The Benefits of a Church Membership Class (Matt Capps)

January 22, 2014

The Benefits of a Church Membership ClassBy Matt Capps

Joining a local church is an important decision. As pastors and leaders we need to not only help people understand that, but we also need to properly shepherd them through the process of uniting with a local church body. However, according to LifeWay research 64% of churches either have nothing to assimilate new members, or no systemic plan to move people towards membership. This is where a church membership class can be beneficial.

To read more click HERE.

When Church Becomes An Organization - James A.E. MacLellan

Here's a worthwhile excerpt from the Ecclesiastes, NIV Application Commentary, by Ian Provan^[1]:

“Worship services” provide little opportunity for silent awe in the presence of God but plenty of opportunity for performance on the part of a select few professional speakers and musicians, who fill all the space with their words and sounds. Other gatherings of the church are characterized by relentless activity. It is Christian activity, of course, but it still fills the space that might be taken by silent adoration. Thus, “church” comes to resemble simply another form of human group endeavor and indeed often comes to mimic in a serious way the culture around it that is supposedly governed by different values. “Church” is increasingly thought of in terms of organization rather than of people worshiping God together, and leaders bring business and management models to bear on its development—planning growth, programming success, and managing change.

Leadership itself is understood and evaluated from a secular point of view. What counts as “good leadership” in the church-as-organization has been borrowed from the secular world. The modern pastor is seen in this light as a kind of CEO of the company, trained as an expert in problem solving and management, and thus gains respectability in a world and in a church that no longer thinks in a truly Christian way, particularly about the church. He is “a CEO in his study and a shrink in his pulpit.”² As Vinoth Ramachandra rightly notes, “Many seminary graduates are now skilled in management techniques, or counselling skills and even ‘church-planting’ methodologies, but lack any integrating theological vision.”³ The story is told of a Christian leader returning from a church-growth conference puzzled because he had heard no theology and no serious references to God—only the exaltation of technique and numbers.⁴ Church advertising often reflects this ethos, as illustrated in these comments of an advertising executive regarding a contract from an Episcopal church in Minneapolis:

Promoting one’s church and marketing is a big part of evangelism.… George [the pastor] was used to getting on his knees a lot and asking for favors, and he wondered why he couldn’t promote his own parish with messages as hard-hitting as a lot of the ads he’d admired.⁵

The narcissistic, self-absorbed church thus develops by degrees to respond to the narcissistic culture, mimicking that culture in its move from word to image, from passion for truth and righteousness to cultivating intimacy and “good feelings,” from exposition to entertainment, from integrity to novelty, from action to spectacle.⁶ A survey of sermons by evangelical ministers between 1985 and 1990 suggests, in fact, that over 80 percent of these made God and his world spin around the surrogate center of the self. This is related to the professionalization of the ministry, in which the fulcrum around which ministry turns is no longer God but the church, which itself thus turns out to be a kind of idol.⁷ Of this kind of consumerist religion, Jacques Ellul commented rightly a number of years ago that it was not so much a “Jesus revolution” as a “gigantic religious expediency, in which Jesus and the revelation are served up to suit everybody’s taste.”⁸

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² O. Guinness, “America’s Last Men and Their Magnificent Talking Cure,” in No God but God, ed. O. Guinness and J. Seel (Chicago: Moody, 1992), 111–32 (quote on p. 123).

³ V. Ramachandra, Gods That Fail: Modern Idolatry and Christian Mission (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1996), 18.

⁴ O. Guinness, “Sounding Out the Idols of Church Growth,” in No God but God, 174–88 (quote on p. 165).

⁵ T. Pruzan, “Angels in the Ad Field,” Print (1998), 58–63 (quote on p. 61).

⁶ Ramachandra, Gods That Fail, 18.

⁷ D. Wells, “The D-Min-ization of the Ministry,” in No God but God, 174–88.

⁸ J. Ellul, The New Demons, trans. C. Edward Hopkin (New York: Seabury, 1973), 154.

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^[1] Provan, I. (2001). Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs. The NIV Application Commentary (121–122). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

PASTOR JIM'S FAVORITE IPHONE APPS - James A.E. MacLellan

Here are some of my favorite Apple Apps in no particular order:

1. Kindle Reader.  I have a Kindle.  I read a lot on Kindle.  Why?  Because they are cheaper. Every day Amazon gives deals on even Christian books.  There's a large selection and it automatically syncs across any device. I can read on my iPhone, put it down and pick up right where I left off on my laptop or back to my Kindle.  I also like that I won’t lose my library because my books are all stored on the web.

2. Feedly.  Feedly is my favorite blog reader. It helps me select some great blogs of Christian authors like Tim Challies and Justin Taylor, etc.  I also love the functionality to save articles for later or share them on Twitter, Facebook, or wherever.

3. Logos Bible Software.   I have used Logos for years on my PC.  Now they have come up with an iPhone App.  The iPhone app is actually called VYRSO.  Again I have access to hundreds of Bible translations and books, including reference books.   It synchronizes completely with my PC and devices.  Downloads are a breeze.  There are amazing reading programs available and helps. 

4. My PrayerMate.  This is a great tool to help me be disciplined and effective in my prayertime.  I schedule my family, friends and church folks in a way that I can be praying for everyone.  It's a great help to my prayer life.  There is a charge for this App but its worth it.  I think it's under $10.

5. I use Genius Scan to turn my iPhone into a pocket scanner. I use this app to go paperless at home and at church. So this app takes a pic of the document and exports it into a program that I use for wordprocessing called DocsToGo.  I also use it to immediately scan receipts so I don’t lose them.  

6. Skydrive is great.  I don't think it's better than other cloud type drives that save your work online, but it's the one I use. It is basically an online hard drive. I use it to back up all of my important files and documents. Simply drop your files in the folder on your desktop and it automatically syncs to your iPhone, PC, and the web. I also upload my sermons so I can work on them wherever I am if I have time.

7.  I use the Apple App for Podcasts and the other Apple features for my Calendar and Address Book. But all this is syncronized with iCloud.  When I'm at the computer I keep this open all the time.  Another neat thing with the Calendar app is if I schedule an appointment with someone I can send them (through iCloud) an automated email to remind them of our appointment. 

8. I Facebook and I Tweet.  A great App that helps send updates to both locations through one means is HootSuite.  Why do it twice when you can do it once!

9. Last but not least is I love the App for SKYPE.  My iPhone "skypes" really well.   With the iPhone ability to reverse the camera you can not only let the person see your face but you can let him or her see what you're doing, or what problem you have.  Love it!   

John's Sabbatical: Revelation 1:9-20 (James A.E. MacLellan)

John uses this phrase in chapter 1, twice: "the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ."   In the first instance, he writes in Revelation 1:2 (NIV), "² who testifies to everything he saw—that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ;" and the second in Revelation 1:9 (NIV), "⁹ I, John, your brother and companion in the suffering and kingdom and patient endurance that are ours in Jesus, was on the island of Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus."

In verse 2 we understand the phrase to mean that what John is claiming to write is "the Word of God" and the testimony of Jesus."  This is the same thing stated differently for emphasis.  You could call these two subtitles of the Book of Revelation.[1]   In verse 9 John has not changed the concept.  It is the same. Notice, he did not say he was on the Island because of the edict of the Emperor.  He said that he was suffering because of this Book of Revelation -- this Word of God, the testimony of Jesus.  What is he saying?

"John is saying that God allowed him to go to Patmos in order to receive the content of the Book of Revelation. From a human point of view, John’s difficult personal situation was the springboard to bring to the churches the message of Revelation. (In the same way, Paul would never have written his Prison Epistles—Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon—without the “tragedy” of a Roman imprisonment.)" [2] John saw his suffering as serving a greater purpose.

In verse 10 John says that he was "in the Spirit".  This means he was in a state brought on by the Holy Spirit where he was seeing a vision.  This marks the first of four of these statements in the Book.  This provides for us an internal organization to the Book, i.e., the Book is divided into 4 Visions (4:2; 17:3; 21:10).  The first is a vision of Jesus Christ:  What do we "see" in Jesus?  Jesus is:

• With His Church (v13a)
• The Jesus from Palestine, the Son of Man (v13b)
• Our High Priest (v13c)
• ancient One full of wisdom (v14a)
• seeing everything (v14b)
• trampling on His enemies (v15a)
• constantly speaking (v15b)
• holding the Church in His hands (v16a)
• speaking with power and discernment (v16b)
• shining with the glory of God (v17)

To know Christ accurately and savingly is to know Him in all His glory, fully Man and fully God. The default response to knowing Christ is to worship Him. It is to be comforted by the knowledge that He is intimately present with His Church.

[from: http://jamesmaclellan.blogspot.com/]

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1.  Easley, K. H. (1998). Vol. 12: Revelation. Holman New Testament Commentary (12–13). Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

2. Ibid, (17).

What Is Real About Reality TV? (James A.E. MacLellan)

I was recently listening to a podcast by The Gospel Coalition entitled "Going Deeper with TGC."  The topic was My Top 10 Theology Stories of2013 by Mark Mellinger, as interviewed by Colin Hansen. One of them asked an interesting question in the interview: "What is real about Reality TV?"  That grabbed my attention, because it was meant to be rhetorical.  The answer is nothing!    Reality TV is not real. 

Reality television is a type of program that attempts to show actual events and it seems to usually employ characters that aren't known to be movie stars (although that is not always true).   I read that it started in about the 1990s but by all accounts on my satellite provider's program listing, it is exploding!   In our home we watch such things as restaurant makeovers to Duck Dynasty.  From 'little people' to people with huge families, these shows seem to attract a huge audience – all on the pretense of reality!

So what is reality? The dictionary tells us it’s a noun that is:

1. The quality or state of being actual or true; or
2. That which exists objectively and in fact.

This hunger for reality is a tell-tale sign of the human frustration.  There is a sense where reality escapes all of us.  This quote is attributed to Heraclitus of Ephesus: “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.”  Everyone of us and everything in nature is in flux – changing.  There is only one being that is a true being.  As Dr. R.C. Sproul says, "God is being, not becoming, not changing. He is eternally the same. And so we say there’s one being."  We are becoming.  We are changing.  God is always the same.

In that sense there is but one reality in the universe: God. In Exodus 3:11-14 God reveals Himself to be “Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh” (I Am who I Am).  "[He] replied, I AM THAT I AM, using the verb to be (Heb hāyāh). It means "I am the One who is" . . . This is also supported by LXX reading: egō ei’mi o‘ ōn. God expressed the unchanging, eternal, self-existence of His being." [1]

God is always "I am".  He is eternal.  He is unchanging.  He can never be better than He was yesterday.  He needs no improvement.  God is the ultimate Reality.

Perhaps the hunger for Reality TV is a hidden passion to find something that is actually true – actually the way it is.  Many today are longing for that reality but don't know where to find it.  The Apostle Paul makes it clear: It is “. . . the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God . . . Jesus Christ as Lord . . ..” (2 Corinthians 4:4–5, ESV)  


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1. KJV Bible Commentary. 1994 (E. E. Hindson & W. M. Kroll, Ed.) (124). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

The Christmas Angels Were Calvinists! (James A.E. MacLellan)

Author and pastor, Anthony Carter writes, “Our world is fond of talking about peace. We hold peace summits and rallies. We establish peace accords and treaties. We even hand out peace prizes . . . Yet, for all of its summits, accords, and Nobel Prizes, the world has not achieved peace . . ..”[1]  Of course you don't need to be a pastor or author to know that.  The world knows that!  Yet 2000 years ago a message came to the world through angels to shepherds: 

 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men” (Luke 2:14, AV) (or so reads the King James Version.)

Paul identifies that this pronouncement of peace came at a great cost to our Savior.  In Colossians 1:19–20 (ESV).

¹⁹ For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, ²⁰ and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

Christ came as the Prince of Peace that through the Cross He might provide peace to men and women. But unlike the translation omission of the King James Version, this peace just doesn't naturally fall upon everyone.  The ESV like the NASB, translates the angel’s announcement this way: ““Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”” (Luke 2:14, ESV).   The NIV renders the verse “. . . on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”” (Luke 2:14, NIV).

Our English Bibles seem to struggle with this announcement.  How do we properly communicate it?  As I study the text it seems as if the translators go around the issue.  So how should we understand what the angels are communicating?  Well Luke uses the same phrase in chapter 10. The NIV seems to capture the idea so well.  Notice what it says,

“At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.” (Luke 10:21, NIV)

Now that phrase "what you were pleased to do" is the same phrase used by the angels.  Matthew also uses this phrase (the only other time it is used in the Gospels).  Notice what he writes (Again I'm using the NIV): “At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.” (Matthew 11:25–26, NIV)

Consistently again the idea being conveyed by this word "what you were pleased to do." So if we were going to maintain our consistency, we must conclude that the angels' announcement conveys the idea that God peace is given to those whom "He is pleased to give to."  Daryll Bock, who has written an exceptional commentary on Luke and Acts notes:

"The praise of the heavenly host offers honor to God and peace to men on whom his favor rests. This last phrase is not a declaration of universal salvation but refers to those who are the special objects of God's grace . . . They are the "saved" or the "elect," those on whom God has bestowed the favor of his grace."[2]

This is supported by the original text as noted by the NET Bible notation.  I quote:

"'Most witnesses (א² B² L Θ Ξ Ψ Ë^1,13 Ï sy bo) have ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκία (en anqrwpoi" eudokia, “good will among people”) instead of ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκίας (en anqrwpoi" eudokia", “among people with whom he is pleased”), a reading attested by א* A B* D W pc (sa). Most of the Itala witnesses and some other versional witnesses reflect a Greek text which has the genitive εὐδοκίας but drops the preposition ἐν. Not only is the genitive reading better attested, but it is more difficult than the nominative.' The meaning seems to be, not that divine peace can be bestowed only where human good will is already present, but that at the birth of the Saviour God’s peace rests on those whom he has chosen in accord with his good pleasure” (TCGNT 111)."[3]

The point is that God’s peace is not something people, earn, it is gift – a gift given according to the delights of His own good pleasure of God’s will. When we truly experience God’s peace we learn that it is all of grace.  It is a gift.  John MacArthur notes: "The verb form of the same word is used in 3:22; 12:32. In each case, it refers to God’s sovereign good pleasure. So a better rendering here might be “peace toward men on whom God’s sovereign pleasure rests.”^[4]

A faithful rendering of the text this Christmas will not avoid the notion that peace and reconciliation are gracious gifts of the Father, bestowed upon those whom He has sovereignly and freely chosen.  “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” (Ephesians 1:7–10, ESV).

The Christmas angels believed in the sovereign, merciful electing love of God in Christ. 

 

 

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[1] Carter; Anthony (2013-03-19). Blood Work (p. 61). Reformation Trust Publishing. Kindle Edition.

[2] http://www.biblegateway.com/resources/commentaries/IVP-NT/Luke/Birth-Jesus

[3] http://classic.net.bible.org/passage.php?passage=Luk%202:8-14#n22

^[4] The MacArthur Study Bible. 1997 (J. MacArthur, Jr., Ed.) (electronic ed.) (1515). Nashville, TN: Word Pub.

The 5 Gossips You Will Meet (Tim Challies)

Gossip is a serious problem. It is a problem in the home, in the workplace, in the local church and in broader evangelicalism. It is a problem in the blogosphere, in social media, and beyond. In his book Resisting Gossip, Matthew Mitchell defines gossip as “bearing bad news behind someone’s back out of a bad heart” and shows that when the book of Proverbs uses the word “gossip,” it does so in the noun form, not the verb form. In other words, the Bible is concerned less with the words that are spoken and more with the heart and mouth that generate such destruction. Words matter, but they are simply the overflow of the heart. As always, the heart is the heart of the matter.

Here, drawn from Mitchell’s book, is a gallery of gossips, five different gossiping people you will meet in life.

To read more, click HERE!

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ABOUT TIM CHALLIES

I am a follower of Jesus Christ, a husband to Aileen and a father to three young children. I worship and serve as a pastor at Grace Fellowship Church in Toronto, Ontario, and am a co-founder of Cruciform Press.