How Does a Church Develop a Sense of Community?

Posted on July 29, 2024 by RC

There are two kinds of church goers in this world, those who simply want to be left alone, and those who long to be a part of a community. There are plenty of churches out there that cater to the first group, and are proud of it. It’s not a bug, but a feature. There are churches out there that cater to the first group, but don’t want to. They just don’t know how to fix the problem. Then there are, albeit few and far between, churches that actually are a community.

Those people looking for community in the church often don’t find it, mostly because it’s not something you find. Imagine you are walking through the woods as the sun begins to set. The temperature drops; the shadows lengthen. You begin to reminisce about earlier times, and soon you have an intense craving for a campfire, complete with graham crackers, chocolate and marshmallows. Would you increase your pace, in the hopes that if you cover more ground you might find these things?

Community isn’t something you find. It’s something you build. And you have to do it organically. Turn it into a program and you’ll find rain coming down, matches that won’t light and graham crackers infested with bugs. You don’t, contra the churches in the second group, program community, selling small groups from the pulpit, hawking progressive dinners, and reminding congregants whose last names end in A-L to bring a main dish, and M-Z a side dish and dessert.

Here’s what you do. Are you ready for the secret? You invite a family over for dinner. The whole family. It doesn’t matter what you serve. Hot dogs are fine. Soup, even though everyone knows soup’s not a meal, is good. You don’t have to dress up, wear an Armani suit. Just spend time together around the table, or around a campfire that you build.
That’s step one.

Step two is this- do it again. Invite another family over. There doesn’t have to be an occasion. You don’t have to plan a bunch of party games. Step three, if someone invites you, go. It may feel awkward; it may be inconvenient. You might miss the premiere of season three of your favorite show. But go. Remember also that they will be sinners, just like you are. Remember also that they, like you, are infinitely, immutably, by name, beloved of the Father.

Here is what will happen. You will get to know each other. Next, you’ll come to care about each other. Third, you’ll come to serve each other. Finally, you’ll find yourself naturally and joyfully living out all the “one another’s” Scripture gives us. And you’ll wonder how you ever survived without it.

If your schedule doesn’t have room for shared meals, change it. Take things off your plate that are normal, but don’t feed your soul or serve your brother. If you fear your home or your family doesn’t measure up, do it anyway. It’s not a competition. The prize doesn’t go to the person closest to Martha Stewart but to the one with the warmest welcome. In short, don’t make excuses. Get to work at making joy, and blessing the body.

This is the seventh installment of an ongoing series of pieces here on the nature and calling of the church. Stay tuned for more.

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The Moral of the Story- On the Obedience of Christ

Posted on July 26, 2024 by RC

Everybody loves Jesus. Marxists love Jesus, because He was such a radical revolutionary. Unitarians love Jesus, because He befriended the social outcasts. Liberals love Jesus because, well, because He was liberal. Even some conservatives love Jesus, because He was so conservative. Mark Twain quipped that God made man in His own image, and ever since man has been returning the favor. The same is true with respect to God the Son. We make Him out to be just like us, only, everyone will concede, slightly better. Jesus, in short, is universally loved because He, just like us, is deemed to be such an upstanding man.

Which is true enough. Jesus was in fact an upstanding man. His moral character was impeccable. He was, as it is increasingly controversial to say, a great moral teacher. This even garners Him some minimal level of authority. Quoting Jesus will score you at least as many points as quoting Confucius, at least if you choose the right quotes.

There is, however, a profound chasm that separates a “great moral teacher” from a perfectly obedient man. It is one thing to believe Jesus was better than we are, another to affirm that He kept the law of God perfectly. To affirm such is to affirm a law. They refuse to recognize a law, any law. To the Greeks the cross was foolishness. To the Jews it was a stumbling block. To the post-modern, however, the problem isn’t the cross, but what preceded it, the obedient life.

Theological liberalism can handle the cross. The purpose of the cross, according to those who think Jesus stayed dead, was to set an example, to show us how far we ought to go to love our neighbor. There is, in this thinking, no atonement. There is no atonement, however, not because such would be too much for Jesus, but because it would mean we have sins that need to be covered. It would mean that outside of Christ, we are under the wrath of God. To think in terms of atonement, we would have to think about the unthinkable.

The righteousness of Christ, however, is a little more difficult for the world to squeeze into its self-righteous wineskins. It burns as it goes down. Which is why the world speaks not of the life of Christ, but of His teachings. His teachings can be made amorphous enough that with just a pinch of dishonesty, and a smidge of deconstructionism, we can turn them into our own teachings. But we cannot turn His absolute obedience into our own, at least, without conceding that God has a law, that we don’t keep it, and, well, without trusting in His complete work and becoming a Christian.

This is, however, the dilemma of the postmoderns. Without a standard, how can one distinguish between a great moral teacher and a reprehensible moral cretin? Without a moral measuring stick, Jesus and Hitler are not only on the same moral plane, but they are on the same moral plane with all of us, because there is only one plane. If there is no target, no one is closer to it than anyone else.

Therein is the offense of the Gospel in our age. Postmodernism’s very reason for existence is to escape a transcendent moral law. It is a philosophy that was created not to remove the guilt of sin, to remove the stigma of sin. We who profess Christ are wrong, because we profess that there is a right, even as we confess that only one Man ever attained it.

What separates our peculiar age from that which Paul faced isn’t, however, the different offenses that the world takes to the gospel message. Rather it is the response of the church. It was the Cross that offended the Greeks and scandalized the Jews. But it was the Cross that Paul preached. In our day the obedience of Christ offends, and so we never speak of it. The church in our day seeks to hide the offense, and in so doing, puts its light under a bushel. Jesus the hero upon the cross is just fine. Jesus the obedient Son must never see the light of day.

The Scripture calls us the first born of many brethren. In a show of the depth of the grace of God, we are told that Jesus is not only the husband of the church, but our elder brother as well. If, in fact, we belong to Him, we must profess Him. We must declare not only the glory of the cross, but the glory that led to the cross. We must profess His obedience, His righteousness that by faith is ours.

We must remember that He was not crucified because He was a great moral teacher. Rather, He was crucified because He obeyed His heavenly Father. They hung Him because they could convict Him of nothing. And because He is the firstborn of many brethren, we must in turn see the cross not only as the only atonement for our sins, but also as our example.

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Nobody Told Me: Strange Days Indeed, Most Peculiar Mama

Posted on July 25, 2024 by RC

Though I confess it didn’t take a great deal of courage or insight to make the prediction, I did suggest when 2024 began that we all buckle up for a bumpy ride. One could argue so far I’ve been off. After all, in just this decade we’ve had a summer of violent riots in dozens of cities, a pandemic, a national lockdown, a stolen election, and scores of tourists locked up for months on end, charged with insurrection, perverts demanding to dance before children. Indeed this is one reason why my “prediction” was as far fetched as suggesting that with or without Caitlyn Clark, the US Olympic Women’s basketball team will win the gold in Paris.

This year there have been precious few if any riots. There hasn’t yet been an election. The stock market has broken records and Karen masks are as out of style as leisure suits. All quiet on the western front.

Well, except for all those phony indictments against the Republican candidate for president. Except for the Georgia Attorney General hiring her secret lover as special prosecutor. Except for the sitting white, male, US president claiming to be the first black woman to serve as vice-president. Except for that same US President stumbling through a presidential candidates debate like a dementia sufferer. Except for the former president getting shot in the keystone state while under the care of either the Keystone Kops or under orders of the deep state. Except for the sitting president stepping out of the race, on twitter, in a letter. Except for that same president being out of the public eye for days on end. Except for whatever happens next.

There are two wildly shocking things here. First are all the wildly shocking things here. Second is that it continues to feel like just another year, that no one seems to find this wildly shocking. Where are the protests? Where are the screeching prophets telling us the end is near? Our indifference, acceptance of what we’ve become is damning proof of what we’ve become.

I’m not a huge fan of superhero movies. One reason is that the ante has to always be raised. It’s not two swashbucklers with clashing swords. It’s not two cowboys at high noon. It’s not dogfights in the skies over Tokyo. It’s one superhero hurling whole galaxies at another superhero who is certainly stunned, but who gets up and throws galaxies back at the first guy. If a superhero can do anything, and take anything, well, it won’t be a super story.

We’ve reached this same point in our news cycle. Assassination attempt? Yawn. Coup against the president? Big deal. Wake me when the nukes start falling. I don’t know what the coming months will show. I do know that we are little more than spectators to the sinking of the USS US. I do know that we would be wise, while seeking to be faithful to the end, not to put our trust in princes. May the Lord find a remnant and spare us further the demise of this once great nation.

Posted in covid-19, Devil's Arsenal, kingdom, Kingdom Notes, politics, post-modernism, RC Sproul JR, scandal, sexual confusion, sovereignty | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Where Seldom is Heard; ERLC Waffle Fest; Truth and Time

Posted on July 24, 2024 by RC

This week’s Jesus Changes Everything Podcast

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Run Away, Run Away- The Wisdom of Fleeing Temptation

Posted on July 23, 2024 by RC

There’s a reason he’s called the rich, young fool. Though he was wise enough to ask the right person, Jesus, his question, “what must I do to inherit eternal life” he was fool enough to claim, after Jesus reminded him of the 10 Commandments, that he had kept them from his youth. There’s a smug pride in him, the same smug pride in us when we think we’d never say such a thing. Praying, “I thank you Lord that I am not like other men. I acknowledge the reality of sin and my need for forgiveness” is not that far from the Pharisee’s prayer.

We are, unlike that rich young fool, willing to admit that we are sinners. Are we, however, willing to admit that we have sinned? That we are sinning? That we will sin? Are we not so prideful that we see the warning of Jesus to flee temptation as something quaint and old-fashioned? Do we not presume upon the grace of God and see sin as something small? Do we not over-estimate our own strength by playing with fire and thinking we won’t get burned?

Sin is destructive. A little harmless flirting, a quick peek at those images on the internet, talking about our suspicions about our pastor, what’s the worst that could happen? Death. Broken homes and the broken children that come with them, church splits. Nobody sneaks up on those sins planning for everything to blow up. Nobody intends to fall into grievous sin. We just want to get look at it, to peer over the edge.

Reformation starts now, as it did then by putting aside our foolish plans for covering our sins and returning to the one plan, repenting and resting in the finished work of Christ alone. That means owning the cost of our redemption. This sin, the one drawing me in right now, doesn’t merely increase the number of coins Tetzel will demand of me. This sin is one more ounce of the poison cup the Prince of Peace had to drink for me. A casual “Put it on Jesus’ tab” is a good sign that we are not truly His friend.

How seriously did Jesus take the dangers of sin? In His Sermon on the Mount He had this to say,

If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast It from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell (Matthew 5:29, 30).

Sin comes to us as a furry kitten, leaves us behind as a roaring lion. Boasting that we are beyond temptation is nothing but an invitation. Humbly fleeing, on the other hand, closes the door. No one of us has ever brought good out of sin. Better that we get out while the getting is good.

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Why does the church meet together? Questions on the Church

Posted on July 22, 2024 by RC

When the Bible commands of us that we not forsake the gathering together of the saints (Hebrew 10:25) it tells us that we are required to attend regular services. While I may attend to the question of why God commands such (remembering, of course, that He has no obligation to reveal to us the “why”) this is not the question I’m considering here. Rather I am attempting to understand the function or purpose of our weekly meetings. What is the goal of gathering together?

The church is called to equip the saints. That requires time together. The church is called to fellowship together. That requires time together. The church is called to pray together. That requires time together. The church is called to proclaim the good news of the substitutionary death, the burial, resurrection and ascension of our Lord. That requires time together.

The church, at least in our day, finds itself competing for the time and attention of its members. Children’s sports leagues now schedule games on Sunday mornings. In the summer there’s usually plenty of room at church, while the local lakes tend to be crowded. And of course the waitlist at your favorite restaurant waits for no one. In an understandable, though I’d argue misguided, attempt to deal with this competition, many churches seek to cram as much of the above biblical callings of the church into as brief a time as possible.

What we end up with is a rushed at most hour and a half of praise music, announcements and a practical homily designed to avoid alienating any unbelievers in the audience. All of which misses the point as to why we gather. We gather to worship the living God. There is an audience when we gather, but He is one.

It is a cliché, and like many cliches it has become one because it has truth in it. We do not come to get but to give. And we find that when we give we receive. The worship is the giving. The blessing is the receiving. The point, to finish the circle, is the giving.

Can unbelievers be brought into the kingdom while we are giving worship? Of course. But they are not the reason for the gathering. Can believers be instructed and edified while we are giving worship? Of course, but even that is not the reason for the gathering. Can believers experience the unity of the body and encourage one another when we gather? Of course, but that is not the reason for the gathering.

Marva Dawn put it well when she called worship, “a royal waste of time.” It is royal because we meet with the king. It is a “waste” of time because it serves no other purpose. Worship is the end of the end, our reason for being just as much as our reason for meeting.

When we seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, all these things will be added to us. When we honor Him, worship Him in Spirit and in truth, all these things will be added to us. All these things, evangelism, edification, encouragement are good gifts, and inadequate in comparison to the worship of the living God. He is why we gather, our Maker, Redeemer and Friend.

This is the sixth installment of an ongoing series of pieces here on the nature and calling of the church. Stay tuned for more.

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The Spirit of Rebellion in His Church

Posted on July 19, 2024 by RC

Though I haven’t the infernal wisdom that C.S. Lewis demonstrated in his classic work The Screwtape Letters, I think I know something about at least some of the devil’s stratagems. The Screwtape Letters, you remember, purported to be a series of letters written from senior demon Screwtape to junior demon Wormwood, explaining how best to assault his “patient,” the young man under his charge. Lewis’ insights were uncanny, as if he really had been spying on the devil and his minions. I have no secret wiretap, I’m merely guessing.

First, the devil is, I’m sure, rather proud of his work in the culture at large as we ditch that old devil modernism for the devil in the new dress, postmodernism. How we Christians bravely fought to tear down the smug certainty of the scientific worldview, to drive the enlightenment into the shadows. We have destroyed Frankenstein’s monster.

Precious few people today are convinced that the scientific method is the only pathway to truth. The devil’s success, however, is that there are likewise precious few people who are convinced that there is a pathway to truth. We no longer need to bow down to the mighty scientist as the grand arbiter of truth. Now we bow to the man in the mirror, as each of us has his own truth.

It cost the devil nothing to get us to buy this latest lie. He promised that if we would but embrace relativism, we would enjoy peace. No longer would my understanding of truth war against yours, because even when they contradict, we can both be right. Now we can all get along.

Except for this. If, in your reality, you have the right-of-way, and in my reality I have the right-of-way, all our smiling confidence that we can both be right won’t keep our fenders from trading paint. To Hitler, he had done nothing wrong. To the Allies he had. And soon millions of men, women, and children were dead. But we should have known. The devil never gives what he promises when he makes us a deal.

This success, however, is really small potatoes. The devil may take a sadistic joy in muddying up the world around us. But it is not the strategic ground he so desperately seeks. Victory for him isn’t confusing the world; it’s seducing the church. Like any good strategist, he is thinking several moves ahead. Relativism exists, in the devil’s game plan, not for the folly of the world, but as a tool to assault the church.

But how could relativism make any headway into the church of Christ? We are the people of the book. We are defined by creeds, affirmations of objective truths, that are true for everyone. Surely we must be immune from the folly of relativism. Sadly, we are not only not immune, but are not, in truth, people of the Word. The thin spiritual veneer that the devil drapes over his poison is simple enough — it is the Holy Spirit. The only thing that can trump God’s Word, is God Himself. It is ordinary and pedestrian to take our cues from the Bible. It’s so much more exciting and pious to hear direct from the Author. Thus relativism gallops into the church.

This problem is by no means restricted to the more flamboyant pentecostals. Otherwise austere Presbyterians have been known to baptize their sin with this bilge. Adultery may be wrong for you, some have reasoned, but to me it’s okay, because the Holy Spirit has granted me peace about the matter. The command to obey may be okay for you, but the Holy Spirit has given me a spirit of freedom. We enlist the Spirit to justify not our souls, but our sins.

This is the spirit of our age. The driving force behind the culture’s embrace of relativism is the intense desire to justify away our own sins. Remove the objective standard of the law, and you remove the accountability that comes with it. It works the same with the Holy Spirit. Remove the objective standard of the Word, and you remove the accountability that comes with it.

The devil likewise delights that we in the church are faithfully about the business of trying to remove the speck in the world’s eye, while blissfully ignoring the mote in our own. The foolishness of relativism is indeed laughable. But it is also understandable. They are, after all, fools. Folly is what they do. But we have been given a spirit of wisdom, and we still succumb to the folly.

We must never forget that for all our worldliness, the world follows the church. They do the silly things they do because we do the silly things that we do. Which means, in turn, that the fastest way to rid the world of its folly is to remove it from the church. Do we want courts that treat the Constitution as the law of the land, rather than a quaint relic? More important than letter-writing campaigns, or rallies around the flag, is for us to begin treating the Bible as our law.

The spirit of wisdom is the Spirit of Wisdom. He is indeed speaking to us, telling all of us that there is but one truth, telling us to feed upon the Word of God, for therein is life, and life abundant. He is calling us to submit to Him, by submitting to His Word, the very words of life. If He whispers anything, it is only to go to where He speaks with clarity to all of us. May He grant us the ears to hear Him where He speaks.

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The Cost of Conviction, or, Guarding our Garbage

Posted on July 18, 2024 by RC

Peer pressure, though we may consign it to teenagers and temptations toward teenage sins, is real and impacts all of us. It rarely comes complete with all the accoutrements, the insistent pleas from our friends, “Come on, everyone’s doing it” or the fake chicken squawks from the crowd. The social cost is more subtle. We’re simply judged to be outside the circle.

It’s because those accoutrements are missing that we miss we’re still susceptible to peer pressure. We come to the questions of the day and often look more at the price tag than we do at the evidence. It’s not at all unlike President Trump lurching left on life. Babies in the first trimester are no less babies than babies in their first three years. But to act on that truth carries a political cost.

The same is true theologically. Embrace six day creation and no one will call you names, “Fundamentalist” or “know-nothing.” They’ll just treat you like one. Reject presuppositionalism and no one will call you a modernist. They’ll just treat you like one.

The same goes for politics, and the issues of the day. Failure to salute the rainbow flag will earn you the sobriquets of homophobe, Nazi, closeted queer. And just maybe bricks through your window. Which is why we watch the stampede of evangelicals racing toward a middle ground that just doesn’t exist. An evangelical, after all, is little more than a fundamentalist that desperately wants to be accepted.

Some seek to skip out on the bill of the social costs of their convictions by holding them secretly and loudly. Secretly and loudly? Yes, which is why the great bulk of purveyors of white identity politics spew their bile from the safety of anonymity.

So what do we do? How do we pay these bills? Simple enough. No one collects payments from a dead person. I have no need to protect my reputation if I’m dead. Sticks and stones can break my bones but neither they nor names hurt those beyond the grave. Every believer is seated with Christ in the heavenly places. Our treasure is beyond the reach of His and our enemies. We’ve already confessed to be horrible people. We have no pride to protect.

Whether its left-wing Karens demanding we believe the science, main stream media telling us to believe the Dementia-Patient-in-Chief is sharp as a tack, or the whole mad world telling us to believe that boys can be girls, we are impervious. Only though if we know we are dead. Only if we have forsaken our standing in this world. Only if we have joyfully embraced His shame, as He embraces ours.

Negative world brings with it a cornucopia of negatives. But it allows us to receive the honor of being persecuted for His name’s sake, which He tells us is a blessing. Which we are to rejoice over. The reward overpowers the cost into nothingness.

Do remember this though. What the world hates is less our convictions, more our courage. That is, if they can cow you into hiding your convictions, they’re good. If, however, their fear tactics leave you unmoved, then the rage comes. And it’s coming.

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Encouragement; Shot in the Dark; Satanic Folly & More

Posted on July 17, 2024 by RC

This week’s Jesus Changes Everything Podcast

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The Madness of the Method, or Losing the Lost

Posted on July 16, 2024 by RC

“You can’t turn back time.” “There’s no stopping progress.” It’s interesting the way we manipulate words. It’s certainly true, I suppose, that you can’t turn back time, and that there’s no stopping progress. But somehow these truisms have come to mean something other than what they say. We know the words add up, but the sentiments are patently false. To consider that perhaps the older ways are better than the newer is not to turn back time. Rather it is to honor it. And no one I know is interested in stopping progress. But if we’re wise we’ll labor to stop regress. That is that you cannot tell if you’re making progress unless you know where you came from, where you are, and where you want to go.

Only a fool comforts himself while he’s lost by considering what great time he is making. These arguments are tricks the liberals play on us. They begin with the assumption that we’re moving toward their vision of the good life, and that we will inevitably get there. And so to suggest that we’re going down the wrong hill is to be accused of the folly of Sisyphus. They don’t own the future, we do. And progress is not measured by the number of Gs in your wireless network, the growth of government, or the eroding of what’s left of our moral foundation. Progress is moving toward a greater understanding of His grace, toward the consummation of His Kingdom, and toward greater obedience to His law.

But still there is the question of methods. The evangelical church has for decades been all abuzz with the great insight that we can reach the lost if only we can learn to take the morally neutral tools of the world and apply them to the spreading of the gospel. That’s how we got Christian television, Christian rock music, Christian movies, Christian enneagram books, Christian yoga, and a host of other knock-offs. I too once dreamed of having my cake and eating it to, of writing the great American novel that would spawn the third great awakening. Fame and fortune would be mine, and all for the glory of God. Who says you can’t serve God and mammon?

The trouble is in the assumption that mediums are morally neutral. Our understanding of the law of God has become so blunted that we’ve lost the capacity to see sin unless it wears a neon sign announcing its nature. We’ve forgotten that there are more carnal weapons out there than cannons and fighter planes. We’ve accepted the propaganda that propaganda is an acceptable means of winning the lost. We’ve bought the lie that marketing truth is okay. There’s a madness to our modern methods.

The irony is that these pragmatic theories don’t work. When we use marketing techniques to win the lost we find, much to our surprise, that they have no more loyalty to Christ than they have for their cola of choice. We find that when we hide the cost of discipleship the “converts” aren’t willing to pay it when the bill comes due. We find that all our appeals to how new we are work only until something newer comes along.

History shows us what works. It provides the empirical data we need. When were the lost being found? When was the kingdom being built? We know of no other time like the age of the Puritans. We look and see how they proclaimed the fullness of the gospel and we find that they proclaimed it boldly, straightforwardly, and confidently. They told it boldly, refusing to hide from their audience the truths of God’s sovereignty, of the horror of Hell, of the wrath of the Father, of the cost of picking up the cross daily. They told it straightforwardly, leaving out all the bells and whistles, but instead gathering in simple buildings to hear the simple Word expounded simply.

These preachers knew nothing of the importance of illustrations, or humor, or charisma. They knew the power of the Word preached. And because they knew of the power, they preached confidently, believing the Gospel to be the power of God unto salvation. They understood that when you adorn the gospel with dainties, you present a dainty God. But when you let the pure Gospel loose, it goes forth like a lion.

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