The latest issue of Touchstone Magazine contains my review of David Lyle Jeffrey’s excellent book, We Were a Peculiar People Once: Confessions of an Old-Time Baptist. Part memoir, part prophetic critique, this book is uproariously funny as well as insightful and devastating. You can read the review, and I hope you read the book. In …
Hal Poe wrote a column with this title recently for our local paper, The Jackson Sun. It is well worth reading. Hal underscores the importance of pastoral oversight and care and the value of smaller congregations. Here is a piece of his warning about inherent issues of large, mass meetings: The mass meeting has always …
The most recent issue of the Journal of Baptist Studies is devoted to Baptist thought on the four historic marks of the church- One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic. Chris Morgan wrote on unity, Matt Emerson and Luke Stamps on catholicity, Jim Patterson on apostolicity, and I wrote on holiness (making this a Cal Baptist and Union …
Continue reading ‘The Holiness of the Church in Baptist Thought’ »
Christian Today recently ran an article titled, “Which kind of church appeals to Millennials? It’s not as trendy and modern as you think.” I welcome almost anything that says “trendy isn’t as cool as you think.” That said, the article (unintentionally it seems) illustrates the problem with shaping ourselves based on the perceived desires or …
I don’t know John Mark Comer or Solid Rock Church where he pastors. But I resonate with what he says in this interview about their move away from a multi-site mega church model to a family of independent churches. This is what I have been urging so I am heartened to see this being done. …
Continue reading ‘Moving Away from Mega-Church & Multi-Site’ »
I am reading All Quiet on the Western Front with my boys for school. The writing is powerful and sobering, raising many key issues of life. One passage particularly caught my attention as an illustration of the church. After the narrator got lost in no man’s land after a reconnaissance mission at night he began …
Continue reading ‘The Church in All Quiet on the Western Front’ »
“These two days [John 1:29-34] witnessed the beginning of the greatest institution in the world, – the Christian Church, – and the end of prophecy, which reached its goal when its last representative stood in the presence of Jesus, and, with pointing finger, designated Him as the Lamb of God. To outward seeming they were …
Conrad Mbewe, Foundations for the Flock: Truths About the Church for All the Saints (Granted Ministries Press, 2012), hb., 338 pp. Here is a valuable, recent book you may not have heard about. Conrad Mbewe, often called “the Spurgeon of Africa,” led the planting of Kabwata Baptist Church in Zambia about 25 years ago and …
Continue reading ‘Practical Ecclesiology from Conrad Mbewe’ »
This past week in preparing to preach on Ezekiel 34 I came across this provocative comment in Ian Duguid’s helpful commentary: “If we are to return to truly being shepherds, perhaps we need to reconsider our love affair with big churches. It is possible to lord it over a flock of thousands; it is possible …
The New Testament is clear about the duty of church members in watching out for one another and helping one another persevere (see esp. Heb 3:12-14; 4:1-2, 11; 12:15-16; James 5:19-20). Too often Christians have not learned to think this way. I also often find myself trying to help people see that evangelistic labors, properly …