I’ll be here this year as usual catching up with lots of dear friends…

I could not agree more with this post.

Instead of everyone talking about being ”missional” (a word without a definition as far as I can tell), how would it be if every church planter coming for evaluation began talking about being confessional? Instead of being ‘in the city, for the city’,  how about, ’here we have no abiding city’ for a new church’s vision statement? How about, instead of reaching the culture shaping arts community (again!), why not long to plant a vanilla presbyterian church that builds a community of disciples with a culture all its own?  How about replacing the drive for ‘relevance’ with a push towards maturity? How about cutting all the hubris about starting a church planting ‘movement’ when we haven’t even gathered a ‘core group’, and settle down with the more modest aim of preaching the gospel and gathering believing sinners into a single, healthy, orthodox, local assembly and equipping local shepherds who will do the hard work of caring for the sheep?

Just wondering…

A hypernym is a word whose meaning is wider than the word used to define it.  For example, ‘shelter’ is a hypernym of ‘apartment’. ‘Animal’ is a hypernym of ‘dog’. ‘Creature’ is a hypernym of ‘human being’.

In a sentence one might say “The congregation stared at the anomalous thing (there’s the hypernym) standing before them and declaiming from their pulpit as though never having heard a preacher announce the gospel before.” In this sentence, ‘anomalous thing’ is a hypernym of ‘preacher’.

In the same way, ‘God’ is a hypernym of every descriptor used to define Him. When we say “God is good”, ‘goodness’ does not exhaust the definition of ’God’. We might go on piling up adjectives, all of which speak truly about God, yet we will run out of words long before we ever  conclude a satisfactory exposition of the god-ness of God.

I cannot help think that the great occupation of saints and angels in glory will be the unceasing exposition of the deity; unceasing because it will never exhaust the fresh vistas of glory that will break upon our consciousness as we meditate on the Majesty in whose nearer presence we have come to dwell.

Gathered around the throne, the redeemed of every tribe and nation will pour forth adjectives in every tongue and language in adoration of the multifaceted glories of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. On that day we shall join our voices in a ceaseless paean of praise to sing the eternally new song in answer to each new discovery of the Reality to which all faithful liturgical and theological speech points us.

“In a comparatively sound church life, it is possible to assume that as a rule the children of the covenant will be born again in their youth and come to faith and conversion ‘in stages and gracefully.’ But when the world penetrates the church and many people grow up and live for years without showing any fruits worthy of faith and repentance, then the serious-minded feel called to warn against trusting one’s childhood regeneration and one’s historical faith in Christian doctrine and to insist on true conversion of the hearts, and experiential knowledge of the truths of salvation. Against a dead orthodoxy, Pietism and Methodism, with their conventicles and revivals, always have a right to exist.”

Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Vol III, p583

Sebastian Heck is seeking, under God, to establish a confessional Reformed work in Heidelberg, Germany. One major issue has been securing premises for the nascent congregation to worship in. In answer to prayer, God has provided.

Sebastian writes,

“There is indeed much reason for praise to the Lord! I just returned from signing the lease agreement on the Landfried Complex Property. From the first time I laid my eyes on this building in September ’09 until today, the Lord has proven His faithfulness and provision in amazing ways! I could tell you story upon story of amazing things that fell into place by God’s sovereign and masterful providence! (Most recently, I put up a sign outside my current office “For Rent!” – and within 24 hours I found a new tenant willing to take over my lease agreement.)

Grace Presbyterian Church
5000 Stewart Mill Road
Douglasville, GA 30135

Here (in response to a recent request) are links to the D.G. Hart interviews. Enjoy…

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Read what the leading authority on the development of Reformation and Post Reformation Reformed theology thinks of those who claim to be ‘reformed’ because they embrace the 5 points of the Synod of Dordt, here.

HT Nic Batzig

Flabbergasted! Dumbfounded! Stupefied! I mean… really?

I just heard from some very old friends with whom I’ve been out of touch for a long time, only to discover they are now serving the Lord in student ministry in Athens, (that’s in Greece, not Georgia!) Thought I’d direct your attention to their work here.

Discover some of the wicked causes of our cultural descent into ’Inglish’ here