Dever on relevancy and faithfulness

We've been discussing relevance and culture and the mission of the church in the thread below. I read an article by Mark Dever today that was most helpful. (h/t Craig).

Here's a bit to get you thinking.

"On the other hand, I am concerned about those who, in the name of evangelism, alter everything in their churches’ services to make the non-Christian feel more at home, all the while, ironically, assuming that everybody sufficiently understands the gospel. In other words, they don’t preach the whole counsel of God, and they do not speak week after week about God’s holy character, his holy wrath, his love made all the more astounding in light of his holiness, and his remarkable act of substitution on the cross. Like I already said, read their books and attend their conferences and you learn that they apparently think that knowing how to "be relevant" is the church’s major challenge. Holding onto the gospel, it would seem, is comparatively easy.

Consider what might actually be happening to the gospel message when all our effort goes into changing the "presentation" until we successfully yield a response from carnal man. Might we
not actually be at risk of changing the message itself?"

Mark Dever

Read more here.

10 points for anyone who knows me well enough to get the joke with the picture

Two Firsts!

I've never played Tennis before. (gasp!) I've never been the sporty type, although I've played a lot of tabletennis. I'm having my first hit this afternoon with a guy from our Bible Study who's gone Tennis Crazy in the last few weeks, and wants a hitting partner. Should be fun!

After that another mate is coming over for some coffee roasting and Bible reading. Despite being a professional barista in my life before full time ministry, I've never actually roasted coffee before. Will let you know how it goes!

My space...

...is so cluttered and jumbled (click here). I just don't get what the attraction is...?

Driscoll on the Emerging Church

I've been trying to find something to help me understand the 'emerging church' in a simple way for quite some time now. This video helped me to at least start getting my head around this complicated concept.
A major problem seems to be the terminology - emerging has three differnt strands, and then there is 'emergent' which sounds the same but seems to be the one to be wary of. As Driscoll says: "They tend to be more liberal on such things as substitutionary atonement, authority of scripture, exclusivity of Christ, and original sin...". The other branches seem to be more interested in rethinking the practices of church meetings and evangelism to reach a younger, non-churched generation of society. Thoughts?

P.S this is our 100th post! Hooray!

New stuff from Sovereign Grace

I've loved learning some Sovereign Grace songs at church this year. They've just released a new album called Valley of Vision which looks promising. The CD is founded upon the prayers of Puritans like John Bunyan, Thomas Watson, Richard Baxter, and Isaac Watts among others. Origianlly published in a book of the same name, now Sovereign Grace have put these prayers to music, and they sound great. I really like 'Let your Kingdom Come'. I hope we pick up some of these for church soon.

Desiring God

Last night at Bible study, we did a one off study on John Piper. In our group planning at the start of the year, our group decided that they would like to learn about some theologians in the weeks between our regular studies. So, having finished Ephesians and having had a social last week, we took to John Piper last night.
We listened to this sermon as a group and then discussed the ideas that it raised. Basically the sermon is the grounds for the first chapter of the book Desiring God.

One verse that Piper refers to in the sermon really resonated with me . Piper had set forth the problem of our sin before God. How can we possibly have confidence that God will forgive us? Is it that God has a duty to forgive us? Is he bound by some heavenly set of rules that force him to be merciful?
Answer: Jeremiah 9:24, "'I am the Lord who performs mercy and justice and righteousness in the earth, because in these things I delight' says the Lord."

God delights in showing us mercy. He loves to do it. He is not, in Piper terms, a 'gloomy God'. He loves to show mercy. He loves to forgive. It brings God joy to be merciful. Thanks be to God that he loves to be merciful!

Blogger Beta

Google is taking over the world.

Blogger Beta has been released. You can tour the features here.
It looks cool, and Google own it.

Chaser on the Vod

The ABC have released a vodcast (video podcast) of The Chasers War on everything. Looks like you can now subscribe and get the entire season for free.




This is surely the way that television will go in the future. No need to be home on Friday night at 9:30 - just subscribe and watch whenever you like, as many times as you like. Quality is pretty good too!

New podcast

The youth team at Carlo have launched a podcast of their friday night preaching from their youth group, Salt. Most of it is from Mike Everett - who is a fine preacher, but I think there may be others in time to come. If you're looking for a short 15-20 minute bible talk for the train trip etc - this is the place.

Subscribe here, listen online here.

Pray for the ministry to youth in Carlingford

Preaching to the Heart.

Earlier this year, I went to the MTS preachers conference. The theme of the conference was 'Preaching to the heart'. We spent two days studying the puritans, and the way in which they preached. It was a call for our preaching to be more than just a "going through of the information" in the text. Instead we were encouraged to "present the gospel truth in terms of its effect on the affections". Good preaching is not about us examining the scriptures only - Good preaching will let the scriptures examine us.
The sermon last night at Christians in the Media was a fine example of this. It was preaching from the heart, about the heart of God. Don't miss this sermon.

Social

Tonight we're taking our Bible Study group out for a social evening at Manly. Last week we finished a 12 or so week series on Ephesians, so we decided to have a night off, and go out as a group. The main reason for choosing Manly is so that Tobias (a German student on exchange who has joined our group) can see this beautiful part of Sydney. Updates and photos tomorrow.

What would you reccommend we visit in Manly?
What would you like to see a photo of tomorrow?

iTunes 7

As a long time Mac user, I've had iTunes since right back at version 1. Today Apple released version 7, and it's finally included the one thing I've wanted for ages - album artwork. Yes they've had it for songs you buy off the music store for a while - but now you can have it even for the songs you already owned. iTunes downloads it all for you, and you can see it as you flick through your songs - as if you were flicking through your CD collection. It's a small pleasure - but I'm excited. You can download the new version here.

New Strongbad...

...Wasn't that funny - so I'm not putting up the link this week :)

Life in God

In my quiet times, I spend about 20 minutes reading the scriptures, and then 20 mins reading a theologian, and then 20 mins praying. Lately I've been working through "Life in God" by Martyn Lloyd-Jones. I've thouroughly enjoyed reading the thoughts of someone from another generation, as he takes on the issues of his time. Some of the issues we no longer face - others, like the two quotes I've put in this post, sound as if he wrote them for us today. I have only one chapter left in this book - maybe you'd like to borrow it when I'm finished.

"I think you will find that at every period of revival and reformation, the church has stood out distinct and apart. That is always the way; when the Church is unique, she has the greatest influence upon the world. The tragedy of this (his, not our) century especially has been that the Church in her folly has been trying to accomodate herself to the world, thinking that by so doing she could attract it. But the world expects the Christian to be different, and it is right - this is the New Testament emphasis. It is nothing but a departure from the New Testament doctrine that ever tries to make the Church ingratiate herself to the world; the Church is meant to be, and is, essentially different."

"We say man is improving, but has there ever been so much selfishness manifested in the life of the nation as there is today, a self-centredness as well as a self-seeking? It is the only explanation of the appalling increase in divorce; it is the whole explanation of the spirit of greed; it is the whole basis of the attitude of the average person towards work - I do the minimum, I get the maximum - greed, self-centredness, the increasing rudeness in life, the increasing lack of consideration for others, the appalling suffering that is caused to innocent little children through the sheer selfishness of parents. The whole attitude towards life today as looked at in every respect is one that is showing this self-centredness. We do certain things on the surface, but man as man is still this selfish creature."

How do you do your quiet time or bible reading?