I just read the 9Marks review of Christian Schwarz’s “Natural Church Development: A Guide to Eight Essential Qualities of Healthy Churches“, and if you’ve been part of a church who has gone through the NCD surveys like I have, then I highly suggest this you read this short review of the book. The reviewer, Greg Gilbert, is an Elder at Third Avenue Baptist Church in Louisville, a PhD student in Church History at SBTS, and Director of Research for Southern’s President’s office. I met him personally when I went to visit Third Avenue in September, which was great to put a face behind the publications I’ve read from him.

I have not read much of anything on the Natural Church Development (NCD) model of church growth, and so, it was good to finally read a review from a respectable Christian source. I myself have done the NCD survey and answered that big list of NCD questions when my home church here in Toronto did it. I had never been for it, but at the time, it looked like the least pragmatic church growth model I knew of and also the least poisonous in my opinion at the time. Further, I was also concerned when my home church implemented the Willow Creek “Promiseland” children’s program for its lots of fun but little on Scripture methods. Today, a few years after all the NCD hoopla, now being a Southern Baptist, and very much affirming of the biblical principles of growing a church like the “9 marks”, I am continually concerned with all pragmatic “research-based” church growth methods. Believe you me, I have all the intention of studying more on the Church Growth Movement, but for now, let us see what our friends at 9Marks have concluded. Read the rest of this entry »

I am reading Engaging God by David Peterson (Principal at Oak Hill Theological College in London) for my January class, The Worshipping Church. I am trying to read through it quickly, but it is a heavy book on the biblical theology of worship where every page is packed full of insightful analysis and exegesis of Scripture through a redemptive historical view of worship! I’ve read just over a third of the book so far, and I’m highlighting & taking notes on almost every paragraph — I really need to speed up my reading here :@ If you’re a worship leader or know of one, look nowhere else than Engaging God for a concise book on the theology of Christian worship!

In Chapter 3 (Jesus and the New Temple), Peterson explains that the gospel according to Matthew and John are expressly focused on emphasizing that God’s presence and glory are fully and finally experienced in Jesus Christ. For Jesus came to bring Judaism to its destined end in the worship of the new age, rather than coming to destroy it. Furthermore, Jesus Himself transferred the significance of the temple from Jerusalem to another entity — not in the messianic community, but primarily in his own persona and work. Christ replaces the temple as the well-spring of life and renewal for all the world, as Jesus Himself is the eschatalogical destination to which all nations journey to for worship.
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From The Baptist Faith and Message (2000):

VI. The Church

A New Testament church of the Lord Jesus Christ is an autonomous local congregation of baptized believers, associated by covenant in the faith and fellowship of the gospel; observing the two ordinances of Christ, governed by His laws, exercising the gifts, rights, and privileges invested in them by His Word, and seeking to extend the gospel to the ends of the earth. Each congregation operates under the Lordship of Christ through democratic processes. In such a congregation each member is responsible and accountable to Christ as Lord. Its scriptural officers are pastors and deacons. While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.

The New Testament speaks also of the church as the Body of Christ which includes all of the redeemed of all the ages, believers from every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation.

Matthew 16:15-19; 18:15-20; Acts 2:41-42,47; 5:11-14; 6:3-6; 13:1-3; 14:23,27; 15:1-30; 16:5; 20:28; Romans 1:7; 1 Corinthians 1:2; 3:16; 5:4-5; 7:17; 9:13-14; 12; Ephesians 1:22-23; 2:19-22; 3:8-11,21; 5:22-32; Philippians 1:1; Colossians 1:18; 1 Timothy 2:9-14; 3:1-15; 4:14; Hebrews 11:39-40; 1 Peter 5:1-4; Revelation 2-3; 21:2-3.

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When I think about the Lord
How He saved me, How he raised me
How He filled me with the Holy Ghost
How He healed me to the utter-most

When I think about the Lord
How He picked me up and turned me around
How He set my feet, on solid ground

It makes me wanna shout;
“Hallelujah, thank you Jesus,
Lord you’re worthy of all the glory
and all the honor, and all the praise!”
It makes me wanna shout;
“Hallelujah, thank you Jesus,
Lord you’re worthy of all the glory
and all the honor, and all the praise!”

Written by James Huey

It seems you can’t hear me
When I open my mouth you never listen
You say stay, but what does that mean
Do you think I honestly want to be reminded forever

Don’t waste your time trying to fix what I want to erase,
What I need to forget
Don’t waste your time on me my friend
Friend, what does that even mean — I don’t want your hand
You’ll only pull me down
So save your breath, don’t waste your song on me
Don’t waste your time

It’s not easy, not answering
Every time I want to talk to you but I can’t
If you only knew the hell I put myself through
Replaying memories in my head of you and I every night

Here’s the most interesting Christmas card message I received this year. It’s from two long-time friends from church, a couple who is getting married this coming May. This is part of the message they wrote in the card:

I pray that the following year brings you more blessings. We will continue to pray for God to find a suitable mate for you at school or elsewhere. In His time, he will provide all that you need!!

(Emphasis mine; but the two !! exclamation marks are original to the writers)

I think that is the first time I ever received such a message in a card from friends, such a blunt message.

I’m not sure if this is the thinking of all couples, that all those who aren’t in a relationship are not normal — and thus they pray that those abnormal people become normal by getting into a relationship. As if without a relationship, they have some huge part of their life that is missing and that life isn’t full until you get that relationship, or that a relationship is all that you need. It is as if those who are single are somehow a bit less human or complete, compared to those dating/married.

(Of course, I could be wrong about this “as if” hypothetical mindset)

There is something wrong here with that theology, and this is tempting me to write something substantial against this mentality.