Reformation Day Discovery

This is a re-post from last year.  I’ve already had a few hits on this post this year, with folks searching for Reformation ideas - sure hope it gives someone ideas!!  I’ve posted photos and game ideas from last year’s party here.

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Since I’ve had children, I go through the official “Halloween-Analysis” each October.

As a Christian family, why would we celebrate Halloween?

Is it bad to celebrate a holiday that has its roots in witchery and evil?

Or, is it good to show the world that God can redeem all things, even holidays, to use them for His glory?

If we do allow God to redeem the holiday, what ways can we use it to truly glorify Him? Is it more effective to go to a Harvest Festival, or pass out tracts ‘n treats from home? What would make God happy?

For us, the answers to these questions have been different every year. I am positive that we will continue to really think through this issue as time goes on.

This year, however, Halloween never even made it to our radar screen. Why? Because we found something MORE EXCITING to do on October 31st.

Have you ever heard of Reformation Day? Until a year or two ago, I hadn’t. Although raised in a Christian tradition, I was never a part of denominations that celebrated this day (nor did the churches I grew up in focus much on Church history).

Discovering Reformation Day has given our family a wonderful excuse to PARTY! And the fact that it coincides with Halloween simply left no room for Halloween-analysis this year. Instead of feeling as if we needed a Halloween-alternative, we seemed to find a “real” reason to celebrate. (This year, we did still pass out tracts and candy to the ghouls and goblins that came to our door, I can’t think of any reason to pass up giving a real “treat” to someone who knocks on my door and asks for it. In fact, after learning all about getting God’s Word into people’s hands at our Reformation Day Party, my middle son gave a BIBLE to a trick-or-treater!!)

Please see this post for more information on our celebration of Reformation Day, game and study ideas, and lots of pictures!

Reformation Day Discovery

Since I’ve had children, I go through the official “Halloween-Analysis” each October.

As a Christian family, why would we celebrate Halloween?

Is it bad to celebrate a holiday that has its roots in witchery and evil?

Or, is it good to show the world that God can redeem all things, even holidays, to use them for His glory?

If we do allow God to redeem the holiday, what ways can we use it to truly glorify Him? Is it more effective to go to a Harvest Festival, or pass out tracts ‘n treats from home? What would make God happy?

For us, the answers to these questions have been different every year. I am positive that we will continue to really think through this issue as time goes on.

This year, however, Halloween never even made it to our radar screen. Why? Because we found something MORE EXCITING to do on October 31st.

Have you ever heard of Reformation Day? Until a year or two ago, I hadn’t. Although raised in a Christian tradition, I was never a part of denominations that celebrated this day (nor did the churches I grew up in focus much on Church history).

Discovering Reformation Day has given our family a wonderful excuse to PARTY! And the fact that it coincides with Halloween simply left no room for Halloween-analysis this year. Instead of feeling as if we needed a Halloween-alternative, we seemed to find a “real” reason to celebrate. (This year, we did still pass out tracts and candy to the ghouls and goblins that came to our door, I can’t think of any reason to pass up giving a real “treat” to someone who knocks on my door and asks for it. In fact, after learning all about getting God’s Word into people’s hands at our Reformation Day Party, my middle son gave a BIBLE to a trick-or-treater!!)

For more information on our celebration of Reformation Day (and LOTS of pictures!!), click over to our family’s home education blog(I like to keep more of our personal photos and life details over there — its a cyber scrapbook of sorts for me). I found it difficult to locate on-line resources for this type of party, so I do hope this is of help to someone out there in cyberspace :)

Seeker Sensitivity v. Hospitality

I recently posted on how I feel God is beginning to cultivate hospitality within me (slowly yet surely).

This interesting article from Leadership Journal says that the Church has thrown out hospitality in favor of being seeker-sensitive. The author makes a few interesting points, and I thought I’d pass it on to you as food for thought.

Here’s an excerpt (read the whole thing here):

“…in the modern age the church abandoned the traditional language of loving strangers in favor of a new dialect. We called it ’seeker sensitivity.’ The seeker church movement has taken the Bedouin and monastic idea of hospitality (host first, ask questions later) and reversed it. Now, thanks to the influence of business practices and marketing, the church tries to discover everything possible about its target guests, and then hosts according to their predetermined expectations. The result has been a radical shift in the way Christians worship and express their devotion to Christ, and a dehumanizing of Christian hospitality.

“Where market research replaces the simple call to love strangers, the responsibility to be hospitable is no longer felt by individual members of the church—the music, sermon, and worship service have all been test-engineered to do the job instead. Market analysis has also shown that many people prefer to visit a church anonymously, so seeker-driven churches will often avoid identifying newcomers. Jesus may be among us in the form of a stranger, but we would never know it unless he filled out a response card.”

If you would like to further investigate this way of thinking regarding hospitality, I highly recommend a book which seems to stem from a similar point of view — Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition.

Hot Theology

What’s IN and what’s OUT in The Church today?

Thanks to Irish Calvinist — a spirited, intellectual blog that is a delight to read, I caught wind that the current issue of Christianity Today is highlighting Calvinism with a cover story entitled, “Young, Restless, and Reformed: Calvinism is making a comeback — and shaking up the church.”

The past few years, Ron and I have been on a journey toward Calvinism (Read, Dad: Not Determinism, and not Fatalism). We thought God was leading us individually toward interesting revelations of His Nature and Being…we felt so special…

Well, it appears we were not alone. And the Church is beginning to take notice.

Recently in Reformed Theology: Boxers or Brief, I quoted Marc Driscoll,

“The two hot theologies today are Reformed and emerging. Reformed theology offers certainty, with a masculine God who names our sin, crushes Jesus on the Cross for it, and sends us to hell if we fail to repent. Emerging theology offers obscurity, with a neutered God who would not say an unkind word to us, did not crush Jesus for our sins, and would not send anyone to hell.”

My sister recently said that we need to watch not for the Emerging Church but for the Resurging Church! According to Christianity Today, “While the Emergent ‘conversation’ gets a lot of press for its appeal to the young, the new Reformed movement may be a larger and more pervasive phenomenon. It certainly has a much stronger institutional base.”

Dave Chang, a Christian Believer from Malaysia and author of the blog Confessions of a Hedonese, gives his thoughts on this article and the resurgence of Reformed theology in in Young, Restless and Reformed Asians and Winds of Change. He thinks the 3 greatest draws of Calvinism are 1) the robust and coherent theology (that many of us have missed in our anti-intellectual Christian culture with its emphasis on personal experience), 2) the tendency of Reformed Believers to engage their Christianity in all spheres of life (avoiding a compartmentalized life of religious v. secular) and 3) the fact that much of Reform theology is grouded solidly in scripture (causing many who desire to avoid theological “labels” or “putting God in a box” to surprisingly find themselves squarely in the Calvinist camp).

In the Christianity Today article, Joshua Harris is quoted as saying it was that the theological depth attracted him to Calvinism. “Once you’re exposed to [doctrine],” he said, “you see the richness in it for your own soul, and you’re ruined for anything else…I just think there’s such a hunger for the transcendent and for a God who is not just sitting around waiting for us to show up so that the party can get started.”

I think the best thing about this theological movement is that it isn’t heavy-handed, but rather humble. This resurgence of Calvinism includes a heart and legs.

According to Christianity Today,

“Those fearing a new pitched battle [on Free Will v. Election] can rest easy. That’s not because the debate will go away–for the foreseeable future, the spread of Calvinism will force many evangelicals to pick sides. And it’s not because mission will trump doctrine–young people seem to reject this dichotomy.

“It’s because the young Calvinists value theological systems far less than God and his Word. Whatever the cultural factors, many Calvinist converts respond to hallmark passages like Romans 9 and Ephesians 1. “I really don’t like to raise any banner of Calvinism or Reformed theology,” said Eric Lonergan, a 23-year-old University of Minnesota graduate. ‘Those are just terms. I just like to look at the Word and let it speak for itself.’ “

Provocations and Pantings says that the Christianity Today article got to the heart of the resurgence of Calvinism today:

“It has to do with a proper view of God, God’s gospel, God’s grace, and God’s glory. Notice the common feature is God. I was encouraged greatly to hear the testimonies of some of the young folk who said that the issue is not five points, Geneva, or some theological abstractions. Rather, it is truths that make your hearts sing as Piper put it, truths that, as Harris rightly noted, cause us to shake our heads going, “It’s unbelievable. Why would God choose any of us?” Indeed, God’s grace is amazing grace. From beginning to end, Calvinism leads one to have a God-saturated life where everything is seen and measured by God’s glory.”

Irish Calvinist points out that historically, with return to “Reformed,” or solid, biblical theololgy, comes REVIVAL. Oh, yes! My heart leaps within me at this thought — the idea that The Church, youth ministry, and my children’s generation of Christians may indeed be moving towards thinking more biblically, towards revival? What an uplifting and exciting thought!

For more blogger voices on this issue of Christianity Today:

Cyrene Ministries

Good Manson

Scott’s Simple Story

Catechism, smatechism?

My dad recently emailed me this post from Bob’s Blog, about how re-introducing catechisms into our churches’ ministries to children should be a “no-brainer.” It’s a very informative read, and if you are at all curious about catechisms, I adjure you to take the time to read this post and Bob’s promised series on catechism.

Bob quotes John Murray, Assistant Editor of Banner of Truth Magazine as saying:

“It is surely an indictment of the Church today that in dealing with the subject of catechizing we have to begin by explaining the very meaning of the term. What was looked on as a necessary and beneficial practice by the early church and by the Reformers has now fallen into such disuse among Christian people that very few seem to have any understanding or appreciation of the subject. And yet we believe it is to the discontinuance of this practice that we can trace much of the doctrinal ignorance, confusion and instability so characteristic of modern Christianity.”

Wow. Mr. Murray may just have a point — at least about the lack of understanding or appreciation in today’s Church for the practice of catechism. Although I was raised in a born-again family with parents in full-time ministry (mostly Baptist churches), I didn’t really know what catechism was until went to a Christian Middle School that was affiliated with a Lutheran Church. Even then, I only knew it was something many of my friends had to “do” to become a full-fledged adult in the Lutheran Church, and I didn’t realize exactly what it was they were “doing.” My friends from Baptist churches seemed to have a better handle on Christian doctrine and truth than those involved in more liturgical churches, so the idea of catechism was not a draw to me at the time.

As parents, my husband and I have recently considered the idea of teaching our children from catechisms, and possibly memorizing one or more of them. The first time we really gave it some thought was when we read this fabulous article on family worship (see pages 6 through 16 of this very large .pdf file). Though the article resonated with me, I sort of wrote off the idea of catechism as “Presbyterian Thing.” I thought, “Catechism, smatechism.” I planned to teach my children plenty of scripture, and didn’t understand why someone else’s take on scripture would be of value to us.

The more my husband and I have considered catechisms, the more we have found there is to like. Instead of being a replacement for scripture, I see that catechisms can be used to organize scripture, and help with memorization of scriptural truths. I still don’t think catechisms are NECESSARY to teaching children or new believers about theology, but now I see they can indeed be very helpful (along with creeds). The conclusion I’ve come to is that if one sees catechism as his/her servant, not becoming a slave to the catechism (and not letting the Word of God become secondary to it), it can be quite useful for teaching your children systematic theology.

We haven’t yet used any of the following ideas concerning catechism, but thought I would share what direction we are looking toward. Hopefully these ideas will be helpful to you as well:

From Crown and Covenant, we found a devotional book called Training Hearts, Teaching Minds that looks fabulous. Training Hearts, Teaching Minds focuses on each question/answer of the Westminster Shorter Catechism for one week at a time, reading scripture and devotionals on different aspects of that question/answere each day of the week. (Not long ago, Training Hearts and catechisms in general sparked a lively discussion on the Choosing Home blog.)

Somehow (I can’t remember how!), I came across this Small Catechism for Preschoolers, homemade by a dad for his little kiddos. I love this idea, using scripture as the answers to the catechism questions — you can’t go wrong with scripture. I’m thinking about re-writing it using our favorite Bible version, the ESV.

I have heard about this little CD, Why Can’t I See God by Judy Rogers, that is based on the Westminster Shorter Catechism. It is a little goofy, but I think my kids would like it, especially my son-who-makes-up-songs-wherever-he-goes. Please, leave a link in the comments section if you know of other catechism resources that may be helpful to our family.

**Please forgive any error on the idea of or misuse of the spelling of “catechism” — I am still figuring this stuff out. For example, is the word Catechism a noun or a verb, a body of words or a class you take, should it always be capitalized or only with with a proper name attached?? ACK!

Free Will and Calvinism

Investigating the relationship between God’s Sovereignty and Free Will (see Calvinism with a Heart and Legs) brought me back to JollyBlogger’s blog today. For awhile, on my old blog, I had stolen JollyBlogger’s blog quote by C.S. Lewis:

Grace substitutes a full, childlike, and delighted acceptance of our Need, a joy in total dependence. We become like Jolly Beggars.

JollyBlogger wrote a little series explaining Calvinism. I absolutely love his Intro to the Five Points of Calvinism where he explains, humbly and logically, why we end up using words like Calvinism as “theolgical shorthand” out of courtesy and necessity, to explain a theological position and not to identify ourselves with a man. One of his posts in this series is called Total Depravity and Free Will, and I thought I’d share a little of his point of view with you:

First of all, I want to address a comment that is commonly made in evangelical circles. The comment goes something like this “God is a gentleman and there is one thing He will never do - He will never violate a person’s free will.” I’ve heard variations on this in many places and I have to admit that I think it is one of the most ludicrous things that a Christian could say.

Anyone who has ever prayed for God to change a person’s heart has prayed that God would “violate” that person’s free will. Which parent, who has a child who is walking away from the faith really wants God to not interfere with that child’s will.

Certainly we have biblical examples like God’s hardening of Pharaoh’s heart and the proverbial statement that the heart of the king is in the hands of the Lord, and He turns it whatever way He wishes. But having said that, all of the questions are not answered.

We Calvinists affirm that man has a free will. The question gets into just what do the effects total depravity (or radical corruption as I like to call it) do to a person’s will and how does God apply His will to our will.

JollyBlogger speaks of his seminary president who taught that we always need to stay within the center of biblical tension. In other words, though the Bible does not contradict itself, there are paradoxes and seeming polarities in scripture. JollyBlogger explains that the Bible affirms human freedom AND God’s Sovereignty. (If this Calvinism doesn’t sound like Biblicism to you, I will be surprised).

He notes the Westminister Confession (which is well-known as a “Calvinist” Confession) that states in Chapter 9, Section 1:

God hath endued the will of man with that natural liberty, that it is neither forced, nor, by any absolute necessity of nature, determined to good, or evil. (Matt. 17:12, James 1:14, Deut. 30:19)

He goes on to explain how our sinful natures affect — or define — our free will:

So, in this regard, biblically, we have to affirm human freedom and God’s sovereignty. This may sound like I am giving away the farm and basically taking a non-Calvinist view. However, I would ask the non-Calvinists to carefully consider how they define human freedom. I’ve written on this before, but I’ll repeat my assertion that freedom is always circumscribed in some way. Our freedom is always bound by our nature….every man has absolute freedom to do what he wants to do, but due to the presence of sin, natural man will never want to believe in Christ unto salvation. That is the problem – we have a “wanter” that doesn’t want God. This is the real crux of the free will debate. Calvinists believe the bible teaches that man, in his natural state, just doesn’t want to believe savingly in Christ. And his “wanter” can only be changed by the regeneration of the Holy Spirit.

Man has a free will, but this freedom is dependent upon the sovereign grace of God. Yet God sovereignly orchestrates all of the events of this life, even the free choices of man according to His purposes. Even in our freedom, we have never willed or done anything that is not according to God’s purpose. Yet, the choices have been ours. The Westminster Confession chapter 5 on providence speaks of this: Although, in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first Cause, all things come to pass immutably, and infallibly; (Acts 2:23) yet, by the same providence, He ordereth them to fall out, according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently. (Gen. 8:22, Jer. 31:35, Exod. 21:13, Deut. 19:5, I Kings 22:28,34, Isa. 10:6–7)

Notice, that though God’s will is immutable and infallible, He causes things to come to pass according to the nature of second causes – necessarily, freely or contingently.

JollyBlogger admits that not all Calvinists are happy with his explanations of free will, but says that these guys are not the norm. From my personal experience, I would agree with him. NONE of the Calvinists I have met or read in the past few years embrace a determinism or fatalism of which his critics esteem:

I want to address a particular issue that comes up more from the Calvinistic side. On another blog I shared a few of my thoughts on this in a comment, and there were some who took issue with my position. They seemed to think my view of sovereignty was a little weak. From what I gathered, I think they didn’t think that my view did justice to the principle of the kings heart being in the hand of the Lord, that the Lord might turn it whatever way He chooses. I think my critics on that blog have the impression that we are puppets on a string, and not only does God control our every action, but even the thoughts and intentions of our hearts.

To me, this is a level of determinism that approaches fatalism and goes beyond what even the historic Calvnistic creeds would affirm. I see that view as a hyper-Calvinistic view that most Calvinists wouldn’t affirm.

What do you think of JollyBlogger’s attempt at explaining how Free Will fits into the Doctrines of Grace? In my experience, Calvinist friends have mirrored JollyBlogger on this issue. For me, Calvinism has not turned out to be as extreme as I once thought it was — rather, it has turned out to be very close to what some term “Biblicism.”

Here’s a few other Calvinists’ take on Free Will:

R.C. Sproul:

God is sovereign. Man is free. Man’s freedom is limited, however, by God’s sovereignty. God’s sovereignty is not limited by man’s freedom. This is simply to say that man is not God. God is free and man is free. But God is more free than a man. Man’s freedom is always and everywhere subordinate to God’s freedom. If we reverse these we pass from theism to atheism, from Christianity to humanism, from Christ to Anti-christ.

Douglas Wilson has a remarkable argument that our “will” — our choice of actions — comes from our hearts (Matthew 12:33-37). Jesus doesn’t give us a new will when we become Christians, rather he gives us a new heart — meaning you’ll soon see a Christian who begins making new choices not because he was given a different status of will, but because he is acting out of his new heart.He goes on to say:

No man is capable of making a choice contrary to the strongest desire of his heart. This is an inexorable law; there are no exceptions — even God’s choices proceed from His immutable and holy nature. A person may certainly has other desires, and they may be very strong desires (Romans 7:18-23). But what he finally does is what he wanted to do most, and he is therefore responsible for the choice.If the choice were not his strongest desire, he would not have chosen it. Let us return to our example of the bowl of cockroaches for a moment. Suppose a man said, in order to refute this teaching, that he didn’t want to eat a cockroach, but that he was going to do so anyway — so there. Is this a refutation? Not at all. It simply means that his will acted on the basis of his strongest desire, which is now to win the debate.

If we take these factors together, we see that it is nonsense to talk of a free will, as though there were this autonomous thing inside of us, capable of acting in any direction, regardless of the motives of the heart. If there could be such a thing — a creature who made choices not determined by the desires of its heart — we would not applaud this creature as a paragon of free will, but would rather pity it as a collection of random, arbitrary, insane choices. Such a creature would not be, and could not be, a free and responsible agent. We would recoil in horror from an exhibition of such autonomous free will. Choices made apart from the desires of the heart? They would be an exhibition, not of freedom, but of insanity. “Why did you throw the vase against the wall?” “Because I wanted to go for a walk.”

So a far more Biblical way of speaking is to speak of free men, and not of free will. And what is a free man? He is someone who is free from external compulsion and is consequently at liberty to do what his heart desires. This is a natural liberty, and all men are in possession of it. It is the only kind of liberty possible for us, and it is a gift to us from God. Under the superintendence of God, all men, Christian and non-Christian, have the freedom to turn left or right, to choose chocolate or vanilla, or to move to this city or that one — depending entirely upon what they want to do. The foreordination of God does not violate this; it is the cause of this — but more on this in a moment.

Notice that this natural liberty is not the same thing as the freedom from sin, i.e. moral liberty. In Romans 6:20,22, Paul makes the distinction between natural liberty and moral liberty. He says:

For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness… But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life.

Slavery to sin is true slavery, but even sin does not negate natural liberty — the slave to sin is free from righteousness, but is still not free from his own desires. This slave to sin is one who loves sin, and consequently obeys it. As a creature, he is free to do what he wants, which is to continue in sin. But he is not free to desire righteousness. Why is he not free to do right? Because his sinful heart does not love what is right. Like all men, he is not free to choose what is repulsive to him, and true godliness is repulsive to him. So in the realm of morality, he is therefore free in a limited sense — free from the control of righteousness. When God, by grace, liberates him from the bondage of his own sin-loving heart, he is then a slave to God. As a slave to righteousness, the Christian freely, out of a new heart, follows Christ.

Driscoll’s Apology

Remember the post on the Marc Driscoll/Brian McLaren Throwdown, Round I over the issue of Homesexuality and The Church?

You’ll find a sincere and humble apology here from Driscoll, for his “harsh words and personal attacks,” with no compromise on theology. Gotta dig Driscoll.

Calvinism with a Heart and Legs

Listening to Receive the Glory over on Worship Matters today, I was reminded of why I am drawn to Calvinism: Calvinists score high on giving the glory to God and not to ourselves.

I just don’t know about the word Calvinism. It brings up strong feelings — often negative — at the mere sound. When I mention I am becoming more Calvinist, most people retort with, “Doesn’t the Bible say we should NOT claim to be of Paul, Apollos, or Calvin? That we should claim to be of Jesus alone?” Obviously, Calvin wasn’t around when scripture was written, but in principle, yes! the Bible clearly states we should be dependent upon the Lord Himself and His word alone.

What I think of when I hear the word Calvinism must not be the same thing those who react negatively are thinking. When I say I am becoming more Calvinist, I certainly don’t picture myself bowing a knee to a medieval saint, nor signing away my soul to a contract of uptight religious ideals. I simply mean that I am coming to see that God has a lot more to do with what we see going on on our planet that I could have imagined, and the inverse, that this is all about Him and for Him.

It could be that dear old Calvinism has simply been often misunderstood. Check out Pyromanics, about halfway down this post, for an extremely interesting comparison of Historic v. Internet Calvinism (the post and ensuing comments are worth a read themselves). The only thing I would add to Johnson’s ideas is that it isn’t just the Internet that has given Calvinism a bad name — many people have blown Calvin’s words far out of proportion and wielded them as swords against innocent bystanders, whether on-line, in books, on television or in real life — but isn’t this simply reality? Doesn’t this happen to every people group in one way or another? Haven’t plenty of so-called Christians given authentic Christianity disgustingly ugly marks? Or even so-called Republicans or so-called Democrats, who speak out for “the rest of us,” when they haven’t a freaking clue what they are saying? To me this seems a human problem, not one unique to John Calvin or the genuine theology behind Calvinism.

Or maybe its just that one cannot see the genuine theology behind Calvinism with a man’s name tatooed to the front of it (not to mention a silly little flower being the basis for explaining its theological points!). The new buzz word for Calvinism is “Doctrines of Grace” or more simply “Sovereign Grace.” Now, that hits the nail on the head for me. The person of Calvin is dropped from the terminology, and its place are an emphasis on God’s Sovereignty and God’s Grace — two attributes of God that permeate scripture. There’s even an entire new (wonderful!) denomination, aptly named Sovereign Grace, that is built around “Charismatic Calvinism.”

Ummm. Yum.

I have also recently heard today’s Calvinism as being referred to as Neo-Calvinism, or Reformational (rather than simply Reform). In fact, Brian Borger, of the Coalition for Christian Outreach, defines the word Reformational in a way I wholeheartedly embrace:

“Reformational: A word coined to describe a new brand of Calvinists who take the ideas of the Protestant Reformation beyond theology and abstract debates about the nature of the atonement and church life and rather seek to bring about Christian cultural change and social transformation. Serious, lasting change, however, can only come about after serious and radical re-formation of the philosophical assumptions currently deforming each sphere of culture. Reformational folk realize that to be “light in the darkness,” we need to re-think the inner structures of each academic discipline which shape each area of life.”

I like to think of this “new” movement as Calvinism with a Heart and Legs. We’ve heard lately a lot about the Emerging Church, but as Calvinism makes a comeback, I think we ought to watch for the “Re-surging” Church. As the Church re-surges back to God’s Word Alone, Faith Alone, Grace Alone, Christ Alone, for God’s Glory Alone, She will pack a strong punch. Her strength will be built on the foundation of God Alone. Her charm and loveliness will become evident by her heart of compassion for the poor, needy, hurting and hungry. Her devotion will be revealed by her legs ready to run and meet the physical and spiritual needs of others as She spreads the gospel of Jesus Christ around the world.

I am of the opinion that as a Church we need to re-surge, or reform, more than we need to emerge or evolve. Re-surging brings to mind reforming, and changing back to the way things once were. For you see, rather than coming up with a new gospel, The Five Solas of the Reformation point us back to God’s Word and God Himself. The New Testament does this same thing, and does it better, of course.

The Emerging Church has done us all a favor by pointing out many of Christianity’s current issues and blindspots. I would submit to them that these problems will be solved with resurgence — because God’s Word has answers that work in any time or age. My hope is that as the Emerging Church grows and matures it will join hands and stand together with the Re-surging Church on the Truth of God’s Word.

John Calvin would not have wanted glory for his ideas, he would have wanted the glory to go to God. This is the heart of Calvinism — whatever you want call it — to God be all the glory.

Notes:

For a good debriefing on historical and theological Calvinism, check out a few of these articles on John Piper’s Desiring God Website.

Check the sidebar for few ministries that seem very “Reformational,” “Neo-Calvinist” or “Sovereign Grace-ish” to me.

Resurging Church

Marc Driscoll is a Resurging Church kind of guy.

A few months ago, I stumbled onto Mark Driscoll’s blog – right at its inception. His first few posts summed up my thoughts in a way I never could. Driscoll is part of a movement in Christianity that emphasizes the solid ground of the biblical theology along with a fresh missiology (or servanthood) to the world. Mars Hill Church is a fun family church that is led by the Spirit and grounded in the Word. They watch new hip movies together -inviting the community — and discuss the movie afterwards. They have excellent worship that blends new songs and hymns. They are strong on the inerrancy of scripture and the differing roles of men and women women in the Church. They don’t shy away from preaching about sin. They aren’t scared of breaking from tradition to try new ideas.
I have found this same combination — missional and yet scriptural Christianity - occurring in other arenas of Christianity, and it excites me greatly!

For myself, the jury is still out on The Emerging Church — there’s good, bad, ugly and wonderful mixed up in that animal — but I am thoroughly excited about The Resurging Church Movement.

From Driscoll’s first blog post, “Since that time I have frankly not known what my place is in the greater church. I am part of no denomination and in a city where the evangelical heterosexual male pastors could have a meeting in a phone booth. Theologically I am an old school Bible-thumper, and culturally I am a progressive because my heart burns for the church to be an effective missionary to the culture for the gospel.”

Homosexuality and The Emerging Church

This just snagged from the A-Team’s blog:

“The Mark Driscoll-Brian McLaren Throwdown, Round 1″

“If you thought this blog was rough, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet! Emergent leader Brian “The Godfather” McLaren recently posted this article about homosexuality, to which Mark “The Pistol” Driscoll fired back with a very unrestrained comment, which was posted here. Various reactions to the Driscoll-McLaren Throwdown have sprung up around the blogosphere, with Andrew Jones and Steve McCoy leading the way. So, who wants to get in on the betting action? I got ten bucks that says Driscoll knocks McLaren out in the eleventh round. Boo-yah.”

Also found this link to Douglas Wilson’s response to McLaren.

It is nice to see people reacting to this and disscusing the topic with some spunk…
There is still life in The Body — I was worried we were all asleep!