Holy Confessions

Holy Confessions by Thadd Kuehnl
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A local church teacher wrote this excellent devotional study on Westminster.

It goes through the confession, larger, and shorter catechism topically, for 365 pages, one for each day of the year. This is a VERY useful resource for family or private devotions.

A couple weaknesses
- he skips the sacraments section, as he is credo-baptist.
- there is a page or two on the kingdom or the millennium that seemed off to me.

Every other page was solid gold, and I recommend it.

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Church music is a big stinking deal

Church music is a big stinking deal.

When I was in church as a participant in the pew last Sunday (a relatively new experience for me), I realized that I was getting FAR more in word count pressed upon me to sing in worship music than I was in word count in the reading of God's Word.

That's bad, to begin with.

A worship service should have a high quantity of Scripture verses.  I get the sense that many old school presbyterian churches see Scripture the same way they see the sacraments: if we give it to them too often, too much, it won't be special.

So we preach on 1-3 verses at the most, and wind up inadvertently emphasizing our words more than God's.  (If you have to explain 20 verses instead of 2, you'll inevitably refer to Scripture MORE, or you'd better.)  The idea they're chasing is that there is so much rich truth in every word of God, so you can squeeze a lot out of 1-3 verses.  And that is true.  But it isn't like the elves' lembas bread in Lord of the Rings, where if you take more than 3 bites, you're over-stuffed and it does more harm than good.

The principle is not true for either the Word or the sacraments: "If we give too much to them, they won't value it as much."  No.  God's Word should pour down like Niagara over us; the Lord's Table should be like a daily evening meal; they are means of grace, and need frequent use.  They shouldn't be doled out sparingly, in a misguided attempt to get us to value them more, by doing so.

But my larger point here is that the lyrics of worship music have a profound effect on the worshiper.  There are a LOT of words given us to sing in any given worship service!  Luther said that he who sings, prays twice.  If this is true, and I think it is, the words our worship leaders give us to sing are hugely important.  And in almost every worship service, there are more of THEM than there are of God's own words spoken to us!

This winds up being the best argument I've heard for only singing Psalms in worship - so you are affected most by God's Word when you worship Him.  But I'm not convinced of that view, and have been exposed to, ahem, "different" music than I've been used to for the last 20 years.  (CCM instead of Psalms and traditional hymns.)  Some lyrics are quite good.  

As we need sermons to riff on the actual Word of God, we need hymns to riff on the Psalms and other Gospel truths.

So I'll be posting worship music lyrics regularly, as a devotional exercise, as I've been quoting Samuel Rutherford.  

• In worship, we should hear God's Word more.  
• In worship, we should meditate on the words we sing more.

Stay tuned.

In Pursuit of Kindness

In Pursuit of Kindness by Jason Farley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Please read and listen to everything by Jason Farley.
You can find some of his work at Fight Laugh Feast – Chocolate Knox Unplugged podcasts.

An effective antidote to cranky conservatism, Farley knows how to put the screws to those who put truth over grace. His sweeping grasp of Christian cosmology captivates.

In Pursuit of Kindness, he especially rejects a stern, censorious version of the Gospel. But he also rejects the compromising liberal gospel.

Kindness is key.


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Three Kinds of Churchgoers

Why do you go to church where you do?

In my lifetime, I’ve encountered three basic categories of church goers.
I’ve experienced them in this order:

One: Familial/Historical
I grew up in a very historically rooted church.  It was wonderful.  We all lived close to each other, and went to school with each other.  My family and most everyone else’s had been there for more than two generations.  Singing familiar hymns and talking with the same people each Sunday was reassuring.  

The Christian experience was primarily about comfort.  You learned and grew spiritually, but the main thing is that you did so with people you knew, with music that was the same.  Change is near anathema to this temperament.  It's usually a tight-knit group that can be weak in welcoming new people.

New contemporary church plants arise, and feed off rejecting this life pattern.  People who want to break away from family and history, will not stay in familial churches.  They will leave, and go find the latest new thing, where typically people do not know each other nearly as well.


Two: Doctrinal
Once I started reading books of Christian doctrine and history in high school, a whole different world opened up to me. (This was not encouraged in the familial church setting.  Nor discouraged.  Just mostly ignored.)  I discovered churches that existed solely because their last church was wrong on issue X.  So people with no other connection at all, gather in a church because they agree on issues X, Y, and Z.  Here is a list of issues I’ve encountered that rally people.  (I’m on the right; there’s probably a whole separate list of issues on the left that may also apply.)  None of these are necessarily dangerous or unbiblical in themselves, but to organize a church around them instead of the gospel is… less than ideal.  Google C.S. Lewis’ “Christianity and…” for more on that.

• Post-millennialism
• Calvinism (predestination, doctrines of grace)
• Family-integration (having your children in worship, no nursery)
• A particular liturgy
• A particular Bible translation/version
• A particular political persuasion

The Christian experience in the doctrinal church is primarily about learning, and reinforcing assumptions of how we should read the Bible.

The music tends to be Psalms or traditional hymns.
New church plants will arise in this stream, usually breaking away from churches going liberal.
If you force me to choose between these three categories (though that’s not the goal – see below), I would choose this one.

Three: Casual – consumeristic
I’ve had least experience with this category.  But this is most people, I think.
Most people go to a church because they like the:
• music
• programs offered for the kids
• preacher’s pulpit presence/personality
• easy access in and out without a lot of pressure to commit further
• total lack of judgment on anything from your recent divorce to having your coffee in the sanctuary 

(I’m getting snarky now, but you get the idea)

This is the consumer mentality that has sadly come to pervade the church, from the secular capitalist free market world.
The music tends to mimic the latest from Nashville/CCM/radio.
The Christian experience is primarily about experiencing and taking in a program that is put on for you, not so much you actively taking part in worship yourself.

CONCLUSION
Now honestly, none of these three should be rejected or adopted completely.  You should go to church somewhere, and should decide based on a combination of these three factors.  Rejecting any one factor completely, or deciding only based on one, is what I’m arguing against.
• Your history should not lock you in, to the church you’ve “always gone to,” nor should you reject your family wholesale.
• Your latest hobby horse ideas shouldn’t completely dictate going to the church that caters to those ideas.  
• Your life stage and felt needs, your convenience or what the church can “do for you” shouldn’t dictate where you go to church.  ("Ask not what your church can do for you.  Ask what you can do for your church!”)

Just be aware of the downsides to each category, to make an informed decision.

This is all rather negative.  I’ll try to write next describing things you should look for in joining a church.

Getting Back in the Race - review

Getting Back in the Race: The Cure for Backsliding by Joel R. Beeke
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was extremely helpful to me personally in a period of spiritual crisis.

One critique of the Puritans is that they overdid a “morbid introspection.” I agree they did. But sometimes the introspection is warranted. When it is, the Puritans do it right. Count on Joel Beeke to faithfully channel the Puritans on any topic.

But he doesn’t just quote Puritans. Beeke’s touchstone is Scripture, in Hosea.

This book will describe your spiritual state, and show you what to do about it.


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The Cruciform Way

The Cruciform Way: A Steady Cadence of Christ for Life, Volume 1 by Christopher Ian Thoma
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A prolific local Lutheran pastor near me wrote this, keyed to the church year. One devotional per week, 3-4 pages in length. Down to earth reflections on the Christian life and ministry. Recommend just to stay grounded in the ordinary means of grace.

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Life among the Lutherans - a review

Life among the Lutherans by Garrison Keillor
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Leaving Home, a Review
Life among the Lutherans, a review

I love Garrison Keillor. He has a real knack for telling a good story, and subtly weaving in ideas. He can make you think about something deep, just by listening to what you thought was plain tale about down-home people or everyday events. Basically he can be a little preachy without it usually coming off as such.

This can be good or bad, depending on the message. For Keillor it’s a bit of both. Sometimes he’s showing the importance of a small town, and how good it is to be known by those who live around you – something we’ve mostly lost today. But other times, he treats marital affairs and the breakup of families casually, making them feel okay. As long as you can detect and reject the latter, it’s good, lighthearted fun, along the lines of Wodehouse.

This also applies to the church and pastors in the town. They’re shown as a natural and good part of life. As he writes sermons and counsels people, the pastor has his own thoughts and motivations, sometimes aligned with the faith, and other times not. It was easy to recognize myself there. The rivalry between the Catholic and Lutheran church is hilariously caricatured.

But Keillor either doesn’t understand or deliberately misrepresents the faith at many points. Being gracious, he’s trying to explain how and why people of faith fail to live out their beliefs well. But now and then, I noted a darker tone of bitterness against the church. Guilt trips of “perpetual responsibility.” The hypocrisy of insisting on presenting one thing publicly when you live a different way privately.

And salvation was mostly found in the sentiment of fondness for the people in your town, not the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Keillor’s is the faith of Fosdick, Peale, and Schuller, not of Luther.

Still, the social critiques are sometimes justified, and can help church people be self-reflective about their own flaws, without a harsh word given.

So, you’ll find entertaining stories here, which I recommend to the discerning reader. But stay alert to the messages lying beneath.

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Pruning, Storms, and Fruit

I’m sitting in an absolute WRECK of an office.  My office.  Rogue cords, files, laptops, printers are all akimbo.  It’s a sign of the transition I’m in – quitting 2 jobs in 2 months and starting a new one tomorrow.

When you tear things down and rebuild them differently, it produces fresh growth over time.  But in the middle of the process it can hurt like crazy.  This can happen with your relationships, redecorating your home, or changing your habits and life patterns for the better.

We drove to church this morning through a large swath of trees ravaged by a tornado last summer, observing that our lives feel like that right now.  We see, we remember, we cling to, what was cut down.  But God brings fresh undergrowth and shoots out of the storm, over time.  Something better than the status quo with which we were too content.  Much like a state that seeks only to preserve forests winds up with more fires, instead of cultivating, pruning, and taking dominion of what you have.

“There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,

And a branch from his roots shall bear fruit” – Isaiah 11:1.

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser…. 

Every branch that does bear fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit” – John 15:1-2.

Just as the Messiah arose out of the shambles of Israel’s exile, so God prunes His people so they bear fruit.  The history of God’s people is often one big “how much more” logical persuasion that God makes to us in our trouble.  It goes like this: if God could allow the mass deportation and destruction of most of His people, and preserve them and bring forth the Savior of the World from them afterward, HOW MUCH MORE can He bring good out of the lesser troubles in your life?

You might be living out of a box, or your office or emotions are a wreck, or you’re between jobs with an uncertain future, or you’ve just lost someone deeply important in your life.  Whatever it is, God is pruning you for future growth.  (It’s actually happening now, already, but probably only later will you learn some lessons through it and notice the growth.)

Or, if your life is currently stable, secure, and comfortable, then God is calling for fruit.  Are you serving others in need?  Are you saving up for your family’s future?  Are you straining to serve, or resting on your laurels in comfort?

Luke 12:15-21 - “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” 16 And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, 17 and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ 18 And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ 20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ 21 So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

There’s an old saying, that a Christian leader’s job is to comfort the afflicted, and to afflict the comfortable.  It’s clever, and mostly true.  Exhort the comfortable to give, serve, strive more (Matthew 5:13-7:29).  Comfort the afflicted with patience and not demanding they produce fruit amidst traumatic pruning (Matthew 5:1-12).  Sometimes the comfortable feel afflicted, and need their vision recalibrated by God’s Word and sound counsel.  Sometimes the afflicted feel comfortable in the sin that is savaging their soul.  Or the afflicted feel condemned and need rest in the Gospel, not a call to strive to serve more just now.

As we read in Ecclesiastes 3 yesterday, to everything there is a season.

A time to uproot, a time to plant.

A time to submit to the surgeon's scalpel, a time to gut through it.

A time to heal, a time to work.

Know your spiritual state, and act accordingly.

Joshua 6:22-25

What must Rahab’s father and family have thought, when Israel saved them because of Rahab’s faith? 

 

What a work of redemption God did in that family, as Rahab turned from her wicked ways, believed in the God of Israel, and married an Israelite.  And her whole family saw it.  Her son was Boaz, who later married Ruth (Matthew 1:5).  An earthly ancestor of Jesus.

 

What have you done terribly wrong, that God will turn and redeem into wonderful things that glorify Him?

Joshua 5:1-7

The generation of Israel that came out of Egypt had all been circumcised.  But they had circumcised none of their children.

This parallels Moses’ journey TO Egypt (Exodus 4), where God almost killed him, and/or his son, because Moses had not circumcised him.

The point isn’t that you are out of God’s favor because you don’t circumcise (or baptize) yourself or your children.

 

The point is that God puts the two things (action and sacrament) together, both as an outward sign of inward faith.  Israel coming out of Egypt believed God, having seen the signs.  But their faith quickly wavered and their children didn’t believe and refused to enter the promised land.  Moses going to Egypt did not believe God sufficiently, it would seem.  But God gave him the faith on the way to do what God called him to do.

 

Notice that taking God’s signs on yourself or your children leaves you physically vulnerable for a time.  When Israel was circumcised after crossing the Jordan in Joshua 5, they were vulnerable to military attack.  Even a hardened soldier, trained to keep an eye on the exits, is susceptible to attack when taking a shower/bath (circumcision/baptism) or when sitting down to a meal and focused on his food (Passover/Communion).

 

But God prepares a table for us in the presence of our enemies (Psalm 23:5; Joshua 5:10-12).

 

The whole point of faith, of receiving the covenant signs, the sacraments, is that you trust God to protect you, instead of relying on yourself to do it.

Life Update

I’m going to start writing and posting again. 

It’s been about 3 months of a hiatus.

 

I’m no longer a pastor and do not speak/write with the authority of that office. 

(I have a “secular” job now – an indefinite break from “full-time ministry.”)

 

It’s probably weird for most of you to hear, but I am totally unfamiliar with how to live, work, attend church, husband, parent, befriend, and write, as a Christian who is not a pastor.  (Been pastoring for 20 years, since 2003).

 

My beliefs have not changed, though I may articulate some minor changes of emphasis in the coming months.

 

Pray for me in this time of transition:

To transition well to “secular” work.

To forgive those in the church who have mistreated me, as I need forgiveness for sinning against God and others.

To grow closer to the Lord and have a heart seeking His face, His glory.