People will not let the reality of the Jesus they encounter in scripture see the full light of day. For many, it is plain ignorance. For others, including those deeply committed to biblical truth and regular Bible readers, it is surprising that they also join in remaking Jesus of Nazareth into the Jesus of Hollywood. They learn to take scripture quite seriously and ignore some of it all at the same time.
The Growing Gap in Worship
Welcomed or not, the contemporary music-centered approach to worship that has been both dominant and effective most large and mega church worship service is being challenged. This challenge, however, does not come from traditionalists who are still demanding a return to the Hammond B3 and southern gospel. This challenge, which has been slowly growing over the past decade, is coming from the same age-group that once pioneered praise bands and raising hands: Teens and young adults.Calvin was Right
Is the Lord's Supper just a memorial? Calvin says absolutely not. And, he's right.
Ironically, on something as central to the Christian life as the Eucharist, many Protestants would find Calvin's views sound surprisingly un-Protestant. As noted in an earlier post, Escaping Zurich, many evangelicals, actually hold views of the Eucharist consistent with Ulrich Zwingli (a reformer from Zurich a generation before Calvin), rather than Calvin. As such, this Zwinglian approach to Communion, one that is neither biblical nor consistent with the understanding of John Calvin, has come to be widely accepted as both biblical and Reformed.
Le Résistance: The Subversive Church
The small speaker crackled with static, and then they heard it. “Les sanglots longs des violons de l'automne
blessent mon coeur D'une langueur Monotone.”
The poem by Paul Verlaine was well known. Many listening had learned it in
childhood. The melancholy words spoke of
the long slow weeping of autumn’s violins.
This time the words held sensus plenior (fuller
meaning). This time they were
announcing, somewhere out there in the darkness, ships were plowing their way through
the waters of the English Channel
– among them a thousand Higgins boats – the landing craft that
would bring soldiers of the Allied Expeditionary Force onto the beaches of
Normandy, beginning the liberation of France.
My Church Looks Like a Bar
When people walked into First Christian Church on a Sunday
morning not long ago, most of them were not prepared to see the newest fad in
popular worship music sitting in the front of the sanctuary. Some of them had enough musical background to
know they were looking at a percussion instrument. For a lot of people, the one thing they knew was it made their
church look like a bar.