Tag Archives: Church
What Do You Expect on Sunday?
People cannot worship in church if they have not met the Lord before arriving at the door…. What we do before the service will determine what happens within the service.
ORIGINAL EMPHASIS Erwin Lutzer, Pastor to Pastor (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1998), 80.
Iceberg in the Pulpit, Fire in the Pews
There is no chance of fire in the pews if there is an iceberg in the pulpit.
HT: @preachingtoday
Do You Think Church Is Boring?
The complaint that church is boring is never made by people in awe.
HT: Reformed Quotes
The Beginning of Mission
Mission begins with a kind of explosion of joy. The news that the rejected and crucified Jesus is alive is something that cannot possibly be suppressed. It must be told. Who could be silent about such a fact?
The mission of the Church in the pages of the New Testament is like the fallout from a vast explosion, a radioactive fallout which is not lethal but life-giving.
God Gave Himself To Purify unto Himself a Peculiar People
May we never forget that the suffering Son of God gave Himself to purify unto Himself a peculiar people—a people whose thoughts are peculiar, for their thoughts are the thoughts of God, as having the mind of Christ—a people whose affections are peculiar, for they are fixed on things above—a people whose prayers are peculiar, for they are wrought in their heart by the Spirit of grace and supplication—a people whose sorrows are peculiar, because they spring from a spiritual source—a people whose joys are peculiar, for they are joys which the stranger cannot understand—a people whose hopes are peculiar, as anchoring within the veil—a people whose expectations are peculiar, as not expecting to reap a crop of happiness in this marred world—but are looking for happiness in the kingdom of rest and peace in the bosom of God. They make it manifest that they are a peculiar people by walking in the footsteps of the Lord the Lamb—taking up the cross—denying themselves—and living to the honor, praise, and glory of God.
Encouragement for Pastors of Small Churches
The following words were written by 19th century Scottish pastor John Brown to a friend who had recently taken responsibility to pastor a small congregation:
I know the vanity of your heart, and that you will feel mortified that your congregation is very small, in comparison with those of your brethren around you; but assure yourself on the word of an old man, that when you come to give an account of them to the Lord Christ at His judgment seat, you will think you have had enough.
A Useless Church
Whenever a church keeps back Christ crucified… from that moment a church ceases to be useful.
The Pastor’s Pastor
There is no one so interested in the pastor’s charge as the Chief Pastor is. He shares all the anxieties, hardships, watchings, and perils of the work.
An Outpost of Heaven
The church is to see itself as an outpost of heaven. It is a microcosm of the new heaven and the new earth, brought back, as it were, into our temporal sphere. We are still contaminated by failures, sin, relapses, rebellion, self-centeredness; we are not yet what we ought to be. But by the grace of God, we are not what we were. For as long as we are left here, we are to struggle against sin, and anticipate, so far as we are able, what it will be like to live in the untarnished bliss of perfect righteousness. We are to live with a view to the day of Christ.
D. A. Carson, A Call to Spiritual Reformation (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1992), 135-136.
Life Is Worship 