Church Life

When I was a Southern Baptist pastor, all I heard about was discipleship. It was their "thing," almost to a fault. When I moved into the Reformed world, I never heard anything about discipleship. Perhaps my experience is an anomaly but gauging from some conversations I’ve had with a variety of...

Chaplain Mike Gilson in the Spiritual Care Service unit of San Diego’s Kaiser Permanente Zion Medical Center shared about his visits with a Vietnamese patient and husband who both spoke little English. The wife had terminal cancer, but later on to the chaplain’s surprise while doing his rounds he...

Do you have an evening service at your church? Is so, and especially if you are a Reformed pastor or elder, you’ll likely be wanting to encourage better attendance at your church’s Sunday evening service. Many of the Young, Restless and Reformed that entered the Reformed churches ten years ago are...

In my previous two articles ( here and here ), I have maintained that the word “cessationism” needs to be used in the way it was given to us by the Westminster Divines. My critics have stated that the Divines weren’t perfect here, and thus revision is in order. They seem to think the historic...

An Encouragement and Appeal to Concerned Officers and Laypeople in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) Dear brothers and sisters in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC), Greetings, and Grace and Peace to those who love and serve our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in the Evangelical...

A Church Is a Dangerous Place to Be Church - A Safe, Welcoming, and Casual Place?: A big stage with smoke machines and flashing spotlights, emotional music and songs, a man wearing jeans and a shirt with tattoos standing on a podium, a sign that reads “Welcome! You are loved here!” These are the...

Editor's Note: If you haven’t already, go back and read Part 1 , 2 , 3 , and 4 to catch up with where we are at!) BREAKING NEWS: a runner has tripped and fallen during their race! Wait, that runner looks familiar…It’s you. What happened that put you flat on your face? CUE INSTANT REPLAY. Okay, just...

Ever since the garden of Eden, sin has been cast as freeing and God’s law as enslaving. Today it’s endemic; sin is glamourized in sitcoms, on magazine covers, on YouTube, in Hollywood, by the influence of peers, and of course, in our own hearts—idol factories as they are (as John Calvin put it)...

“Corporate Rock,” is the derisive label slapped on a style of music born in the 1970s. Characterized by formulaic arrangements, shallow lyrics, and predictable chord progressions critics claim that corporate rock was engineered by record label executives, not artists, to get on the radio, move a...

Church plants and revitalization is a unique and difficult ministry. Unlike many ministers who serve in an established ministry context, church planters and revitalizers often encounter situations and problems that is distinctive to their contexts. Problems such as facing financial difficulty with...