Northwest Pastor

The bridge of grace will bear your weight, brother. Thousands of big sinners have gone across that bridge, yea, tens of thousands have gone over it. I can hear their trampings now as they traverse the great arches of the bridge of salvation. They come by the thousands, by their myriads, e’er since that day when Christ first entered His glory. They come and yet never a stone has sprung in that mighty bridge. Some have been the chief of sinners and some have come at the very last of their days but the arch has never yielded beneath their weight. I will go with them, trusting to the same support. It will bear me over as it has for them. - Charles Spurgeon

from Of First Importance

to become a Christian is to esteem the judgment of others for nothing, accepting the judgment of God upon ourselves and hoping in His grace. To confess Christ includes, that we lose ourselves and all that is ours, our name and our honour, our good and blood, our soul and our life - Herman Bavinck

“…when a man does learn the meaning of the work of Christ in the present life, a new door is open to him. And this new door then seems to be so wonderful that often it gives the Christian, as he begins to act upon the knowledge of faith, the sense of something that is as new as was his conversion.” - Francis Schaeffer

Book Review: The Rabbit and the Elephant, Why Small Is the New Big for Today’s Church by Tony & Felicity Dale, George Barna.

First, may I say this is the best house-church book I have read, and I have read a dozen or so! I’ve highlighted half this book! I love the author’s excitement and the stories were overwhelmingly encouraging. The spiritual gift of exhortation from the authors was in full affect while reading this book. I appreciate the honesty of the authors as they told their struggles to help bring this biblical movement to America. Whether you agree or disagree this is just a great book and I was fascinated by every page.

A little about the authors: Tony and Felicity Dale were trained as physicians at Barts Hospital in London, where they pioneered simple church concepts while in medical school and later in the East End of London. Now living in the United States, they are actively engaged in church planting. They founded House2House magazine and have authored several books, including Renewing the Mind, Simply Church, and the Getting Started manual on planting house churches. They live in Austin, Texas. George Barna was born in New York City and later worked in the Massachusetts state legislature and as a pollster and a campaign manager. Introduced to Jesus Christ during his grad school years, he moved to California where he worked in media research and then as an executive in an advertising agency. George and his wife, Nancy, founded the Barna Research Group in 1984. To date, Barna has written more than 35 books, predominantly in the areas of leadership, trends, spiritual development, and church health.

Let me share with you a little from this gem of a book. The title of the book and how they start it out is the story of the elephant and the rabbit being locked in a room for 22 months and how many offspring would come out after is amazing. Of course we would have only 3 elephants (mom, dad, and baby) but we would have millions of rabbits!! That was in the introduction of the book as analogy of simple church.

The first chapter goes into the story of how they struggled spiritually moving from a growing house church revival in England to coming to Texas and waiting 9 years before God began to work. They called it “God’s wilderness training school”. I personally can relate to this story and I think millions of pastors and church leaders can relate to that time of silence where you feel like “God has abandoned us” pg 5. I recognize their explaining the premise of the New Testament Church as not an event to attend or a place to go to on Sunday morning but a “vibrant community of Jesus followers, a 24-7 Kingdom lifestyle.” Pg 6. They further explain it as “simple, vibrant communities of believers who are meeting in homes, offices, campuses, or wherever God is leading them.” The authors give it another analogy as being like a liquid church “a type of church, that, like water, is seeping into every crack and crevice of our culture.” Pg. 37 They write of a re-forming church from “an event-based institution to life- and relationship-based” pg. 30.

In chapter 6 “a radical church life”. They speak about legalism and grace. “The grace and love of Jesus operating inside us causes us to want to do what legalism or shame-based religions says we ought to do.” I would like to be honest, for me there were a few concerns with the charismatic flavor of the book. I would disagree with their interpretation of how the Spirit works individually and collectively in community. I feel that any cessationist or noncharismatic should read this book to understand this movement. I am in favor of this phenomenon and am personally transitioning our traditional church into an informal book of Acts missional community. If you are wanting to transition, I would put this book at the top of your list!

Chapter 13 was my favorite!!! I will be using this and teaching the “Luke 10 principle” to our church family. Getting this biblical principle down is priceless and well worth the price of the book! Please read this book…you will leave encouraged and excited about what God is doing in our country!!!

Jason Rigby

http://northwestpastorjason.blogspot.com/

Book Review: Coffee House Theology by Ed Cyzewski

Coffee House Theology is a wonderful book that engages a conversation with the postmodern Christian mind in asking questions about theology. I felt it was more of an introduction to contextual theology than an in-depth study. It left me wanting more depth from this writer. The book gave a clear description of what contextual theology is about… I love this statement “Our local settings and cultural values-in other words, our context-influence how we read God’s Word.” Pg. 19 The Global viewpoint of our view on God and scripture was insightful. On pg. 62 Ed raises an important point about culture, “Every culture has opportunities and challenges.”

The author Ed Cyzewski (MDiv Biblical Theological Seminary, BA Taylor University) is a freelance writer and speaker who has contributed to numerous magazines and book projects. He blogs at the Christian Post, as well as his personal blogs on writing (www.edcyz.com) and theology (www.inamirrordimly.com).

My favorite chapter was Chapter 3 titled “Mission why the church needs theology” by far is worth the price of the book. I love this excerpt taken from pg 34--“Instead of asking how we can get people to church, mission asks how we can get church to the people.” It would be great for the author to write a book using only Chapter 3!

To compare The Andy Griffith Show to the Real World on MTV was a great analogy of how modern and postmodern viewpoints exist and clash. I was challenged to reinvent the way I dialogue with nonbelievers in this new postmodern world. I appreciated his clarity in that sometimes the Word of God will be prophetic and go against the grain of culture. The goal as stated on pg. 101 was to be relevant and prophetic. I had to repent from this truthful statement “We can’t hope to keep the church precisely like its early predecessors anymore than we can keep bell-bottoms or togas in style.”

Being a conservative orthodox Christian I had concerns over several liberal ecumenical undertones. Chapter 11 dealing with catholic and charismatic experiences was for me extrabiblical. I would not discount the book for this as I believe the church needs to begin dialogue in a postmodern world today more than ever! This book begins that needed discussion. The end of every chapter had a web link to the author’s blog to further study that chapter out…that is just too cool!

Jason Rigby

http://northwestpastorjason.blogspot.com/

My fairy tale castle
Originally uploaded by Bеn

“Justified believers enjoy a blessing far greater than a periodic approach to God or an occasional audience with the king. We are privileged to live in the temple and in the palace. Our relationship with God, into which justification has brought us, is not sporadic but continuous, not precarious but secure. We do not fall in and out of grace like courtiers who may find themselves in and out of favour with their sovereign, or politicians with the public. No, we stand in it, for that is the nature of grace. Nothing can separate us from God’s love.”
—John Stott, The Message of Romans

Reconcilation
Originally uploaded by micahofmatthias

This is from Darrell L. Guder's Bible study called "Ambassadors for Christ;"it's kind of a long and weighty quote, but definitely worth chewing on a bit:

Seen through the lenses of the gospel, the world is desperately in need of reconciliation. Certainly we would confirm that diagnosis-the news reported in any daily paper would document humanity's need to be reconciled. But the human diagnosis will not identify the problem as our need to be reconciled with God. We focus upon the brutal divisions that make nations, tribes, religions, and cultures into each other's deadly enemies. We struggle to find human resources to bring about the reconciliation for which we all long. The gospel defines creation's distress as the result of our separation from God. It is not merely a matter of human resources but of divine intervention. So, the gospel announces that God has intervened. Our separation from God and each other has been overcome, the chasm bridged, the opposing factions brought together. Our message starts with the assurance that in Christ there already is a new creation. The work of reconciliation was accomplished at Calvary, Easter, and Ascension Day. Thus, our calling to the role of ambassadors is a consequence of what God has already done. As ambassadors, we are called into royal service, to bear this wonderful message to the world: your distress has been resolved, your rebellion overcome, your separation ended. Nothing more needs to be done before the reconciliation can take place-except that we should accept and receive the gift of forgiveness and healing that seal our reconciliation. The unlikely ambassadors who make up the church of Jesus Christ are sent out to the world to make plain that God has transformed our plight on the cross of Jesus. We are to invite the world to receive what is already available and to claim what is already true. Of course, this means that the church itself must live out this wonderful reconciliation in every dimension of its life. So the call to be reconciled is still addressed to the church as well, so that we can embark upon the embassy to the world that is our calling: "Be reconciled to God" (5:20).

(Link was from Sets-n-Service)