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On June 4, 2021 By In Church

Sunday Worship During Summer Vacation

As summer heats upon us, many of us will be vacationing all over the country. As a pastor, I have noticed that church members generally don’t think much about the role the summer season has on us as Christians. I am particularly troubled by Christians who treat vacation as not only a break from work but also a break from Church. To some, if vacation happens to involve a Sunday, then so be it. It becomes the ideal day to travel to your favorite summer destination. After all, you are not missing work; you are only missing Church.

Hebrews does not treat this subject lightly. The author forbids the non-assembling of ourselves. He treats forsaking the assembly as a kind of mini-schism. Hebrews calls us not to forsake the gathering, which is simply a re-affirmation of the motif explored all throughout the Old Testament Scriptures.

The angels and archangels engage in heavenly worship day and night, and we are invited to join in this duty of worship each time we are gathered together on the Lord’s Day. After all, God has made us one.
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Vacation is no substitute for worship. Missing the Lord’s Day gathering on vacation for any trivial reason is to mock the tearing of the veil, which gave us access to the heavenly throne of grace. It belittles the work of Christ who conquered our divisions and united us to Himself.
With that in view, here are a few things I recommend for those going on vacation this summer:

First, avoid falling into the trap that a few good Christians gathered at a camp or a resort constitute the Church on Sunday. You may enjoy Christian fellowship, be challenged by an exhortation, but this does not constitute heavenly worship. It may be simply a Bible study, but worship is not a Bible study; it is the very entrance of God’s people into the heavenly places through the work of the Spirit in an orderly service led by duly ordained men.

Second, before going on vacation, google churches near the area. If you are not able to find a church that resembles yours, look to explore a bit outside your tradition. Learn to love the universal church. Find an evangelical congregation that loves the Bible.

Third, avoid making Sunday morning plans. Let your family–especially those who are not Christians traveling with you–know that Sunday worship is non-negotiable. If they are nominal Christians or unbelievers, let them know beforehand that their Sunday morning plans will not include your family. Use such opportunities to establish a firm foundation with your loved ones, which will necessarily be easier in the years to come. And if this is the first year you have submitted to that conclusion–if asked–briefly explain why you have changed your position. There is nothing wrong with changing your perspective, but there is plenty wrong in not acting on it.
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There is no need to theologize about these issues with other family members or feel you have to offer a treatise on the matter (since it may lead to unnecessary arguing). Let them know if they insist, that this is a commitment you made as a family long ago.

Finally, when visiting other churches, teach your children (and yourself) to avoid criticizing the Church’s practices that differ from your own. Use this time to explain to the little ones the beauty of the universal church. Explain that there are legitimate differences among churches (frequency of communion, styles of music, etc.) but that the Spirit dwells among them all.

The Lord’s Day is a day of rest. It is the feast God has prepared for you. Under normal circumstances, there is no other place for you to be.

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On May 30, 2021 By In Theology

Knowing the Trinity

Happy Trinity Sunday!

Some things are hard to understand, grasp, and appreciate. But when we begin to taste more of it, or experience it as intended, or be around it more consistently, we discover that we misunderstood that thing, that person, that taste. We want for us and our children and grandchildren to learn to appreciate good and beautiful things. We want to be a Christian culture that treasures things that endure, not temporary and tepid things.

You have probably heard people say, “I wish I had known this earlier in life,” or “I feel cheated because my people never introduced me to this,” or “I never fully appreciated this or that until….”

These are all human sentiments. We are continually conforming to the image of Christ, and so we need to be always moving, changing, adapting to new realities. We need to be a people who are challenging ourselves often to know God better, to taste and see the goodness of God in giving us his story and song.

We are a weak people if we convince ourselves that we are all right, and that all is well and that there is no need to change the furniture in our hearts.

And if there is one area where the church has poured little effort, it’s the message and mission of the Trinity. It’s one of those doctrines that we don’t spend much time reflecting on unless we wish to convey our opposition to cults. In fact, I affirm that we must begin to change our understanding of the Trinity precisely in the statement I just made. Immediately, when we hear the word “doctrine,” we go to massive theology books, and our minds go to antiquated ideas that are too far above our simple minds, and besides, what does the Trinity have to do with my favorite Netflix show anyway? Or my selfies? Or my get-together with my friends this afternoon? Well, everything! The Trinity is the lens through which we understand our reality and just how far we have strayed from a Triune reality.

And perhaps we need clarification here to begin, and that is that the Trinity is not primarily a doctrine to be only studied, or an idea to be contemplated or a dogma to hold, or a concept to dissect. The Trinity is our God. And that changes our whole perspective on what we celebrate on this Trinity Sunday. Because if the Trinity is more than a doctrine to be studied, but the God we worship, and if the Triune God is from whom all things consist and in whom we live and move and have our being, then we better get busy knowing God better: loving and learning of/about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

And that’s our starting point. In fact, speaking of starting, when we speak of the Trinity, we are speaking of how God reveals himself to us from the beginning. It’s the article of faith that structures all the faith and practice of our faith. You may have noticed, but our liturgy, our hymns, and lives all find themselves in God who reveals himself as One in Three and Three in One. The Trinity, Bavinck says, “beats the heart of the whole revelation of God.” The Trinity was not something built up in a Greek laboratory, it simply is. It’s the way God reveals himself to his people from the beginning to the end of history.

Now, this is our faith, in fact, this is our catholic (universal/whole) faith:

That we worship one God in trinity and the trinity in unity,
neither blending their persons
nor dividing their essence.
For the person of the Father is a distinct person,
the person of the Son is another,
and that of the Holy Spirit still another.
But the divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one,
their glory equal, their majesty coeternal.

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On May 28, 2021 By In Books, Music

Singing as Pastoral Theology in Bonhoeffer

Reading Bonhoeffer’s pastoral heart during my dissertation writing was a sweet sound to my soul. His prison letters led me down a path of admiration and excavation to my own heart. I read almost 1,000 pages’ worth, and I left with a sense of passion for the holy. Among the many glorious things gleaned from Bonhoeffer, in particular, I was drawn to the musical component of this astute and brave Lutheran scholar. His engagement of congregational singing with young seminarians and his particular thoughts on singing in the community has largely inspired my mission for my local body and the role I see sacred music play in parish life.

For Bonhoeffer, singing is a relational tool. If there is one thing quite clear in his writing is that there is a special bond created when people sing together. Life together does not just happen; it is cultivated. The young seminarians were not immune to temptations; in fact, it is precisely their singing together that alleviated some of those natural temptations to pursue sin. Singing is and ought to be a tool of healing and reconciliation. We can engage in spectacularly contradictory forms of protests today with our yard signs and vocal cords, or we can engage in spectacularly harmony-driven singing that cultivates relationality.

As Bonhoeffer notes:

“Music … will help dissolve your perplexities and purify your character and sensibilities, and in time of care and sorrow, will keep a fountain of joy alive in you.”

A few years ago, I was invited to visit one of my parishioner’s grandmother on hospice care. She asked me to minister to her family, whom I had never met. By the time I arrived, her grandmother was no longer responsive. It was just a matter of hours before she died. I walked in there and saw that dear woman and the first reaction I had was to sing: so, I did. We all gathered, and I asked them permission to sing. I sang Psalm 23 and prayed. I was a stranger to all these people, but suddenly that old Irish melody brought everybody together. It was a mystical moment, if I can use that term.

For Bonhoeffer, one of the great pastoral means to deal with pain and death is singing. Paul says to encourage one another with psalms and hymns and Spirit-songs, which is to say, singing as a church invites the church to enter each other’s stories and narratives. Singing allows pastoral theology to come alive.

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On May 25, 2021 By In Church

A Brief Case for Weekly Communion

Evangelicals like myself rooted in the Reformation came very late to the beauty of weekly communion. I was a sophomore in college before I realized that the vast stream of the Protestant tradition celebrated communion weekly. For most of my life, I assumed the table was reserved for special occasions like Easter or Christmas. In fact, I attended a Brethren congregation that did communion once a year. But as I broadened my theological interests, I understood the Supper’s function in the liturgy and in the theology of the church and it became unbearable to contemplate the absence of it during a worship service.

Historically, our Reformed forefathers—including Luther and Calvin—desired communion to be weekly. In fact, the early centuries of the Church and the majority of Protestant Churches in the 16th century practiced weekly communion. It was only in the 19th century, and in particular, during the Prohibitionist movement, that weekly communion became mostly obsolete. Therefore, the infrequent practice of communion is rather new in the church. Now, this does not mean it’s wrong, but it should raise questions. The Didache, one of the earliest records of the church after the Bible says the following:

“On the Lord’s own day gather together and break bread and give thanks, having first confessed your sins so that your sacrifice may be pure.”

The Church believed that in celebrating the sacraments weekly we become a purer people. This is not because there is something magical in the bread and wine, but because God uses these means to communicate his presence and strength to us. Additionally, the Early Church believed that the Lord’s Supper made us a more thankful people. We don’t often associate communion with thankfulness, but the very term “Eucharist” is not some invention of men. It is the word Paul uses to refer to the Lord’s Supper. The word means “thanksgiving.” The Lord’s Supper is a Thanksgiving meal; a Eucharistic meal.

The Bible makes a clear case that every time the people of God gathered for worship, the Lord’s Supper was a regular part of that gathering. Acts 2:42 says:

“And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”

There is a definite article before bread, making the text read “the breaking of the bread (τοῦ ἄρτου). This is not a generic reference to a household meal, but it is in reference to a particular kind of bread, the eucharistic bread used at the Lord’s Table.

Acts 20:7 says:

“And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of the bread and the prayers.”

Again, when the Early Church met, they always had the Lord’s Supper. In a time when persecution was rampant, the people needed to be comforted by and give thanks to God as they ate together with God’s people in worship. I had mentioned earlier that the Early Church up to the first thousand years and later the Reformation, firmly believed in weekly communion. But there came a time when the Church abandoned this practice. In fact, as Keith Mathison observes in his book “Given For You,” the infrequent communion practice became the practice of the Roman Catholic Church in the 13th century and continued until the Reformation period. In those days, members could only partake of the sacraments once a year. It was against this background that “such men as John Calvin and Martin Bucer called for a return to the Apostolic Christian practice of weekly communion.” We might say that part of the motive of the Reformation was to undo the Church’s practice of infrequent communion and return to the Early Church practice of weekly communion.

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On May 23, 2021 By In Church

Wear Red on Pentecost!

Happy Pentecost Sunday!

Many Christians know little about the Church Calendar, which means that many evangelicals will treat this Sunday like any other day. But this Sunday marks the beginning of the “Ordinary Season”(not in the mundane or common sense, but the term comes from the word “ordinal,” which means “counted time”). This season is composed of 23-28 Sundays, and it fleshes out the mission of the Church. To put it simply, Pentecost is the out-working of the mission of Jesus through his people by the power of the Spirit.

Some pastors–myself included–usually take these few months to focus on passages and topics pertaining to the specific life of the Church, and how the Church can be more faithful and active in the affairs of the world. The Pentecost Season emphasizes the unleashing of the Spirit’s work and power through the Bride of Jesus Christ, the Church.

Liturgically, many congregations wear red as a symbol of the fiery-Spirit that befell the Church (Acts 2). The Season brings with it a renewed emphasis on the Church as the central institution to the fulfillment of God’s plans in history. As such, it brings out the practical nature of Christian theology. Joan Chittister defines Pentecost as “the period of unmitigated joy, of total immersion in the implications of what it means to be a Christian, to live a Christian life” (The Liturgical Year, 171).

Pentecost as Spirit-Work

The evangelical church has offered a Spiritlessness teaching and worship. We have acted afraid of the mighty rushing wind for fear of its mystical presence. However, Pentecost exhorts us to be spiritual (Spirit-led) while emphasizing the titanic involvement of the Third Person of the Trinity in beautifying the world to reflect the glory of the Father and the Son. We must worship Spirit-led and in truth (Jn. 4:24).

The 16th-century Reformer John Calvin was known for many things, but he was mostly known as the “Theologian of the Spirit.” This is hardly manifested in many of his followers who tend to flee from the implications of a Spirit-led anything, choosing a mental overdose of theological categories. However, the Spirit is crucial to the forming and re-forming of any environment. It communicates our thoughts, emotions, and prayers to our Meditator. The Third Person of the Trinity emotionalizes and intercedes on our behalf in the midst of our ignorance (Rom. 8:26-30).

Further, the Spirit draws individuals (John 6:44) to enter into one baptized community of faith. The Spirit, in the words of James Jordan, is the “divine match-maker.” He brings isolated individuals into a Pentecostalized body, a body that has many parts, but one Head.

So, let us embrace this Season! Let us join this cosmic Pentecostal movement and embrace the mission of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.

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On May 11, 2021 By In Scribblings

The Church as Free

I am preparing to do a lecture on Kuyper in a few days, and I have been re-reading lots of his works (thanks to the marvelous task of the Acton Institute). Essential to the Kuyperian vision is the centrality of the church as free. In fact, for Kuyper, a holy nation can only be a reality when the church is allowed to be free to do what it was called to do. If the state, whose role is to protect the church, interferes with the premise of the church as church, she invests herself in an area outside her sphere.

Gary Demar analyzed well the case of the Canadian Pastor Artur Pawlowski. Gary argues that “the health argument is the foot in the door.” In the name of health and preservation, the state has increased its foothold on the church in remarkable ways. It is unlikely most of these churches will return with any degree of stamina to fight against authorial abuses.

However you feel about the pastor’s strategy, one cannot look at such an arrest from the perspective of Kuyperianism and be content with the outcome. In other words, one must embrace variations of two-kingdom theology, or a reduced understanding of the implications of ecclesiastical theology to accept the premise that the state has the authority to arrest a minister of the Gospel for opening his doors for worship.

For the record, I would not approve of such measures in early 2020 and most certainly not at this stage. The abhorrence of such acts in Canada and in the U.S. means that a restored vision of sphere sovereignty is necessary for the furtherance of public theology. And pastoral theology must incorporate Kuyperian thought, which is nothing more than a distillation of Genesis 1-3 applied to history.

Kuyper notes in his Lectures that while we are to be grateful for the state, “we must ever watch against the danger which lurks for our personal liberty in the power of the state.” Kuyper was a man well-aware of the fallacy of unchecked power. The Church needs desperate education in these areas, otherwise, it will quickly succumb to statist pressures and willingly hand over her keys and passcodes.

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On April 23, 2021 By In Podcast

Episode 88 of KC Podcast: A Conversation with Grant Castleberry on the Young, Restless and Reformed and the Need for Courage

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 41:41 — 48.7MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | RSS

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On April 21, 2021 By In Discipleship, Family and Children

Parenting as Human Formation in Community

One of my parishioners posed the question about parenting five children. My general answer–which can be applied to 1 or 11 children– is that it comes with all sorts of inherent traps related to doubts about whether we are doing well or whether they will end up on the front page of the city paper for the right or wrong reasons. I confess my skepticism about parents who act as if the struggle is not necessary.

Because of my role in the community, I receive lots of questions on parenting and I happily oblige with my thoughts, but never from the standpoint of achievement, but from the perspective of mutually pursuing the good of our little ones; and certainly not as an expert, but as a traveler on the yellow-brick road. I begin by asserting that I am in the middle of the battle with five kids ranging from 3-12. Everything is fresh and applicable, and it is a lot easier to opine when the experiences are literally running around your feet.

Whatever piece of wisdom I offer may stem from the incalculable amount of hours I’ve spent reading and writing on parenting over the last 15 years and hopefully, and primary, a heavy dose of biblical wisdom. But as we all know, the entire process is a flurry of unexpectedness. Parenting is not formulaic, it’s relational adjustments momentarily and momentously. Parenting is the art of adjusting to circumstances well.

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On April 20, 2021 By In Culture

Radical vs. Ordinary: The Case for the Ordinary

‘This is the Way the World Ends: Not with a Bang but a Whimper’- T.S. Eliot

There is not a dispensational bone in my body. I think so rigidly about the Psalter’s optimism, that I wouldn’t dare opine in opposition. I guess I am one of those fellas who take the enthusiasm of a martyr to the bank. Bonhoeffer died with immense hope and Kanye West talks like a postmil–how can I not see better things ahead?!

But there is something rather surprising about the “whimper” observation Eliot notes in the “Hollow Men,” and I want to use the same logic to make a differing conclusion. My argument is that fruitfulness is the result not of “bangs,” but “whimpers” in the history of the Church. If the world/ideology ends with whimpers, so too do such worlds and ideologies thrive with whimpers. We too often observe that unless something radical occurs, we shall have no world left for us and our grandchildren. That kind of exact-ism is too forceful! The changes that take place in the Bible are often through “still small voices,” which I interpret as small acts of goodness and gratitude enough to fill the world with music.

There is an incredible investment in the evangelical community in the word “radical.” There is nothing inherently sinful about the word, but its common usage has turned into a marketing scheme. For instance, well-known author David Platt in his book “Radical” observes:

“Radical obedience to Christ is not easy… It’s not comfort, not health, not wealth, and not prosperity in this world. Radical obedience to Christ risks losing all these things. But in the end, such risk finds its reward in Christ. And he is more than enough for us.”

Whether or not we are comfortable with Platt’s conclusion is a different question. But crucial to this discussion is the use of the word as an accentuation of the Christian faith: Radical faith=authentic faith. In sum, if there is no “bang” there is no faithful Christianity. I demur.

Is this how the Bible portrays the Christian life? In other words, why do so many authors and speakers find the need to insert the word “radical” into the clear commands of the Bible? Is radical faith a kind of secret life that only a few can find through a consistent impulse to abandon wealth and prosperity and the American dream? Simply put, are we making Jesus’ yoke hard and his burden heavy? Are we creating a sub-culture of radical Christians who do the risky thing for Jesus while the others are left in this trite category of non-radical? Will the world end if we don’t function at the speed of “bang”? Will we not be blessed through small whimpers?

Part of the genius of the Christian Bible is that the ordinary is radical. Forcing an alliance of radical Christians into the Scriptures makes the ordinary unnecessary. Certainly, the impetus of such a move is to offer the evangelical world a more robust expression of Christian living. But my assertion is that creating a radical platform to encourage people to do their ordinary work is not an encouragement, but a detriment to pursuing the ordinary work of Christian living. Who, after all, feels radical after a long bout of chemotherapy? You feel ordinary. In fact, you feel incapable of being anything more than ordinary. In fact, your calling at this point is to be as ordinarily Christian as you can as your body decays from within.

Ordinary Christian living is different from radical Christian living. It does not feel shame in the comfort of a hammock at the lake or in the luxury of an afternoon game at the stadium or the perfectly grilled steak. Ordinary Christian living does not negate the good, it gives thanks for the good. It does not negate the routine of a mother’s third diaper change of the day, it exalts the role of motherhood. I do not doubt many in this movement would affirm these assertions, but the reality is that the kinds of disciples these authors and speakers are producing are either misunderstanding the message of “radical” proponents like Platt and Piper, or they are using this message as a way of avoiding ordinariness or to look down upon the common.

We live in an age where we need less radical things and more ordinary things lived out daily in the Church. We need more bread and wine, more hugs, more encouragement, more connection with one another, more good night kisses, and more tickling of babies. We need more ordinary. Jesus accomplished the radical. Let’s live out the radical nature of the ordinary in faithful obedience. Fruitfulness comes with the ordinary whimpers of disciples. If explosive acts of transformation do occur, I’d be happy for them. But I do not find the explosive acts as the expected way of Christendom. The ordinariness of the faith is good enough.

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On March 22, 2021 By In Culture

When the Cancel Culture Comes After Wheaton College

The culture of apology is enduring its greatest momentum since Tiger Woods apologized for his numerous affairs with prostitutes. The apology stock is reaching new highs. At this stage, no one is safe from the apologistas. “Apologize or face the wrath of the mob.” It doesn’t matter if you thought once that Caitlyn Jenner looked better in the cereal box phase of his career, or if you did the unthinkable and accused O.J. Simpson of being insincere in 1995. The end result will be that the apologistas will surf through your Twitter terrain to find your dose of nasties you dared to share with the world in a moment of “weakness.”

You may wonder: what’s next? Are they going to come after a Wheaton College plaque commemorating the lives of missionaries who gave their lives for Jesus? They wouldn’t dare! I come to report that they did indeed.

We all have heard of the glorious deaths of those saints James Elliot and Ed McCully, and others who gave their very lives to minister the gospel truth to the savage tribe in the Ecuadorian jungle. Read the plaque which was given as a gift to Wheaton College, the alma mater of Bill Graham, Nate Saint, and Philip Ryken:

“…for generations, all strangers were killed by these savage Indians. After many days of patient preparation and devout prayer, the missionaries made the first friendly contact known to history with the Aucas.”

The word “savage” in that plaque gave the apologistas the chills. “Savage,” they say, used in any sentence can be detrimental to the well-being of humans who may come from various places around the world and view that description as applying to them. It is de-humanizing; kinda like the way they killed those godly men. But let’s not jump too far.

It is safe to say that someone looked at that word one day and said, “I cannot handle the viciousness of such language and someone must apologize for it!” And behold, that bastion of orthodoxy is now on its way to rephrase that language. Surely whatever comes from that will minimize the barbaric nature of the Aucas in the 1950’s. Test: How would you describe the act of spearing other human beings to death?

Imagine for a moment a plaque in honor of Jonah, who despite his own frailties, preached to the “barbaric Ninevities…let’s go ahead and call them savages,” and led to a wholesale revival in the city. We wouldn’t want to speak poorly of those sweet decapitators of human skulls! Off with their heads!

The apology culture means that Wheaton and a host of other institutions must correct history as it was and modernize their entire vocabulary to fit the standard of the first idiotic college student who feels offended by any word. But to be fair, it wasn’t just a freshman, it was faculty and staff who were outraged by it as well. And this leads me to say, “Do not send your children to Wheaton!” a They have drunk the apologistas’ kool-aid and have descended into the absurdity.

We are now at a point where the martyrs need to apologize, and the sad reality is that there are thousands of evangelical leaders saying, “Yes, they do, but since they are not alive, we will do it for them.”Ladies and gentlemen, this is not just a grammar issue, it’s a grandeur issue. The modern evangelical landscape no longer allows the grandeur of the Christian story to shine without nuancing it to death.

The truth is, “abortion doctors are savages,” “indigenous people who kill others are savages,” “Nero was a savage,” and gasp: “Hitler was a savage.” But I don’t want to go all crazy here, so I will stop!

The practical solution here is to say as many things publicly as possible so that they will have a tremendous case against you when they come after your words. May it be undeniable that we defended Nate Saint and the memory of Elizabeth Eliot’s husband who fought valiantly against tyrannical and primitive, savage humans who 70 years ago did not have the illumination of the Gospel. May their memories never be erased and may we never apologize for their labors. They fought savages with the Gospel, and as a result, now enjoy the blessings of Christ in their heavenly rest.

  1. I speak as one writer in the Kuyperian team, and do not speak for KC as a whole.  (back)

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