Communion Meditation: Mother’s Day

Posted on May 12, 2009 by Jay F Guin

CommunionMother’s Day means different things to different people. For many of us taking our mothers out to eat after church, it will mean a very long wait — followed by a great meal with great people. And that got me to thinking about a couple of verses.

(Rev 3:20-21)  Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. 21 To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne.

(Rev 19:9)  Then the angel said to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!'” And he added, “These are the true words of God.”

At the End of time, we’re going to all join Jesus for a wedding banquet. It will be a very long wait — followed by a great meal with great people. Continue reading →

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Ed Stetzer on Reversing Our Decline: The Cure, Part 2

Posted on May 12, 2009 by Jay F Guin

downward_trend.jpg

So what do we do?We cannot simply mandate how churches, pastors, and believers live. Our theological convictions of the priesthood of all believers and local autonomy of the church lead us to allow each church to heed God’s will on their own. But on a denominational level, I believe we need to heed the words sounding from numerous places in the convention for a Great Commission Resurgence. Our situation would be much worse if we did not have the Conservative Resurgence, but a Conservative Resurgence without a Great Commission Resurgence is an exercise in belief without action.

I believe this must be our wake-up call. Again. If not, there will be plenty more days like this in the coming years. Continue reading →

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Thinking Out Loud About Elder Training

Posted on May 11, 2009 by Jay F Guin

[I’m sticking this post to the top of the stack for a few days to encourage further comment — pro and con.]

training(1 Cor 9:25) Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.

Jim K has put a challenge to me to figure a way to actually do something about our need for an elder-training problem.

The first task would be to design a program that actually meets the need.

The models that come to mind are —

* One day annual seminar

* Half-week annual seminar

* Week-long annual seminar Continue reading →

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CENI: Necessary Inferences

Posted on May 11, 2009 by Jay F Guin

The “NI” in CENI is necessary inference. Now, I majored in mathematics, and to us mathematicians, an inference is not “necessary” unless it is proven to a mathematical certainty. The Church of Christ approach to necessary inference is something else.

Let’s start with the “5 acts of worship,” which is a fundamental teaching of the Churches of Christ, going back to a series of articles written by Alexander Campbell over 150 years ago. The current teaching is that there are five and only five acts of worship permitted in the assembly —

  • Prayer
  • Preaching
  • Communion
  • Giving
  • Singing

However, as we review the prooftexts for this foundational argument, we see very little “necessary” in the inferences. Continue reading →

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Happy Mother’s Day from the Bear

Posted on May 10, 2009 by Jay F Guin
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Unity in Diversity

Posted on May 10, 2009 by Jay F Guin

KetchersideThanks to Edward Fudge, I’ve discovered Unity in Diversity, a web site that includes most of the writings of Carl Ketcherside. Ketcherside is routinely vilified by many among the conservative Churches of Christ because he helped initiate the progressive movement. We progressives owe a lot to Br. Ketcherside.

I am persuaded that Ketcherside remains among the best — if not the best — writer the Churches have ever produced. I read a lot of material written by a lot of people, and Ketcherside remains my favorite.

After I taught a class at the ACU lectureships a while back, the son-in-law of Br. Ketcherside thanked me for the class and gave me a couple of his books, saying that I taught in Ketcherside’s spirit. It was one of the greatest compliments I’ve ever received. One of those books included this article from 40 years ago — Continue reading →

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Ed Stetzer on Reversing Our Decline: The Cure, Part 1

Posted on May 10, 2009 by Jay F Guin

downward_trend.jpgAny correct answer will blame us all — our institutions, our elders, our ministers, and our members. And while the members are hardly free from fault, I think those with the greatest influence get most of the blame — our schools and our elders. And, of those, I think the schools get most of the blame.

I mean, we provide very, very little support and training for elders, and we have schools that turn our preachers well schooled in division and discord.

And I don’t see even our best universities doing much to help train elders or compete head to head with the odious schools of preaching. That’s not to say that they aren’t working mightily to expand the Kingdom. Some are. It’s just that the way the Churches of Christ are organized, if anyone is going to deal with our biggest problems effectively, it has to come from the universities.

And our two biggest problems are poorly trained elders and preachers trained to be servants of a false, works-based gospel. Continue reading →

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God Makes Surprise Visit

Posted on May 9, 2009 by Jay F Guin

According to a recent article in The Onion, God Himself recently made a surprise visit to a North Carolina church (and I quote) —

GodFAYETTEVILLE, NC—Parishioners at the First Presbyterian Church were left stunned and in awe of His glory Sunday, when the Lord God Almighty dropped by their 11 a.m. service unannounced.

Interrupting Pastor Terry Pridgen’s sermon on His unending mercy, God appeared suddenly before His flock as an intense beam of white light, instantly dispersing the earthly forms of those seated in the first two pews. Sources said the remaining congregants had to avert their eyes from their Creator, whose booming celestial voice overwhelmed their worldly senses and humbled their hearts as He politely apologized for not calling first.

“I AM the God of Abraham, the LORD MOST HIGH, who brought you forth from the bondage of Egypt,” God said unto church members, many of whom cowered in reverent fear of Him. “Thought I’d just pop in and see how things were going. Please, pretend like I’m not even here.”

The Supreme Being then thanked the choir for its “lovely introduction” and took a seat to the right of the altar. Continue reading →

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CENI: Binding Examples

Posted on May 9, 2009 by Jay F Guin

church_split1As we considered in the earlier posts in this series, the “E” in CENI stands for “examples,” generally spoken of as approved examples or binding examples.

Now, originally, the idea was a simple one: any approved example certainly shows that God approves the exemplified practice. When we read of churches sending out missionaries, we can be confident that God approves that activity. When we read that a church gathered to “break bread” on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7-8), surely God approves that. And I have no quarrel with that argument at all — except to note that even such an obvious principle remains incomplete.

I mean, we also have approved examples of speaking in tongues in the assembly (1 Cor 14), drinking wine at a wedding (John 2), going on missionary journeys with no money (Luke 10) — and yet we don’t consider these “approved” as applied to modern church practice. How did we make that determination? Where in CENI are we told how to distinguish an approved First Century example that’s approved for us today from an approved First Century example that isn’t approved for today? You see, we pick and choose based on something quite apart from CENI. Continue reading →

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Ed Stetzer on Reversing Our Decline: Denial

Posted on May 8, 2009 by Jay F Guin

downward_trend.jpgAt this point, we pick up with Stetzer’s 2009 post, building on the 2008 post we’ve just covered.

The SBC declined again this year in both membership and baptisms. You can read the news story here. There is some encouraging news about missions giving, but the membership and baptism declines are disturbing.

… Last year, I said we “peaked” in our membership. This year, I believe that our tipping point continues to tip. Unless things change, we are about to enter a time when we grow accustomed to decline and think back to the good ol’ days of growth.

On April 28, 2008, I posted a graph of our membership numbers beginning in 1950 on my blog and said, “our year-to-year growth has been in a constant trended decline, not for one year, but for decades–this is not a one year blip, this is a 50 year trend.”

… With fewer baptisms and a declining membership, the trends point to several years of decline in our future, save for God’s intervention on our behalf.

We are a denomination in decline, at least in our membership and definitely in our evangelism and baptisms. The most rational decision now is to acknowledge its reality so we might deal with its consequences and discover solutions for our churches. Continue reading →

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