services. Describing the childhood church-going experience of the great missionary John G. Paton and his siblings, John Piper has said that “the meat at the temple was so rich, they were eager to get there.”* Pray that your church services will be like that! Particularly, pray for those who prepare the meat – for those who select and lead scripture readings and songs, and for your pastor and other teachers as they prepare the sermons and lessons for God’s people – that they would prepare and serve you an absolute feast, week by week! Pray that “the meat at the temple” would be “so rich” that you would be “eager to get there” … and then glad that you went!

_______

*Taken from Piper’s biographical message, You Will Be Eaten by Cannibals! Lessons from the Life of John G. Paton.  Piper is describing, in his own very memorable words, what Paton himself says about his childhood church-going.  The quote is found in the audio version of the message, though not in the written manuscript.

"Let love of the brethren continue"

The following article was composed, specifically, for the Pleasant Ridge Baptist Church family ... but may be of help to others in thinking about (and continuing!) the love that exists within your own church family.  May it be so!

‘What are the strengths of the church?’

That’s the question someone recently asked me, concerning PRBC.  And it's a good question!

I was glad to answer, in the words of one of our other elders (Charles) from awhile back, that the church has proven to be a kind of nest; a safe haven and soft landing spot for those who have needed such – younger Christians, strugglers of various kinds, people who just need a calm and nourishing church atmosphere where they can, for a season, gain (or re-gain) spiritual strength. This is an important ministry!

I was also happy to reply that our church has been, for well over a decade now, relatively conflict and controversy free. The spirit of unity here has truly been a gift from the Lord, and surely has been one reason we’ve been able to be the aforementioned safe haven!

It is also true that the family at Pleasant Ridge truly cares for one another. I am so pleased to see folks giving rides, visiting the nursing home, providing meals, helping with children, and so on. This is a sign of strength! And let me add, here, that a friend of mine recently pointed out to me how much the people of PRBC love me. Thank you, brothers and sisters! Your care for one another has extended wonderfully to your pastor and his family!

Praise the Lord for His kind working in and for us! And thank you, church family, for walking with and serving Him in these ways. It occurs to me that they are all related to that fruit of the Spirit which is love. And let me encourage you, now, to “Let love of the brethren continue” (Hebrews 13:1).

Sometimes we may need to be encourage to begin loving one another in ways that we haven’t been doing. Other times the call may be to rekindle our love for one another. And then there are times when we are loving one another, and simply need to be reminded to continue down this happy path! And so let me encourage you in this latter way.

You have been a marvelous safe haven, PRBC, for so many people. “Let love of the brethren continue.” You have walked together in a Spirit of wonderful unity. “Let love of the brethren continue.” You have cared so well for one another, and for your pastor and his family. “Let love of the brethren continue.”

“By this” said Jesus “all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). So, my brothers and sisters, “Let love of the brethren continue.”

Farewells

Farewell. It’s a word we don’t use terribly often in modern English. But it’s an activity in which we must all engage … farewelling those who pass from the scenes of our lives, or at least from the everyday scenes. And we’ve become quiet experienced at it here at PRBC. For, in the decade-and-a-half that this has been my church home, the Lord has seen fit, both to gather a handful of our number into His heavenly presence, and also to send a great many handfuls of PRBCers to live, work, and worship in other earthly locales. And so we’ve had to wish a great many people God’s blessings as they have gone on from our fellowship. And we do so again this coming Sunday.

Now, in this day of phones, email, automobiles, and airplanes, farewelling a moving friend is not nearly so stark a goodbye as it once would have been. I am able to stay in quite easy touch with former PRBCers in Washington, and in Florida, and in many places in between. And so maybe we don’t feel these sorts of farewells as keenly as we might have if we’d lived in the days of the covered wagon. But it’s still hard to see people go. And it’s hard to be the one who goes (probably harder, in many cases).

And yet I am reminded today, as our brother and sister and their children depart from us, that even if they were heading out on the Oregon Trail, never to see our faces again in this life; or even if they were departing this life altogether … the farewelling would only be for this life. Because, for the believer in Jesus Christ – in addition to being “always … with the Lord”, and being finally rid of our sin forever – the eternal world that lies before us will also be a grand reunion of the saints, will it not? As my friend Eileen once told me, on her way into surgery, ‘I will see you soon … either here, or there!’ And she was right! If we are in Christ, we will see our Christian friends again! Perhaps face-to-face, thanks to automobiles or airplanes. Maybe on FaceTime or Skype. But assuredly in glory!

Now, I doubt there will be a Pleasant Ridge seating area in eternity. But we will all be in the same congregation together once again! And I feel confident we will track one another down, and fellowship together, once again, just as we did here at the crest of this hill in Cincinnati (only, in that day, we will do it without time constraints or sin!). And so, in this day of farewells, we look to that day of reunions. And thus we can be “sorrowful yet always rejoicing.”

"If we walk in the Light"

“but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7)

I love this verse! I have quoted it numerous times in recent years. But I have to admit that, of the two benefits of walking in the light, I have mostly focused my attention on the latter – “If we walk in the Light … the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.” That’s a marvelous truth! It’s a wonderful comfort! And it is a strong inducement to, indeed, “walk in the Light” – to come out into the open about our sin, and to bring it to Christ in repentance and faith; to “confess our sins,” as John puts it just two verses later. If we do so, the blood of Christ will make us clean – “whiter than snow”, as David puts it elsewhere! So thank God for the second of the two benefits mentioned in our text!

But I haven’t always paid as much heed as I ought to the first of those benefits! I haven’t always given a lot of thought to the fact that “walk[ing] in the Light” – coming out into the open about our sin, and repenting of it – has an effect, not only on our fellowship with God (through the cleansing of our sin), but also on our fellowship with other people (and particularly, in the context of the verse, with other believers). But, though I haven’t always given much notice to this fact, it’s right there in the text, isn’t it? The verse doesn’t just say that “if we walk in the Light” we’ll be cleansed before God, but it also says that “if we walk in the Light … we have fellowship with one another” (emphasis added).

How so?

Well, consider the bitterness or frustration that can build up in relationships (yes, even between believers) when someone consistently refuses to simply admit when they have done wrong; when they regularly try and pull a curtain over their sin, desperate to keep it from coming into the full light – when they engage in cover-ups, or make excuses, or shift blame, or shade the truth, or posture things in such a way as to avoid having to simply say: ‘I was wrong. I have no excuse. It’s my fault. I am sorry. Will you forgive me?’ Have you experienced that? It’s mindboggling, isn’t it? And it can create breaches in our fellowship with one another. But, on the other hand, our text says that if we’ll just bring our sins out into the light, fellowship will be the result. Because, while we ought to forgive people even before they confess (and even if they don’t confess) … the reality is that, a proper confession actually seeks forgiveness … and very often finds it (especially in the Christian context from which John writes!). Furthermore, if we are honest about our sins, they can then be worked through, and moved past (both by ourselves, and others). And, in a truly Christian context, they usually will be! And, not only that, but honesty about our sin creates an atmosphere of reality and vulnerability in a church which lends itself to true fellowship, rather than to ‘I’m OK, you’re OK’ Christian mask-wearing. And so “if we walk in the Light … we have fellowship with one another.”

Consider also the scenario where you yourself are hiding some sin in the darkness. You took something; you broke something; you fudged something; you lied about something; you were unfaithful to your spouse (whether through physical adultery, or persistent heart adultery). And you ought to make your sin known to the offended party, and seek to get things right … but instead you’re keeping it a secret. It can be miserable, can it not? And not only because you may find yourself walking around, laden with guilt. But also because that guilt can ramp up when you’re with the person you sinned against, and to whom you ought to confess. And so now, even if they don’t know it (and through no fault of their own), you are uneasy around them. Maybe you become emotionally distant from them, or even find yourself avoiding them. And fellowship is dampened … because you haven’t been willing to “walk in the Light”; you haven’t been willing to confess and seek forgiveness. But if you will come out into the open about your sin, not only will you gain the relief of no longer having to keep it hidden, but the person you’ve sinned against, once he/she has been made aware of your wrong-doing, now has an opportunity to forgive you for it – and he/she probably will (especially if he or she is among the believing “one another” of 1 John 1:7)! And fellowship will be restored! You’ll no longer have reason to be uneasy or distant!

So let’s rejoice in both benefits of 1 John 1:7 – in both cleansing and fellowship. And let’s allow them both encourage us to pull back the curtains, and to bring our sin out into the light.

The Ministry of Refreshment

Are there people in your life who refresh you? People whose presence, or encouragement, or perspective, or hospitality, or kindness, or generosity leave you feeling energized and happy as you walk away from your time together? People who, when you are with them, you find yourself loathe to leave, and desiring to linger? I hope you know that feeling! I hope you know and are loved by such people!

The church family in Colossae knew such refreshment. They had experienced it in the hospitality of Philemon, in whose home they met (Philemon v.2), and by whom they were loved (v.5). Paul commends Philemon in these memorable words in v.7: “the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you.” Isn’t that a wonderful compliment? Isn’t it one that you’d like to be written of you? “The hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you.”

Sometimes we might pour out refreshment in just the way that Philemon did – by hosting church gatherings in our homes. We normally meet, of course, in the church building, rather than in homes. But there is a delight that takes place in those times when we do gather in someone’s living room, and are blessed not only by the activity at hand, but by the setting and the hospitality. And praise God for the folks who host us!

But there are other ways, too, in which we can refresh “the hearts of the saints”. Maybe we host, not an official church gathering, but an informal dinner or dessert or time of fellowship with a handful of brothers and sisters in Christ. Or perhaps we send someone a hand-written note of encouragement. Or maybe we prepare dinner for the family of a sick or nursing mother. Perhaps we notice a particular physical need (or even want) of a young family, and find a way to meet it. Or we watch the kids so that mom and dad can have a date night. Or we regularly invite singles over for Sunday lunch. Or take time to go visit old friends out of town, to remind them that they are cared for and nor forgotten. And you can brainstorm other avenues of refreshment, too, suitable to the needs of the people around you.

I and my family have experienced a great deal of such refreshment from God’s people, near and far. Thank you! And I have seen it on display, as an observer, many times in our church … as many of you refresh, and are refreshed by, one another. Again, thank you! Like Paul, “I have come to have much joy and comfort in your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you.” Let’s keep doing it! Let’s continue to excel in the ministry of refreshment!

Keep it Simple

A Bible. A church family. Maybe a songbook and a catechism. And plenty of time. Can you think of anything else you absolutely need in order to walk with and grow in the Lord? Other things can be beneficial, of course (like good Christian books, which would be a big bonus item on the list!). But we really don’t need all that many resources, events, activities, and plans in order to bask in the gospel and move forward in the faith, do we? Indeed, there is a tipping point at which addition eventually becomes subtraction! A kitchen, or a tool shed, can only be so full of equipment before the clutter begins to be unwieldy and inefficient. Now, with more gear, you’re actually getting less done!

The same is true with our Christian endeavors. Too many resources, activities, and irons in the fire is a recipe either for burnout, or for hop-skipping from thing to thing without ever drinking all that deeply at any of them. Either way, you end up with diminishing returns – more activity, but less fruit. Which is better – to dip your toe, week-to-week, into a dozen different books, reading plans, devotionals, studies, small groups, podcasts, and blogs? Or to drink steadily, deeply, and (sometimes) even slowly at the same life-giving streams at which the saints have found their thirst quenched for century upon century?

Many of us, of course, are hustling and bustling over things far less valuable, even, than the spiritual game of hopscotch I’ve just decried. And when we realize that we are chasing our tails, the tendency is to think that, instead of all this secular busyness, we need to get spiritually busy instead! But the solution is not to just baptize your frenzy. The solution is not to just leap onto a different and more spiritual sort of hamster wheel! Delightfully, the solution to the delirious pace of modern life is to take a deep breath and slow down; and to clear out the tool shed, so to speak – to streamline; to get back to basics!

So what are the basics? What do you really need to be doing, on a regular basis, to bask in the gospel and to grow in grace? Space forbids me elaborating, but (fitting for an article about simplicity!) how about a bullet-point list?

• Corporate worship and teaching, weekly (Heb. 10:24-25)
• Corporate prayer, weekly (Acts 2:42)
• Meaningful Christian fellowship, weekly (Acts 2:46)
• Meaningful Christian service, periodically (Eph. 4:11-12)
• The Lord’s Supper, periodically (1 Cor. 11:23-26)
• Family worship, daily (Deut. 6:6-9)
• Personal worship, daily (Mark 1:25)

I hope the simplicity here is refreshing! Very few resources are required for such a regimen, right? A Bible. A church home. Maybe a songbook and a catechism. And then a few other incidentals, like maybe paper, pen, etc. Other things may be helpful. But they are not usually needful!

But what definitely is needful is time! You cannot follow through on these basic biblical commitments if your life is so frantic that you only have 5 and 10 minute windows in which to try and wedge your spiritual disciplines. You must have blocks of time – uninterrupted and unhurried! Time! This is the resource that we moderns need to stock up on most of all! All the other resources are easy enough to get our hands on. But will we carve out time for using them? Will we stop running the American rat-race, or sitting down all night in front of our American TV’s … and streamline our schedules so as to drink deeply at Christ’s well? We’d find such simplicity refreshing if we did!

And, while we’re talking about the refreshing streamlining of our lives, can I say that so much of our time and busyness problems would be solved if we would only “remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.” If we’d set Sunday aside – free from work, shopping, laundry, chores, ballgames, TV, and so on – we’d have all the time in the world for the first five bullet points above! Even if we hadn’t time to get together with other believers, or visit the sick, or serve the church during the week … we’d have a whole day for doing so every Sunday! We’d often have time for the ‘bonus’ resource of good Christian books, too!  And so, if the seven bullet points above seem like a lot ... the reality is that, if we just kept the sabbath, most of these blessings we would be able to provide for ourselves in a single, unhurried, restful day!  That's why the Puritans called Sunday 'the market day of the soul'!  Because, if we use it as it was intended, we will be able to garner, in one trip to market (so to speak), so much of what we need to live on for the rest of the week!  Talk about simplifying our lives!  And if we trained ourselves to say ‘no’ to the hamster wheel on Sunday, then we’d find it even all the easier to jump off of it, at the appropriate times, during the rest of the week as well … making family and personal worship not so difficult-to-find-time-for as we might currently think!

There is a rhythm to the Christian life – both daily and weekly. And it’s generally far less like the frenetic beat of techno music, and far more like the gentle, steady lapping of waves upon the seashore. I hope that’s a relief to you! Jesus’ yoke is easy, not hard-driving; and His pace is usually steady, not hurried! And so get into His steady, slow, and simple rhythm, and you will find that the Christian life is not all that complex. Difficult sometimes, yes! But not complicated! Just keep it simple.

The Prayer Meeting

My friend Anthony recently commented that:

True churches are sustained by prayer meetings.
Churches are strengthened by prayer meetings.

I assume, since he’s recently begun preaching on the book of Acts, that his study of that book is what prompted these observations. And they are right on! For, when one reads the book of Acts, the importance of corporate prayer is an inescapable theme. Gathered prayer is vital to the health and strength of the local church! And so, allow me to make three pleas regarding the prayer meeting:

1. Start a prayer meeting. Every church should have a prayer meeting. That may sound a little strong, me suggesting that every church should hold this particular kind of service (especially when many churches do not). But it seems an inevitable conclusion that we must draw if we believe that the book of Acts gives us a paradigm for church life. The church, as God designed it, includes regular gatherings for corporate prayer. Maybe in larger churches, that will mean having several smaller prayer meetings available throughout the week (or corporate prayer as a significant component of small group meetings). In smaller churches, church-wide prayer meetings are easily feasible, and greatly helpful (nor are they impossible in larger churches). God hears prayer! Christ is in our midst when even two or three of us are gathered! Fellowship is strengthened as we pray together! And on and on we could go, listing the benefits of a prayer meeting … such that, if you are in a position of influence in your local church, I plead with you to try and begin a prayer meeting. Not a Bible study with a little prayer tagged on somewhere, but a whole meeting (or a very significant portion of a meeting) dedicated entirely to prayer! Maybe only a few people will come at first. But all you need is “two or three”! So get going, and see what God does!

2. Attend the prayer meeting. Can I urge you to make use of the prayer meeting that your church (hopefully) provides every week? Prioritize it. Venture out to it. Give it a try! Even if you don’t say anything out loud for the first little while, you will benefit so much from hearing other saints pray; from learning on what is on your fellow believers’ hearts; and from discovering needs in their lives that you can both pray for, and sometimes that you can ask about or help meet throughout the remainder of the week. Iain Murray has said that no pastor has ever come to his death bed lamenting that he prayed too much. And no Christian, I think, will come to his dying day thinking he spent too much time praying with other believers. So prioritize the prayer meeting. You won’t be sorry!

3. Actively participate in the prayer meeting. I said, under the last heading, that you can benefit greatly from the prayer meeting even if you don’t pray aloud yourself. Just hearing the prayers is worthwhile! But let us not stay, forever, in hearing mode only. Let us also join in! We can do this in two different ways. 

One is simply that, even without praying aloud, you can add your quiet agreement by praying along with brothers and sisters silently, and ‘amen-ing’ their praises and petitions quietly in your own mind and heart. Indeed, you should do this even if you do pray aloud! Let not your out-loud prayers be the only ones you offer when the saints are gathered before God’s throne of grace! 

But then let me also urge you to participate, if you don’t already, by praying aloud, too! Bless the gathering by allowing others to hear you pray. Not for the sake of attention (Matthew 6:5-6), or because your prayers are so exemplary and awe-inspiring! But so that others can quietly ‘amen’ your humble and simple requests, and be encouraged by your heartbeat for God. Your vocal participation need not be long or eloquent – just Christ-reliant and sincere. At PRBC, it is a blessing, during the first (large-group) part of our prayer meeting, that we have a handful people who are always willing and able to participate in this way. But there are many others – who have something to contribute, and whose hearts we would all benefit from hearing – who remain almost perpetually silent during that time. If that is you, know that we want to hear you pray, and to join in quiet agreement with you! Indeed, it is to the group’s loss if we do not benefit from your prayers. So I urge you, those who often remain silent in the large group time – chime in! God delights when His people come to Him in prayer. And so do the rest of His people!

"Much closer attention"

“We must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it.” (Hebrews 2:1)

A Christian, just like anyone else, can become distracted, drowsy, even bored. Sad to say, we can even slip into these ruts when it comes to our attention to the word of God. Some of our lapses, no doubt, are related to physical weaknesses (sometimes self-inflicted, sometimes not). Some distraction also has to do with the ever shortening attention spans that modern technology daily ingrains in us. And a good bit of our spiritual inattentiveness can have to do, alas, with the state of our souls. But we must fight against every sort of weakness and distraction that would keep us from really hearing the word of God, and thus drifting from it (Hebrews 2:1)! “We must pay much closer attention to what we have heard” and to what we are hearing! And so, in the lines below, allow me to make a few practical suggestions as to how we can do so (especially as it relates to hearing God’s word preached) – whether our weaknesses be physical, spiritual, or related to the modern lack of attention span.

1. Get adequate rest. Someone has said that a good Sunday begins on Saturday night. How true! It is very difficult to pay careful attention in the morning when you have stayed up too late the previous night. So know your body. Figure out how much sleep you need. And go to bed on Saturday night well in time to receive it! Your body will thank you on Sunday morning, and your soul will do so throughout all eternity!

2. Avoid being a distraction. We’ve all been there – coming to after about 20-30 seconds, and realizing we have lost track of what the preacher was talking about. Because our eyes were following someone who got up and took a bathroom break, or because of a child (maybe even the preachers’ kid!) being rambunctious, or because of someone nearby fidgeting with a cell phone, or nodding off. And of course, we could all stand to force ourselves to focus, even in spite of these things. But we can also do one another a favor by doing all we can to set ourselves up to be unobtrusive during the service. Some distractions are minor, of course. And others can’t be helped – there are bathroom emergencies, and surprises with the children, and other hiccups that can’t be avoided (and so don't feel guilty when they happen!). But if we can go to the bathroom before the service, and quickly take our children out when they begin to be a distraction (and sit near the back if we think they might be), and keep ourselves from fidgeting, and so on … we can, in many instances, avoid unnecessary distractions, and help those around us “pay much closer attention.”

3. Cultivate a lengthening attention span. One reason some of us may struggle to follow a sermon is not always because the preacher is too long, but because our attention spans are too short – not by nature, but by cultivation. We spend a lot of time watching TV, which breaks every 8 minutes; and maybe even more time staring at tablets and phones, whose screens we can flip, change, and refresh every few seconds (count me as guilty here, too). And so we often have more difficulty than our forebears following words (as opposed to pictures). It can be challenging for us to follow that which lasts more than a few minutes, and does not come with moving pictures.*  But if we are to hear the word of God, we must be able to give attention to an extended series of words! For “faith comes from hearing” (Romans 10:17). And thus we must cultivate longer attention spans … and the ability to hear and think and stay focused even without pictures! And so I charge you: turn off the television. Curtail your time on tablets and phones. And increase the time you spend in books (which use the same medium as the book) and in face-to-face conversation with real people. Learn to listen, and to focus on words in the day-to-day, and you’ll be helped to do it, with matters of the soul at stake, on the Lord’s Day.

4. Cultivate an anticipation for Sunday meeting. I wonder if some our distractedness in worship might have its root in a low view of the Lord’s Day itself. Are Sunday services merely one of many 2-3 hour time blocks that we look forward to in the week? Or is our time together around the word the centerpiece and fulcrum of the entire week’s rhythm? Is your weekly rhythm built around the Lord’s Day, or is the Lord’s Day just one piece of the puzzle? To put it simply: Is Sunday the most important day of the week to you? And are Sunday services the most vital event? Your answer will go a long way toward determining if you are really eager to be in the worship, and eager for the spiritual meal that will be served to you there. For if Sunday meeting is the high point of the week, attention will much more easily follow!

5. Pray for the preaching. If a survey was taken of your church, what would the percentage of people be who actually pray for the preacher and the preaching each and every week? More directly, what would you have to answer to such a question? Iain Murray has said that it is not only true that preachers make congregations, but also that the congregation makes the preacher in the way that they pray for and support his ministry of the word! And so, if you’re having trouble staying with the preacher on Sundays (and even if you are not!), pray for him and his preaching each and every week – for the Holy Spirit’s power in his heart, in his preparation, in the actual preaching moment, and in the hearts of his hearers! And, as you pray (and as God answers!), it will come about both that the preacher himself will do a better job, and that you (the hearer) will be more invested in (and thus more attentive to) what he is bringing forth out of God’s book!

“We must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it.” And these have been just a few practical ways in which we may go about it. May they prove a blessing to you.

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*Read Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death for more on this phenomenon. My observations on this subject are always indebted to Postman’s excellent analysis!

"Walk about Zion"

That is what the psalmist urges in Psalm 48, as he considers the glory of ancient Jerusalem:

“Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth,

Is Mount Zion in the far north,

The city of the great King …

Walk about Zion and go around her;

Count her towers;

Consider her ramparts;

Go through her palaces,

That you may tell it to the next generation.”

Psalm 48:2, 12-13

And if the psalmist could say such things of ancient Jerusalem, how much more should we praise, and consider, and behold the beauty of the new Jerusalem, which is the church of Jesus Christ? How much more ought we walk about our Zion, considering her towers, ramparts, and palaces? How much more ought we to see the beauty of the church?

And she is beautiful, when she is what she ought to be! Holy in her array, so different from the shambles out of which her bridegroom bought her! And diverse in her make-up, too … made up of all sorts of different people, because we are all on equal footing, and we are all children of God, through the work of the cross! And melodious in her song, as well – which is marvelous to hear, when a congregation really lifts up its voice to the king. And then there is the fact that the church is ever expanding through the glorious work of missions! “Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth.”

And so I say that it is a good thing to “walk about Zion” and to take in the glory of the new Jerusalem – to think about the work of God, first of all, in your own church, and the strength and beauty that He is producing there. And then to consider some of the other churches that you know of – great and small, rich and poor, western and eastern, past and present – noticing that there is beauty in each true gospel church, whether they meet in a mud-daubed hut, or under a towering steeple. In both places we find Christ’s palaces … and in every gospel church in between. And we should think on these things, sometimes – just walking about the North American continent, musing on (and praying for!) the gospel churches that we know; and then extending our thoughts ever outward, to churches and missionary outposts that are far afield – admiring and praying for the work of God within all these distant ramparts!

Maybe this would be a good use of some of your Lord’s Day afternoon, this week … just meditating on and praising God for the beauty of the church in various places and eras of the world! And then, as the psalmist says, “tell[ing] it to the next generation” as well! Telling your children and grandchildren the story of the church – near and far, present and past. Walking with them around her palaces and ramparts, just as you would do if you took them to the Alamo, or Niagara Falls … and pointing out to them the glories of Calvin’s Geneva, or of Spurgeon’s Metropolitan Tabernacle, or of the Scottish Covenanters, or of Capitol Hill Baptist Church (in D.C.) today, or of the missionary works your church supports, or of the fellowship of churches with which your local congregation is involved.

It will do good to the soul (both to your own soul, and to that of your children) to really consider what God is doing in his new Jerusalem; in His church, the world over!

Six resources that will help you “walk about Zion”:

1. A good church history book, like Sketches from Church History by S.M. Houghton or Church History in Plain Language by Bruce Shelley.

2. A good set of missionary newsletters, connecting you with the work of the church in distant parts of the globe.

3. Operation World, which will give a broader picture of how the gospel is faring in every nation on the planet.

4. sermonaudio.com, where you can listen to sermons from hundreds of churches in different parts of the world, and be encouraged that the same gospel that is doing its work in your church is also doing so in nooks and crannies of which you’ve never heard!

5. 9marks.org/church-search/ where you will find a list of (mostly) solid biblical churches to visit while you’re away on vacation or business. Being in other solid gospel churches now and again is one of the better ways to begin to see the beauty of God’s larger church!

6. Your own local church! The easiest, best, and most biblical way to “walk about Zion” counting her towers and considering her ramparts is to make sure you appreciate and make full use of the palace and ramparts where God has placed you on a day-to-day basis. Familiarize yourself with your own local church, praying for her members, observing the good work God is doing, basking in the beauty of her sung praise, and taking in the spiritual manna that God reigns upon her through the pulpit ministry.

The church of Jesus Christ is beautiful! She is a palace! And so let’s not miss out on all that there is to see! Let’s not be like tourists who stay in the hotel all day, watching TV! “Go through her palaces”, my friends. “Consider her ramparts.” “Count her towers.” “Walk about Zion and go around her” … and you (and your children) will be amazed by what you see!

The Dead Are Raised!

In the early 1800’s, in the district of Ferintosh, in the far north of Scotland, a woman whose church membership lie in the local Ferintosh Church found herself, on many a Lord’s Day, walking several miles to the neighboring villages of Killearnan and Resolis, to attend services in other churches and to hear other ministers not her own. When the elders in Ferintosh noticed her frequent absences, they asked for a meeting with her to determine what might be the matter. Why did she absent herself from her own congregation and minister, and attend worship in these other places? “Well,” she said humbly, “at Killearnan, the sheep are fed. And at Resolis the lambs are provided with the sincere milk of the word.” “And what happens here [at Ferintosh]?” came the unsettled reply. “Here,” she said, “the dead are raised!”*

What the woman was saying, of course, was that her own pastor was, more than anything else, an evangelist! John MacDonald preached, not so much to feed the lambs who had already come into Christ’s fold, but to raise the dead; to bring men and women out of the kingdom of darkness into Christ’s marvelous light! And evidently God gave him success – because, at Ferintosh, as the woman admitted, the dead were indeed raised, in their hundreds! And MacDonald’s evangelistic preaching all across the north of Scotland was blessed to such an extent that he became known as ‘The Apostle of the North.’

Well, not every pastor is a John MacDonald! And, indeed, the story above does remind us that the sheep really do need to be fed, which is the local pastor’s greatest task. And yet didn’t the apostle Paul urge his young protégé, who was engaged in local pastoral ministry, to “do the work of an evangelist” (2 Timothy 4:5)? Which means that our preaching ought indeed to aim, not only at feeding the lambs but at raising the dead! We cannot do it ourselves, of course. But the pastor ought to make it his aim to preach the sorts of texts and truths that the Spirit will take into His mighty hand, and use to open blind eyes, unstop deaf ears, and cause the spiritually dead to rise from their doldrums and turn to the Lord Jesus for redemption!

Would you pray that for your pastor … and for all the witness that goes forth from our church family Sunday by Sunday, and all through the week? We have seen the dead raised in our local setting – in ones and twos, scattered here and there across the last 13+ years of my observation and preaching. But, oh, how many there are perishing all around us! And so would you pray for our church, too – that it might become something of a Ferintosh in the lost and spiritually languishing city of ours?

May the sheep be fed! And may the dead be raised!

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*I heard this story in an interview with Iain Murray entitled “Inspiring Lives with Iain Murray” – part of the 9Marks Leadership Interview Series.  The quotations are from a fuller description of the event, recorded in the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland’s The Young People’s Magazine, February, 2004, pages 27-30.

Welcome Guests

Below is a bulletin article intended for our guests this Easter Sunday.  But perhaps it will edify you, as well, Christian reader ... remembering the sorts of things that a Christian church is all about.

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If you are visiting with us this Easter morning, we are delighted that you have come! By way of introduction to our church, you may have noted our mission statement on the front cover of this bulletin. PRBC is:

A community of believers dedicated to pursuing the glory of God by resting in all that Jesus is for us – and calling our neighborhood and the nations into that rest.

While we believe that all the words in our mission statement are important, the highlighted words would be especially helpful in describing to you who we are, and who we’re on mission to be. Let me explain them briefly…

The glory of God. It seems most essential to say that we, along with everything else in creation, exist first and foremost for the glory of God. We believe God created us, loves us, redeems us, and will someday bring us to live with Him in heaven – not first of all for our own self-actualization, or for the achievement of our own version of ‘the good life’ – but to bring honor to Himself! God, and not we, must always have the first place in all we say and do. And so all that we do must be motivated by one final goal … the glory of God.

Resting in Jesus. We believe that the chief means by which God obtains the glory He deserves is through the redemption of sinners like us through His Son Jesus. And we sinners are rescued only as we rest in Jesus: in who He is (the Son of God), and in what He has done for us by means of His sinless life, sacrificial death, and resurrection. We use the word ‘rest’ intentionally. It means we stop running from God, and stop kicking against His laws. And, for us religious folk, it even means we stop our frantic efforts to save ourselves … and bank our hope – past, present, and future – on Jesus Christ. In Jesus we can rest, knowing that he has done all the saving work for us! And so we are constantly reminding ourselves to rest in Him … to the glory of God.

Community. God has created human beings in such a way that we glorify God and rest in Jesus best when we do so in the context of a community … a supporting, encouraging, sincere group of fellow sinners saved by grace. So we seek to cultivate this kind of environment for the glory of God, and we hope you’ll consider joining us in that pursuit.

Calling. Part of the church’s task is to invite as many people as possible into this God-glorifying rest in Jesus Christ. So we make it our aim to be in our own neighborhoods, and (through our missionaries) among the nations, calling people to rest in Jesus, for the increase of the glory of God! Perhaps that’s why you’re here today – someone in our community invited you for this Easter gathering because they want to see you, too, find the rest and forgiveness and hope that they themselves have found in Christ. So listen in today as we consider this Jesus together … and find your rest in Him. And consider linking up with our community as we seek to cultivate this rest together … all for the glory of God!

The Glory of God in the Letter 'M'

Last week I wrote about the fact that God’s modus operandi, in building His church, is not usually to target the upper crust of society; not usually to gather together the movers and shakers a culture, with the idea that, through them, the gospel will ‘trickle down’ to the rest of society. On the contrary, the composition of most gospel churches is like that of Corinth: “not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble.” This way God, and not man, gets the praise! God saves no-names, and uses them to advance His work, so that it will be clear – both to the no-names and to the watching world – that the power at work in them is divine, and not merely political, monetary, or otherwise!

But there are exceptions to the general rule. God does save the noble, the wise, and the mighty (and sometimes even uses their influence for the sake of the gospel). There is a gospel for the elite, as well as for the ordinary Joe … as evidenced by the fact that Paul says (notice the letter ‘m’) that “not many” wise, noble, and mighty made up the Corinthian church. It was Selina Hastings (Countess of Huntington), a famous and wealthy 18th century English noblewoman, who taught us to heed that letter ‘m’ in 1 Corinthians 1:26. Here is how she put it:

Blessed be God, it does not say “any mighty,” “any noble”; it says “many mighty,” “many noble.” I owe my salvation to the letter “m.” If it had been “not any noble,” where would the countess have been? (HT: Justin Taylor)

Isn’t that fantastic? Yes, God generally seems to seed the gospel into the culture at a very grassroots level. But the same gospel that saves what someone has called ‘the cap and t-shirt crowd’ also saves those who wear evening gowns, and academic regalia, and smart business suits. The same blood covers the sins of the elite as well as the proletariat. “All have sinned” and there is salvation “for all who believe” (Romans 3:22-23, emphasis added) and for “every one who thirsts” (Isaiah 55:1) – “the small together with the great” (Psalm 115:13).

There were wealthy people, for instance, in the church pastored by young Timothy (1 Timothy 6:17-19). Their wealth meant they were prone to certain temptations, of course (a fact which is also true of a lack of wealth, by the way). But there they were: in the church, right alongside the working class. And it paints a beautiful picture, doesn’t it? Christianity is not just for the elite; but neither is there a gospel only for the average. So that the church – in both its universal and local manifestations – is, in this way as well as others, something like Joseph’s coat of many colors! Jews and Gentiles; slaves and freedmen; men and women; young and old; African, Asian, European, Latino, and many combinations thereof; rich and poor; elite and average … all in one body, gathered around Christ rather than culture!

And so the sprinkling in of the bourgeoisie among a group of mostly run-of-the-mill church members serves much the same purpose as the fact that the church is mainly made up of small timers! Both serve to show the power of God! On the one hand, the average nature of the membership of most churches shows that the clout behind their spiritual successes must be of God and not of mere human influence and clout (of which the church often has not a great deal). On the other hand, the fact that, in the church, the upper crust gladly take their seats among the commoners (and that the commoners love them as brothers!) demonstrates much the same thing – that what is happening among these people is something much bigger than that which can be explained by mere sociology! The vari-colored nature of the church, in other words, serves notice to its members and to the world that it is God, and not man, who has brought it all together!

So praise God for the letter ‘m’ in 1 Corinthians 1:26 … and for the breadth in the gospel and the diversity in the church which it signifies!

"Not many noble"

That is how Paul described the Corinthian church as he scanned down the member roster in his mind’s eye. “Consider your calling,” he wrote to them. “There were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble.” God had not gone through the census paperwork of the city, in other words, in order to recruit to His cause the PhD’s, the government officials, and the chief land-owners. He did not build his church out of the most polished stones in Corinth – the actors, the athletes, the successful businessmen, the chief women, and so on.

Now that is not to say there were no such people in the church. For the gospel is for sinners of every stripe – even those who are wise, mighty, and noble in the sight of men! But “there were not many wise … mighty … noble” (emphasis added) in the church at Corinth. And I suspect that, with some exceptions, this is God’s modus operandi in most localities. Most churches are made up of a given city’s run of the mill, with a fair number sprinkled in whom the world would call “foolish … weak … base … despised” (to use Paul’s words again). And not because Christianity has nothing to say to the so-called elite; not because the gospel message is for those who need some sort of ‘crutch’ to get through the doldrums of this life. No! Local churches are so often such motley crews precisely because God has planned it this way!

That’s how Paul puts it there in 1 Corinthians 1: “God has chosen the foolish things of the world … God has chosen the weak things of the world … and the base things … and the despised God has chosen.” Did you see it three times? “God has chosen”! If a church is a hodgepodge of cultural no-names, it is because God has designed it that way! Why? “So that no man may boast before God.” So that it will be so evidently clear that the reason there is power and fruitfulness in this little church is not because its pews are filled with movers and shakers, but because its people are filled with the Holy Spirit! Nothing else could explain how these plain people could live such fruitful, constructive, holy lives. And so the church folks – who know that they are not wise, noble, or mighty – have to give the credit to God! And the outside world – who knows the Christian’s mediocrity even better than the Christians do – will be put to shame, marveling out how these plain people can be such a force for good in this city!

And the lesson is even more startling when we learn, later in Paul’s letter, that the members of the church were not only the city’s unexceptional, but also that some of them were former thieves, homosexuals, drunkards, adulterers, and so on! Again, God did not pick the best and the brightest (as if there actually were any ‘best and brightest’ in the moral realm)! He went out and saved those who were humdrum, wayward, culturally un-elite, and maybe sometimes even “foolish” in the world’s eyes … and molded them into a living force for His kingdom!

And that encourages me, when I mentally scan my own church roster! Beginning with the pulpit, and working my way through all the pews, I do not see “many wise … many mighty … many noble.” God has not formed our church out of Cincinnati’s elite. We are not a local all-star team! And that is something to be thankful for! Because this way, “no man may boast before God.” This way, whatever good comes from the people in these pews; whatever fruit sprouts up among us; whatever force for Christ we are in this city, no one can explain it away by saying: ‘Well, you gather a group of the city’s key players like that … and between their money, their influence, their acumen, and their name recognition, they are bound to draw a good number of people into their cause.’ Not so Pleasant Ridge! Whatever success we have cannot be explained sociologically! We are (at least in this one way) Corinthian … so that our boast can never be in ourselves, but must always be directed where it is due. “Just as it is written, ‘Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.’”

Strengthening the Church's Muscle

John Piper has given to the church (both online and in book form) a collection of delightful biographical sketches of various worthy saints of old. One of the best, in my judgment, is his message on the life and labors of that great Scottish missionary to the New Hebrides, John G. Paton.

Drawing heavily from Paton’s own autobiography, Piper draws a number of lessons to be learned from this godly, intrepid, and sometimes humorous missionary saint. And one that is on my mind as I write is Piper’s observation that, when a church spends and is spent on missionary labors … God never allows such mission-minded generosity to hurt that church! We might think the opposite, from a human perspective: ‘If we are generous to missions (financially or with our man-power), we might weaken the work right here inside our own church doors. We might be giving away the very things that our church needs to survive.’ But not so, says Piper. God does not allow missionary zeal and generosity to handcuff the local church! And he cites the testimony of Paton to demonstrate this reality. And here is how the story goes:

After serving for four years in what is now called Vanuatu, Paton was basically chased from the island by hostile natives. And so, before eventually returning to engage in a highly successful work on another local island, Paton toured both Britain and Australia, telling his story and marshalling support for missionary work in the South Seas. And the result in his own native Scotland was remarkable – to the extent that, by the time Paton was himself ready to return to the Pacific islands, one out of every six ministers in his denomination was now a missionary!

Just think that out: One in six pastors sent to the mission field! Imagine if one in six of the churches in your fellowship sent its pastor to the mission field. You might naturally think that the church back home would suffer. But not so, says Paton:

Nor did the dear old Church thus cripple herself; on the contrary, her zeal for Missions accompanied, if not caused, unwonted prosperity at home. New waves of liberality passed over the heart of her people. Debts that had burdened many of the Churches and Manses were swept away. Additional Congregations were organized.

What a testimony of God’s faithfulness! “Give, and it will be given to you.” “Those who honor Me I will honor.” And thus it always is – maybe not always in exactly the same way as Paton saw in 19th century Scotland; but the principle will not fail. God will not cripple His church when she reaches and gives and sacrifices to share the gospel beyond her own neighborhood and walls! And that encourages me as it regards my own little flock. Recent days have seen them with a good number of opportunities to give time, effort, energy, and money to churches, missionaries, and ministries other than our own. And many have been faithful to extend themselves in this way. And yet, at the same time, our own budget is flourishing like it hasn’t in the 13+ years I’ve been in Cincinnati. And it also seems to me that those who are spending themselves in this way, far from being sapped for local church ministry, are being all the more re-charged to give their all here at PRBC, too! Our attendance is as high as it has been in a good long time, fellowship is happening outside the regular meetings of the church, our new Sunday School curriculum is being well-received, and so on.

In other words, “the dear old church” that meets here at the top of this pleasant ridge is not crippling herself by extending her reach beyond our four walls … but is only strengthening her muscles to lift all the more weight here locally as well! And so it will ever be! We can cripple ourselves by spending foolishly, but never by being sacrificially kingdom minded.

So pastors, as you read this, be encouraged to do more, not less, to bless and partner with other like-minded church, missionaries, and ministries. Your church will grow, not suffer, from such large-hearted endeavors. And individual Christians, be encouraged yourselves to commit wholeheartedly to those who meet inside the walls of the local church, yes! But seek to bless, serve, and fellowship outside those walls, wherever possible. You might be surprised how much more you will give to your own church if your heart is more and more set on the larger Kingdom of which she is only a small sliver!

Old Habits for a New Year

We, as a culture, are obsessed with the new. And, in some ways, understandably so. Because the last 3-4 generations of Americans have lived through the most rapidly changing technological advances, perhaps since the days of Tubal-cain in Genesis 4:22! My German grandmother used to travel to America, not on a jet, nor even a propeller plane, but on a ship! My father has told me stories, from his boyhood, about buying blocks of ice with which to refrigerate their food. When my mother was growing up in Montana, there were still Native Americans who spent at least part of the year in teepees! And I myself can distinctly remember when our family got its first microwave and VCR (under 25’s may have to ask your parents what a VCR is!).

But here we are today with super-charged computers travelling around with us in our pockets. And just look at the special effects in the movies, say from the first Star Wars flicks until now. This week I sent a Christmas card to China instantaneously. And on and on we could go! And so of course we are a little enamored with that which is latest and greatest. Because we have been the recipient of so many of the benefits of ‘new.’ Today we have an app for just about everything!

But some things never change. Indeed, the most important things never change. And when it comes to the Christian’s walk with the Lord, it is still in “the ancient paths” that we will find “the good way” (Jeremiah 6:16). Our spiritual growth will still be watered from the same basins whose names Sunday School children have been reciting for decades and centuries – Bible reading, prayer, and going to church. Yes, there may be apps to help you do the first two of those things! But the fundamental habits are still the same, are they not?

If you want to grow, you should set your eyes regularly on the word of God. It should be a daily routine to seek the voice of the Lord in His written word. Maybe a chapter a day in 2016. Maybe more. Maybe less. Maybe in a paper Bible. Maybe through an app. But it is still a simple and basic truth that the word of God is “the pure milk” by which we “may grow in respect to salvation” (1 Peter 2:2). So drink it in in this coming new year – the same milk that Christians have been drinking for centuries. Keep yourself in (or return to) “the ancient paths.”

And the same can be said of prayer. Every child in Sunday School knows that we ought to do it. But most of us, as adults, struggle to cry to the Lord nearly as often as we should. Maybe it’s all the new inventions that keep us from the old paths of prayer! But it is fundamental to find time to be with God in your closet – confessing your sins, thanking Him Christ, praising His character, presenting your own requests and those of your church family, remembering the missionaries and unreached peoples, petitioning on behalf of the persecuted church, and so on. This is “where the good way is” – the pathway of prayer. “Walk in it” in 2016.

And then there is, perhaps, the most basic fundamental of all … which is simply a commitment to be in church every healthy Sunday, hearing the word of God and fellowshipping with the people of God. Would you commit to that in 2016? Would you “remember the Sabbath” by setting aside any and every other Sunday activity so that you can fix your mind and heart on God each Lord’s Day? Indeed, would you plan even your out-of-town trips so that you need never have a Sunday outside the walls of a church (whether your own, or one you visit when away)? You will not thrive like you ought if you seek to live your Christian life, even partially, on your own. But with God and His people, you will prosper! So commit to the church of Jesus Christ in 2016 … “not forsaking our own assembling together, but encouraging one another.”

Finally, let me encourage you who are heads of households to implement the above disciplines in your family as well! Gather together daily for family worship – for family Bible reading, prayer, and song! And take up what Terry Johnson calls a family pew. In other words, let Sunday church be such an inviolable habit for you, your wife, and your children that it’s almost like you have a reserved seat!

There is nothing new in anything that I am saying, is there? I’ve said these things more than once before. And they have been the staples of Christian growth for two millennia. But this is “where the good way is” – not in the latest innovation, but in “the ancient paths.” Walk in them, more than ever, in 2016!

Sundays in Narnia

I’ve been thinking a little more than normal, in recent weeks, about what we might call church culture – and particularly how a local church’s culture / ethos / first impression affects those who walk into our Sunday gathering for the first time or three.

Of course there is a sense in which guests should walk in and feel somewhat comfortable with their Sunday morning surroundings. The language we use should be intelligible English. Our building shouldn’t be dingy or bizarre or difficult to find. Our welcome should be warm. Their children should be safe. And so on. Church shouldn’t be a forbidding, or unwelcoming, or completely unintelligible place for the first time guest. And I hope our churches are not any of those things. Let’s continually work to ensure that they aren’t … but are, rather, just the opposite!

And yet, some reading I’ve been doing* has me more and more convinced that, while a church’s culture should not at all be inhospitable, yet it should also be quite challenging, in many ways, to the man who comes in off the street (or out of a less biblically thoughtful church culture).

Walking into a truly biblical (not perfect, but biblical) church should be something like walking into a whole different culture; a whole new world, really – one that (intentionally) does not put the newcomer to Christianity immediately at ease in every way.

Now, many a church leader will be uncomfortable with a sentence like that. Because many a modern church leader has gone out of his (or her) way to create a Sunday morning ethos that looks and sounds very much like what the man on the street experiences at the theatre, the ballgame, the concert, the restaurant, and so on. Often out of good motives, churches attempt to create a Sunday morning aesthetic that feels as familiar and palatable as possible to the outsider. Sometimes churches have even styled themselves as ‘a church for people who don’t like church.’ To put it plainly, churches are bending over backwards to create a Sunday morning experience that doesn’t feel all that other-worldly and strange and different from everyday life.

But here is the problem. God is other-worldly. He is holy, holy, holy! And, thus, to the sinner, He is strange, too! And so are His ways and (purportedly) His people. “Our citizenship is in heaven.” And therefore God calls us to a whole different set of values than what we find promoted in our news media, TV commercials, movie theatres, public schools, literature, and so on. He calls us to stand out as lights “in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation.” And so you would think that, when people like that gather to worship a God like that …you would imagine (wouldn’t you?) that their meetings would look and sound and operate on a plane that would make them, while not unwelcoming to the newcomer, immensely different, and challenging, and other-worldly!

The Sunday morning worship gathering should be – both for the newcomer, and for the long-time Christian who finds Sunday meeting an oasis from the hubbub and glitz and temptation of the other six days – like stepping through one of C.S. Lewis’s portals and into an entirely different world … with different values, and different assumptions, and different anthems, and different customs, and an altogether different sort of inhabitants. We ought to be, in some ways, as strange to a newcomer as a snowy wood inhabited by talking animals. Lucy understood the trees, and the snow, and even the English language of Mr. Tumnus. But there was no doubting that she was no longer in England! And such should be the experience of the man on the street when he steps into the new world that is the gathered church of Jesus Christ. There will, of necessity, be much with which he is familiar. But the differences ought to be profoundly obvious and challenging and (we hope) intriguing to him!

And yet the difference is not to be the trading of one earthly culture for another. This is not a plea, in other words, for the church to go back in time – singing, dressing, and speaking as though we were from a different era. That is mere traditionalism – the attempt to replace modern American culture with the culture, for instance, of the 1950’s. That sort of strangeness is of no avail! No! The man or woman who walks into our services ought to feel, not like he’s entered a different era, but a whole new world! And in any number of ways …

For instance, the modesty of people’s dress should be an immediate sign that one has entered a new realm. Note that I didn’t not say ‘the formality’ of the dress (for God cares little for that). But in a world where people show way too much, the church should look altogether different on a Sunday morning. And when it does, the guest is immediately struck with the realization that she is on more holy ground than she usually dares tread.

And the praise, too, should be a great challenge to the outsider’s worldview. Here are a bunch of people voluntarily singing aloud together … and without the necessity of a great band, a humming beat, or any alcoholic lubrication? Where else on earth can you find a scene like that? And there seems to be a reverence about their singing … and an intenseness about the words more so than the pulse of the tune. And the words themselves are not about everyday themes; not so much about horizontal loves (like the standard fare on the radio); not much about the singers at all, in fact. The lyrics can only be described as vertical, self-effacing, other-worldly!

And observe how parents and children sit together, and how the children are learning to actually sit still for over an hour, and how the teenagers don’t seem to be embarrassed by their parents, and how the men are actually present with their families on a Sunday morning (and singing, too!).

And then there is the preaching. Can people really sit, in 2015, for 45 minutes … listening intently to someone explaining the Bible? With no moving pictures? And no theatrics? All the more interesting because the message seems to be, not about a cause of some sort, but about a Person. Indeed, they talk so much and so well of this Jesus that it’s beginning to seem like they actually do mean it when they speak of Him being alive, and their only hope.

And are they really listening to this man telling them, week by week, that they aren’t actually good people; that they are sinners; that they are hopeless without God’s miraculous and merciful intervention in their lives? What on earth would coax people to put up with such? Or is it that they are in tune with something (or Someone) that is not actually on earth?

And the prayer meeting! Even many church-goers will find this a whole new experience! People actually circling together and sending all these pleading words heavenward … and truly believing that there is someone out there who is listening? Seeing a group of Christians earnestly praying together is perhaps the most other-worldly sight that a modern American will ever see!

But, you see … the man on the street will never see these things; he will never be challenged to enter, himself, into a different world and take up a new citizenship if the church continues to trip over itself trying to look more and more like the culture with which such a man is already familiar. We think we are doing people a good turn, by dressing the Sunday meeting in more culturally ‘relevant’ garb. But we’re actually shooting ourselves in the foot – we who are called to woo people out of their allegiance to this kingdom, and into citizenship in an entirely different realm … “the kingdom of [God’s] beloved Son.”

Truly, one of the best things we can do for our neighbors is to strive to create a church culture that is not immediately recognizable and comfortable to them … but attractively other-worldly; appealingly (and biblically) strange; intriguingly unlike anything they have ever encountered before. Like they have, in walking into our gathering, crossed the border into an entirely different and better kingdom.

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*Specifically, Rosaria Butterfield’s The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert and Terry Johnson’s chapter “Restoring Psalm Singing to our Worship” (in Give Praise to God; Philip Ryken, Derek Thomas, and Ligon Duncan, eds.).

The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert

Several days ago ... and I almost never have the wherewithal or interest to pull this off ... I devoured nearly an entire book in a single day. It was Rosaria Butterfield's The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert, and I highly recommend it.

Carl Trueman's words of recommendation hit the spot for me:

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. I do not agree with everything she says; but I did learn from everything she wrote. It deserves the widest possible readership.

Indeed, I was moved and challenged and refreshed and compelled by this book like I haven't been in a long time. It is the personal memoir of a woman who was a highly successful lesbian professor of English … and whose life, in her mid-thirties, was utterly altered by what she calls a train wreck conversion.

The lessons are many – one of the most powerful being how she was slowly led to Christ and his cross by the patient friendship of a local pastor and his wife who opened their homes, listened, loved, and accepted who Rosaria was, without condoning their new friend’s lifestyle.

She also makes no bones about the fact that she wasn’t looking for Jesus, didn’t make an easy and quick ‘decision for Jesus,’ and was only won over by the sovereign, electing grace of God that overcame her in spite of herself and her sin. And she seems quite content – even glad – to confess that it happened that way! God gets the credit!

Some of what she says is edgy, maybe even stinging. Perhaps it needn’t be quite so much that way in every case. But sometimes we who are tempted to cocoon in our Christian culture circles need to hear, plain and simple, how outsiders view us (and some of the flaws that this outsider-turned-insider can still see).

One of the amazing things about the book – perhaps especially noticeable because I read it almost all the way through in a single day – was how the beginning of the book and the end of the book really seemed like they were written about (and almost like they were written by) two different people. And, in the most profound sense, they were! I’m no literary scholar, but Butterfield’s later accounts of her life as a pastor’s wife and adoptive homeschool mom read so very differently from her descriptions of her English professor days at the beginning of the book – and not just in content, but in the very feel of the words! But such is the change that Christ brings. We cannot tell our old stories in the same way that we rehearse the new.

In closing, here is one quote that I found particularly challenging (though it has not so much to do with the narrative of Butterfield’s conversion, but rather the convictions that she now holds as a Christian) Speaking of her Reformed Presbyterian denomination's commitment to biblically simple corporate worship, Butterfield writes:

In an RP church, you will get no show, no comedian pastors, no rock bands, no videos, no interpretive dancing. Either Jesus comes to worship with us and the Holy Spirit fuels and fills us and God is honored or we have, simply, painfully, nothing at all.

Read it again, slowly. Then read it a third time, plugging the name of your church into the first sentence, along with whatever ambiance, aesthetics, experience, or tradition you have come to believe necessary for you to 'really worship.' And then ask if you could still leave the second sentence as-is.

Is meeting with the Triune God enough for us? And, when we gather, do we really expect to meet with Him, or just with a set of people and norms that have become comfortable to us? And, if it’s the latter, have we really gotten what Rosaria Butterfield got when God shook her life to its core, and rebuilt it all over again?  Perhaps God might grant us a train wreck of our own.