the blog of Jerry Bolton
Posts tagged Church Planting
I Need Church.
0Currently listening to: “This Is The End” – Relient K
Relient K made a great new album. You should listen to it if the chance comes upon you. It is called “Forget And Not Slow Down”. I am refusing to be using contractions. No reason.
My friend Ian Hales just made a great post over on the Harvest Durham website. You can read it here.
The post is the second in his series entitled “Who Needs Church?”. He’s examining the components of the local church and the necessity of it in the lives of believers. It’s actually something I’ve been dancing around doing myself for many months, so I’m thankful someone far better qualified (and far better “having his head around it”) stepped up to the plate.
Personally, the part that was most useful to me is where he mentions that Acts can’t be our model for church structure, as some are prone to demand (house church movement, anyone?). Why? Simple hermeneutics. Acts is a history book – it’s descriptive. So, just in the same way that we wouldn’t take the historical accounts of the Old Testament as prescriptive for how we should live our lives (thus becoming polygamists, as some misguided folks are… prone to demand) we can’t take the embryonic church structure in the book of Acts and use it as our primary source. I’m not suggesting for a second Acts isn’t useful and important, but basic study will reveal that Luke’s purpose in writing Acts was to relay the history of the early church in a rather condensed form. It’s descriptive – describing the events that took place, only occasionally weighing in on things. Conversely, the pastoral epistles of the New Testament are prescriptive by genre and by nature – they prescribe the correct structure for the local church in a way Acts never so much as pretends to.
All in all, I found Ian’s breakdown quite helpful. I trust you will too. Make sure to check out the first post in the series as well (heck, maybe even add the Harvest Durham blog to your feed reader, fair citizen!).
Minor note: Harvest Bible Chapel Durham is the recently announced church plant out of Harvest Bible Chapel York Region, and is planned to launch sometime in 2010.
Can we call it “Body-planting”?
0Currently listening to: “Freedom is Here” by Hillsong United
I’m a very, very late comer to the worship music scene. I find that as I draw nearer to God, I can’t help but revel in worship. That, and there’s something inherently intriguing to me about songs written for the express purpose of being sung in a large-group setting. If you judge worship music purely on musical merit alone, you’re missing the point – it’s really, REALLY hard to write songs so personal (yet generally connectable) that they lend themselves to such a context. Having said all that, there’s still a lot of garbage worship records out there (and songs)… and Hillsong, as usual, evades such derision. They write good worship songs.
I’ve been working on two posts, neither of which is ready. One containing continuing thoughts on God’s will, one being the next about finances and stewardship – another of Jesus’ parables.
In the meantime, I wanted to share this post on CJ Mahaney’s blog by his friend Dave Harvey. It’s about church planting. More than that, it’s about how the church is God’s intended mission to the world. It’s about the church doing the things often left to parachurch ministries. It’s about how much can be lacking when the context of ministry is squarely outside (or alongside) the church rather than within the context of a local body of believers.
Being familiar with a great example of a church that has recently planted INTO a University campus (pray for them!), such things excite me greatly.
Check out Dave’s post here.
…the coming ecclesiological reformation
3Current Tunage: Skillet – Rest
“Invincible”-era Skillet. Good for the soul and stuff.
My apologies for the delay (Aunt Deb!). Life has a way of throwing me curveballs – the current state of my thoughts concerning the Western church should arrive in fuller form tomorrow but until then here’s a few of my point-form bits to whet the old “eye-petite” (kinda like apetite, only for reading):
Rough Form TOPICS for “THE SECOND REFORMATION”
(or, “How The West Was Won”)
(or, “Some Silly Sinner Seems So Serious”)
1. Positive Accountability: Guilt is a Lousy Motivator
2. Elder-Lead: Voting was never in the Bible, and neither was the Papacy
3. Small Groups: “Of”, not “With”
4. Transparency Without Distraction: Fiscally, Disciplinarily, Doctrinally, etc.
5. “Don’t Expand – Plant!”: Growth by Multiplication, not Migration
6. The Only Way to be Jesus-centric is to be Bible-centric: The Word
7. Worship in Song: Meaningful and Solemn, Energetic and Impassioned
…and that’s all that comes to mind off the top of my head. There might even be more once I get started.
So, even as I’m looking over that, this will probably be less a One Post Wonder™ and more likely a Multi Post Series™. I’m really looking forward to it, hang on tight.