RC Sproul - the Holiness of God and a boring church

How awesome is this place!" This was Jacob's response to being in the house of God. People do not normally feel that way in church. There is no sense of awe, no sense of being in the presence of One who makes us tremble. People in awe never complain that church is boring

10 of those – Plains Evangelical Partnership

Plains Evangelical Church are pleased to announce a new innovative partnership with ‘10 of those’ to meet all your reading requirements.

The ‘10 of those’ vision is to help local churches and Christian organisations by providing quality Christian resources at prices they can afford. Their resources are consistent with the Word of God as we understand it and all generated money is used to further resource the church with quantity goods, seeking to equip the church and reach the world.

Plains Evangelical is pleased to be part of this vision and enter into partnership with ‘10 of those’. What that means in practice is that you will be able to buy books from the Plains Evangelical Church Bookshop at unbeatable prices and as you buy you will be helping support the wider ministry of Plains Evangelical. And no….you don’t have to buy 10 of the books, but if you do there will be major discounts for you! You can visit the bookshop here

Tell your friends and enjoy great books at great prices and support the ministry of Plains Evangelical at the same time!

Extravagant Worship

Extravagant Worship, that is a popular phrase in the church today and in what I understand that is meant by it, I wonder if I ever enter in.

In my mind if someone comes to our church and asks are we extravagant worshipers, I would say no, not at all, for in my mind when I think of extravagant worship I think to my days growing up in a Charismatic Church and all the extremes that happened in the name of extravagant worship.  So Again, if asked about PEC are you extravagant Worshipers, then I would say no.

As I have been thinking about this phrase for a while I thought I would look at some definitions of what the word Extravagant actually means and found that the definition confirmed my negative association with it as far as worship of God by His people is concerned.  The definitions were as follows: "excessive: unrestrained, especially with regard to feelings" 

HOWEVER, as I have continued to look at this over time, I am becoming more and more challenged that my attitude to worship and my expressions of worship,are way to safe when compared to what I see in Scripture.  Let me list some verses that have played their part in shaking my thinking:

Psalm 9:1
I will praise you, O LORD, with all my heart;
       I will tell of all your wonders.

Psalm 30:11 
You turned my wailing into dancing;
       you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,

Psalm 95:6
Come, let us bow down in worship,
       let us kneel before the LORD our Maker;

Psalm 100:1-2 
1 Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth.
2 Worship the LORD with gladness;
       come before him with joyful songs.

Psalm 138:1 
I will praise you, O LORD, with all my heart;
       before the "gods" I will sing your praise.

Psalm 149:3 3
Let them praise his name with dancing
       and make music to him with tambourine and harp.

Psalm 150

1 Praise the LORD. 
       Praise God in his sanctuary;
       praise him in his mighty heavens.

2 Praise him for his acts of power;
       praise him for his surpassing greatness.

3 Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet,
       praise him with the harp and lyre,

4 praise him with tambourine and dancing,
       praise him with the strings and flute,

5 praise him with the clash of cymbals,
       praise him with resounding cymbals.

6 Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.
       Praise the LORD.

And one from the New Testament that shows how things will be forever around the Throne of God:

Rev 5:13-14
 13Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing:
   "To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
   be praise and honour and glory and power,
         for ever and ever!" 14The four living creatures said, "Amen," and the elders fell down and worshiped. 13Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing:
   "To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
   be praise and honour and glory and power,
         for ever and ever!" 14The four living creatures said, "Amen," and the elders fell down and worshiped.

The other thing that challenges me about a lack of expression and perhaps even extravagance in my worship to God is that if you read through the Bible looking for references to the praises of God you will find that these perhaps to us, extravagant expressions of worship are all responses to how awesome God is and the wonderful deeds He has wrought for His people, not the least of which the saving of my sinful heart from worshiping myself instead of Him.  So why aren't my expressions of worship as extravagant as theirs, as God has Done as much for me as them, and I also have the privilege of relating to God in the light of the cross, which most of them didn't!

Let me address the most common objections in general to expressiveness in worship, that it is just not culturally what we are comfortable with or secondly that these extravagant worship expressions are all for show and that it is the heart that matters.
    Well I will address the culture point first, I agree that perhaps how the Israelites responded to God was sensitive to the culture of the time, perhaps, culturally they were more prone to shouting for Joy or bowing low in adoration or dancing a jig.  However, this hasn't helped me absolve myself of the nagging doubt that this is just an excuse to hide behind.  The question is that if people from Plains come in and observe how I worship this amazing God I have told them about, would they, who are from my culture, look and say wow see how extravagant he is in the praise of his God.
    Secondly, the matter of extravagant expressions of worship are all about show and it is really the response of the heart that is important.  Well as someone who has come from a Charismatic background I know al about the excesses that are a dangerous possibility in public worship.  However, am I sure that my lack of expressions in worship is as a result of a pure heart?  It can be true that the peer pressure that exists in a Charismatic church to be extravagant in worship can be just the same in a more reserved church to be more restrained in our worship.  What I should surely be striving for is freedom to from a pure heart respond with as much passion as I can muster to my all awesome God.

Let me finish up by making clear the challenge I am working through in all this, have I fully apprehended the enormity of how Glorious our God is, and is my body, mind, heart, soul etc responding accordingly in public worship, not showing off, not inhibited to fit in with those around me but a heart responding rightly to an Awesome God.  If as John Piper says, God is most Glorified in me when I am most satisfied in Him then I want to be extravagantly joyfully deeply  seriously overwhelmingly  satisfied in Him and as Psalm 138 says I will praise Him with my WHOLE heart before all these other “gods” that vie for my affections!

Jim

as usual comments welcome just click the link below to leave one.

Reaching A New Generation

I was reading a blog series recently by Kevin DeYoung.  It was very interesting and to be honest I a m still working through what it means for myself and our church.  

Kevin’s Premise was that if you need to reach or in fact keep young  people for Jesus then the best way to do that is not by trying to always being young hip and trendy (Culturally relevant) but by going after them with the following 5 principles:

1. Grab them with passion
2. Win them with love
3. Hold them with holiness
4. Challenge them with truth
5. Amaze them with God

I am sure you will agree all very interesting and thought provoking, you can read how he unpacks each of these by clicking the relevant point above.

Much Blessings
Jim

Typhoon Morakot

I thought I would share some images that will highlight the plight of the people that are being affected by Typhoon Morakot.  

 As you can see these are terribly distressing times. Please be in much prayer for these people and especially for out brothers & sisters in Christ who find themselves in difficulty as a result of this typhoon.

 

 

‘GOMA’ shows Scotland the Truth about itself!

The Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) in Glasgow is exhibiting an installation which features a video of a woman defacing a bible. She rips pages out of it and eats them; she stuffs pages from God’s precious word down her underwear. Next to this video installation is a bible, a box of pens and a notice which says, “If you feel you have been excluded from the Bible please write your way back into it.” People who visit this exhibition have been writing all sorts of offensive comments and many of them shaking their literary fists at what they call a ‘fascist God’.

I hate this installation with a passion. It makes me sick to think of the God of the entire universe who gave his own son to die for sinners being mocked and profaned in such an unbridled manner. It breaks my heart to think that the nation I was born and raised in and which I love is so hard hearted and hostile to God. And yet, despicable though this installation is, I can’t help but feel that it holds a mirror up to Scottish society and tells us some truths about ourselves.

As a society we began rejecting God’s Word decades before this disgusting installation. Divorce is endemic and children are being brought up in broken homes all over Scotland because we have ripped out what the bible has to say about marriage and family. Alcoholism and drug addiction touches every community in Scotland, not least the city of Glasgow, because we have torn up the good news of the gospel of salvation and replaced it with a materialistic philosophy which says you live, you make the best of it, you die and that’s it. People are crying out for hope, but we have erased that too. Teenage pregnancies are the highest in Western Europe because we have ripped up what the bible has to say about sex. Abortions are taking place in their thousands because we’ve flushed away what the bible says about life.

However, before we start decrying a ‘godless’ unbelieving world, as a church in Scotland we need to take some responsibility for the sick state we find ourselves in. After all, it was ministers of the church who, decades ago, decided to rip all traces of inerrancy from their bibles. It was so called church leaders who told us to tear out the supernatural bits from our bibles; and theologians told us that this precious book is no longer God’s Word, just a place where we might seek a word from God, no longer authoritative just a place where we might find some good advice.

Is there really a difference between theologians mutilating the Word of God to suit a liberal secularist agenda and punters at GOMA writing down their own take on the bible? I don’t think so. Is there really a difference between thousands of individuals all over Scotland saying ‘stuff the bible, I’ll do it my way’ and these art buffs having ‘fun’ with their godless mockery? I think not. God have mercy on Glasgow! God help this nation of Scotland.

Glasgow used to have a city motto. It read, “Let Glasgow Flourish by the preaching of His Word and the praising of His name”. It has been ripped up as well. It now reads, simply, ‘Let Glasgow Flourish’. But that’s the problem; Glasgow never will flourish unless it returns to the preaching of His Word and the praising of His name.

The mutilation of the Word of God so nauseously portrayed at GOMA is perhaps the most incisive, if unwitting, diagnosis of the problem with Scotland today. As a nation we need to get back to God’s Word; as individuals and families we need to get back to God’s Word. This is the only way we will ever flourish. God have mercy on us.

The Trouble With Envy

Here is an excellent excerpt from an article with Paul Trip:

1. Envy is a window on the true treasures of our heart. Oh sure, we would all like to think that we love God above all else. We all want to believe that his plan is more important to us than anything we would plan for ourselves. We would like to assume that what God promises us is more precious to us than anything we could ever set our eyes on. But envy reveals that these things are not yet completely true to us. Envy reveals that there is still a war of treasure raging in our hearts. Envy exposes the fact that the treasures of this physical, created world still have a powerful ability to seduce, tempt and side-track us. Envy tells us that we still look for satisfaction to things that do not have the organic capacity to satisfy the craving of our hearts. Who or What you envy tells you what you treasure.




2. Envy is a window on how easily and consistently we forget. We do have the amazing ability to stand in front of a closet that is bulging with clothes and say that we don't have a thing to wear. We do have the capacity to stand in front of a refrigerator filled with food and say there is nothing to eat. And we do have the ability to stand in the middle of lavish blessing and feel as if we are poor and needy. The sin of forgetfulness is one of the root sins of envy. We forget that, in God's grace, we have been given what we could not earn, achieve, or deserve. We forget that the Creator of all things and the Controller of all that is, is our Father and he is not only able to meet all our needs, he is willing to do so. Envy forgets blessing and in forgetting blessing assumes poverty and in assuming poverty gives way to hunger and this feeling of hunger tempts us to look to and long for what simply will not satisfy.



3. Envy is a window on the war within. Envy is a reminder. Envy is a warning. Envy is the sounding of an internal alarm. Envy tells you that you must not live with a peace-time mentality. Envy tells you that this is not the time to chill and relax. Envy reminds you that there really is a war that is still raging for the rulership of your heart. Envy calls you to be a humble and disciplined soldier. Envy calls you to examine your heart and interrogate your desires. Envy calls you to live watchfully and prayerfully. Envy warns you to reject assessments of arrival. To the degree that you crave what you Father has not chosen to given you, to that degree you heart is still out of step with him. The fight still goes on.



Now, maybe after reading this you're thinking, "Wow, Paul, that was really discouraging!" Here's what you and I need to remember. Our Savior walked on this earth where the war of envy rages, but he was envy free. Why? Not because he had it all, but because he was willing to forsake it all for you and for me. Think about this; rather than wanting all that was his right as God, Jesus was willing to forsake it all so that the battle for our hearts could and would be finally won. He walked away from glories our minds are to small to conceive in order to deliver to us these glories that our minds are to small to conceive. He was not propelled by envy. No he was propelled by love and that love is the most powerful reason for hope in the universe. So, we can affirm the struggle. We can confess when envy yanks us off his pathway. And we can know for sure that there will be a day when envy is no more and we will live forever in the kingdom of his love, fully and completely satisfied.

Driscoll's Friendly Assessment of the Sydney Anglicans

Last month Mark Driscoll, one of Christendom's hottest and most controversial preachers made his way to Sydney to engage in a conference with the Sydney Anglicans. It seems a very useful time was had by all involved and Driscoll gave a friendly critique of what he sees wrong with the Sydney Anglican movement. Obviously the critique was aimed at a different denomination on a different continent, but in reading through the critique I am very struck by how relevant it is to our own church and to the church in Scotland today. Natasha Percy's summary of Driscoll's challenge is as follows:

"Mr Driscoll introduced these points asserting that, if we are seeing no fruit from our ministry, rather than doing more, we have to ask what we are doing wrong. He also asserted that "pruning" must precede "harvesting". This pruning could involve such things as people and programs.

"You need to cut that which is taking energy away from evangelism," he said.

Mark Driscoll asserted that these 18 points were coming from a "friend", as he asked all present to consider whether their ministry was doing "all" that it could to ensure people were "meeting Jesus" (1 Cor 9:22)

1. The Bible guys are not the missional guys, which leads to proud irrelevance - (Ministers are) less aware of the context of their ministry and more aware of the content of Scripture. It's not enough to just be the faithful, you must be the fruitful.
   
   
2. Your culture struggles with a lack of entrepreneurialism, due to the influence of Socialism and Great Britain. Socialism brings the concept that everyone must be taken care of, with resources given to the weakest pastors in the weakest churches rather than pruning. This means you are neglecting to send nourishment to new buds and branches in the name of socialistic equality. The British are not an entrepreneurial people - they play by the rules and operate within existing structures. This has caused Aussie culture to not be very entrepreneurial and new things are not highly embraced.
   
   
3. There is a lack of merit-based reward in denominations. In the United States there are far more entrepreneurs. I'm not saying your culture is bad and my culture is good. I'm saying your culture is bad and my culture is bad differently. People are rewarded for tenure but not for fruit. Men can't be demoted or thrown out of ministry for more than stealing money or falling sexually. Just because you're doing ministry long-term doesn't mean you should be guaranteed of a job. You all know that some churches are being led by men who are not the best men for the job.
   
   
4. Christian Australian men are immature. There is a lack of entrepreneurialism and a system which discourages the ambition of young men. Men are living with their mother until 25, getting married at 32, delaying the taking of responsibility for as long as possible. The fact is, there is not a denomination in the room that I'm qualified to pastor in. I planted a church at 25 - could I do that with you? The answer is 'no'. What if there is a young man who wants to be responsible and plant a church... is there a system built to accommodate? The longer you delay responsibility, the longer you delay masculinity. Being in a Peter Pan lifestyle indefinitely is a sin. Jesus Christ had atoned for the sins of the world by the age most men become associate ministers. There are good godly men in their 30s leading big churches overseas, and you are flying them in to preach to you because you don't have them in your system.
   
   
5. Church planting is not widespread or welcome. The skills required of a church planter are very different. There is not widespread opportunity for young innovative men in this area. Young men who want to plant a church are left with a terrible dilemma - innovate and destroy the church or live within the parameters of the system and negate God's call on their life. No less than 300 men have walked up to me and said 'I want to plant a church and I can't. What do I do?' They need to be assessed and trained and only those who are fit should be released, but they have to be released.
   
   
6. You suffer from tall poppy syndrome. Through preaching, people must realise this is a sin. Having a church of 1000 as a high-water mark is unhealthy. You don't want to rise up because people will think you're proud - the fact that you're thinking of yourself means you're already proud. This is a sin. We should celebrate if God would allow a church to grow. My elders give 10 per cent of our money to church plants. Having a big church is not bad - it all depends on what that church believes and what they do.
   
   
7. Your teaching lacks three things: apologetics, mission and application. (i) Anticipate the objections of your hearers and answer them. This will also encourage people to bring their friends. (ii) Ask the church what is our mission and how are we to live that? This is application for the whole church. (iii) Offer personal application for individuals, It's not just enough to give doctrine. Application needs to connect life and doctrine.
   
   
8. Many of you are afraid of the Holy Spirit. You don't know what to do with Him, so the trinity is Father, Son and Holy Bible. You are so reactionary to pentecostalism that you do not have a robust theology of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit calls people into ministry. He also empowers people for ministry. You don't have to be charismatic but you should be a little charismatic, enough at least to worship God with more than just all of your mind. The word charismatic here means prosperity, excessive, bizarre. In London, it means you're not a liberal. Don't get hung up on all the terminology. Do you love the Holy Spirit? Jesus says the Holy Spirit is a 'He' and not an 'it'." Ministry cannot be done apart from the Holy Spirit - I think that is in part leading to the lack of entrepreneurialism and innovation, because if it's not already done and written down, you're suspicious of it.
   
   
9. Many of you are Anglican. The parish system works for some, not all. Less than half of those who live in this city own their own home and do their social networking online. People have three places, where they work, play and live (the place where they play is the place they really like and would live if they could afford it). So what place is theirs? The parish model says we've drawn boundaries... but this makes evangelism in this society very difficult. People no longer organise themselves by geography, but by affinity. People are moving all the time. The parish system also makes church planting very hard. And the overseer may deny it.
   
   
10. Denominations are built on an old paradigm that young men don't understand. This is a paradigm of control - we control your benefits, your income, your tenure, we control you. Young men operate under influence - some young men are disrespectful towards authority and need to be rebuked. Not all young men are disrespectful, but they operate through influence - this comes through relationships and mentoring. "Influence comes up close and control can be maintained at a distance". They need to be given encouragement and responsibility. Young men will increasingly avoid a system that's built to control them and will increasingly work around the system to make their freedom.
    
    
11. There is a propensity to call the trained rather than train the called. People need to be tested and proved by church leaders but ministry needs to begin with a calling. There should be an innate sense of desire, rather than going to college, then being trained, then being called into ministry. Colleges that have alternative delivery systems, for example part-time options, will be more effective in training the called. Four years in college without sufficient practical experience can lead to idealism and self-righteousness, where young men critique older men who've done something. That then gives the young men the false impression that they themselves are doing something. Pastor Driscoll said Mars Hill had grown to 8000 by the time he finished his Masters degree in Theology. "Sometimes you don't know what you don't know until you're doing ministry - and then you're more teachable than ever."
    
    
12. Churches need prophets, priests and kings, according to 1 Peter 5 where Jesus is chief shepherd, leaders are undershepherds under Him. Prophets do preaching and teaching, priests look after people (for example, hospital visits), and kings are concerned with systems, policies, procedures, real estate and the like. Most churches in Sydney are filled with priests and there's a deficit of prophets and kings. There is a limit to how many people a pastor can care for... pastors can't do all three. Kings are discouraged by systems that are already built.
    
    
13. There is a lack of missiologists A missiologist evaluates the culture and uses discernment to find the idols, "so missionaries can be employed and churches can be missional". "Theologians defend the truth of the gospel and missiologists then take it to the streets." When you stack the team with theologians and not missiologists... lots of people still don't know Jesus.
    
    
14. There is a proclivity to try to raise ministers before making them husbands and fathers. Many men delay marriage and children so they can enter college and ministry. They need to learn to be good husbands and fathers and shepherd a little flock. If they are not good husbands and fathers, they are not going to be good ministers. "In fact... being a husband and father trains you more for ministry than any college." You should really press young men to take responsibility early, be good husbands and fathers, and then encourage them into ministry. Otherwise their priorities end up being God, ministry, wife, children, rather than God, wife, children, ministry. If you delay marriage for ministry, you are organising a paradigm that is dangerous.
    
    
15. There is the doing of evangelism but not mission. Evangelism doesn't belong just to the individual Christian, evangelism is something that belongs to the Christian church. Are we using all the resources at our discretion? Don't ask, 'what would a faithful minister of the gospel look like?'. Ask 'what would a faithful missionary of the gospel look like?'.
    
    
16. There are a lot of No 2 guys in No 1 slots. Number 1 guys are preachers, teachers, leaders, innovators. A No 2 guy isn't bad, but he's not the right one for the job. This is part of the issue of having a system based on tenure rather than meritocracy. No 2 guys need to have the humility to step back as John the Baptist did with Jesus - which is good to preach but hard to practice. When a No2 guy is in a No 1 slot, the church will survive, but it will not multiply.
    
    
17. There is not a great sense of urgency "I believe God has a sense of urgency for planting churches, and releasing young men" but this urgency is not evident. You're not seeing a lot of conversions, and everywhere I go I'm having guys come to me and complain that they have no permission to plant churches. Urgency shows itself with new services and new churches. Lack of urgency shows itself with a lack of innovation. Not everyone is an innovator or entrepreneur - but is there room in the system for those who are? You can allow innovation without taking away from what is good.
    
    
18. Movements have become institutions and museums. A movement is where God does what He always does, but in greater depth than we normally see, for example the Puritans, Methodists, Charismatic movement.
    
    

Defining variables of a movement are:

• Young people are often at the centre of a movement - everywhere but Sydney. I'm an older guy where I'm from - but here, I'm young. Young people are often at the centre of movements - most of the Methodists were guys in their 20s, Billy Graham was 19 when he first started preaching.
  
  
• "Statistically I think one of the reasons your church is so small is that your young men don't get to lead them until they are old" - and they run out of gas before they get there. You say, 'but the young are irresponsible' - of course they are! Young men say and do stupid things, but it's good to get the losses out of the way early.
  
  
• Movements are marked not just by birth, but by new birth. New churches have to be planted and you need new leaders so there can be new churches.
  
  
• A lot of movements are completely unaware of their influence - "I was shocked by the number of Aussies who download my sermons."
  
  
• Movements have supporting organisations, such as theological colleges and publishing houses.
  
  
• Usually, new movements come into existence when there's new technology. For example, the Protestant Reformation happened at the time of the printing press, Billy Graham used the advances in amplification and radio at the time he was preaching. Today, we have the internet. Old systems were based on control, but today, there is no control. "You can sit on your Macbook and even if no leader approves of it, you could communicate to the world. That changes everything." People spend more time looking at a screen than a human being. Mark Driscoll's sermons are downloaded more than 10 million times each year. "That's crazy - we could never have a meeting with 10 million people, we'd call it a country."
  
  
• The movement leader embodies the values and then tells the story of the movement so that the movement has integrity into the future. They are attacked and maligned and usually not appreciated until after they're dead.
  
  
• Movements become organisations, which become institutions. Innovators don't go into or come out of institutions. Institutions are marked by a fear of failure and a preservation of previous wins. "Eventually, young leaders realise that it is too cumbersome to get anything done and they leave."
  
  
• If an institution doesn't come back to being an organisation or a movement, it becomes a museum. "A museum exists to tell the stories of when God used to work." A museum doesn't exist to call future leaders. So you need to ask: 'Are we a movement, an organisation, an institution or a museum?' Do the best and brightest entrepreneurial young men want to partner with you, or are they unwilling to walk with you because they don't want to be controlled by you?"
  
  

Five ways you've gone off track:

1. Doctrinally, you have too much or too little control. You define the world so tight theologically that you don't give much flexibility.
   
   
2. Relationships - people love each other and don't want to walk away from the relationships they have with others in leadership - so the love of relationship means all seats (of opportunity) are taken.
   
   
3. Organisationally, you have too much or too little control - too much, and ministry becomes too complicated, too little and people who don't have good doctrine or character can come in.
   
   
4. Pride or 'Not invented here syndrome' - not adapting something unless it was created by someone on your team. Your worship and service structure is painful and slow and frustrating - you need to have humility to learn from other people in other denominations and discernment to know what not to implement.
   
   
5. Failing to honour founders and future. Issues of succession are difficult and significant. The key is to honour both your founders and your future. You need to do some things differently, and you need to be innovative in what we do."
   
   

The Sydney Anglicans are being big enough and brave enough to take these challenges and work through them and allow them to spur them to action. Philip Jensen, a leading spokesman for the Sydney Anglicans in an article reflecting on Driscolls challenge outlines three dangers; reactionary defensiveness, sycophantic following or doing nothing and ended his article with his own challenge, "his (Driscolls) challenge to us was to get moving, to take initiative, not to wait around to be told what to do next." If we look at our own churches, or indeed the church in Scotland, we can see that some of Driscoll's challenges have sharp application to us. May the Lord give us the strength, the humility and the determination to look, see and act.

If you would like to read more about this debate you can do so atwww.sydneyanglicans.net/ or perhaps you like to comment on which of these challenges the church in Scotland most needs to hear.