How the Doctrines of Grace Aid Church Revitalization

In this short video Dr. John Piper explains how the doctrines of grace aided the work of church revitalization at Bethlehem Baptist Church.

http://www.desiringgod.org/doctrinesofgrace

What you need to know about me and my blog

Show Us Christ!!!

In Colossians 1:28-29 the apostle Paul beautifully summarizes his philosophy of ministry with these inspired words; We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ. For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me. 

I am thoroughly convinced that every reformation work or revitalization effort that is of God is always grounded in Christ-centered preaching.  Yes, the whole counsel of God is to be systematically taught, but above all else, faithful ministers of the gospel preach Jesus Christ!  To borrow language from the pen of J.C. Ryle, "The true shepherd of the souls is he who enters the ministry with a single eye to Christ, desiring to glorify Christ, doing all in the strength of Christ, preaching Christ's doctrine, walking in Christ's steps, and laboring to bring people to Christ."

I came to Freeport with this core conviction and have made every effort to make Christ-centered preaching and God-centered worship the defining marks of our local church.  In other words, it is no accident that I choose the Revelation of Jesus Christ as our first expository series when I started pastoring this local church.  This verse by verse study was followed up by a in-depth study of the Lordship of Christ in the book of Colossians.  Recently I have preached 58 sermons highlighting the glories of Christ in the gospel of John.  

Why?  Because God is jealous for the glory of His Son!    

The goal of my expository pulpit over the past six years is perhaps best summarized in the wonderful worship song Show Us Christ.  

Be Faithful and Trust God With the Results

We long to see thy churches full, That all the chosen race. May, with one voice and heart and soul, Sing Thy redeeming grace.   

Jesus promised to build His Church and articles like this one by Meredith Flynn remind me He is doing this very thing in America and around the world.  We should all rejoice when we hear of a "Word-centered ministry" flourishing in the Lord!

You’ll never believe what’s drawing Millennials to church…

Article by Meredith Flynn —  June 19, 2014

"A 16-page church bulletin leaves little to the imagination. At Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., worship attenders know exactly what they’re getting into from the time they walk into the split-level, high-ceilinged sanctuary, less than a mile from the U.S. Capitol.

The order of service, printed neatly on the inside cover page, lists every hymn, prayer, and Scripture reading. Every song is there in entirety – not just lyrics, but actual music.

Even the Nicene Creed gets its own page, with three paragraphs of explanation about where it came from and why we recite it. (“I said this in church for 28 years,” said one visitor, “and nobody ever explained it to me.”)

Your first impression is that this church is good at welcoming new people. They remember well that not everyone who walks in the door has been here before, and maybe they’ve never been in any church before. But it’s more than that. There’s a shrewdness here (in the nicest sense of the word), and an attention to detail that may be best matched just down the street under the Capitol Dome.  Capitol Hill Baptist Church is a church for its very unique city.

What’s most interesting is that there are Millennials here – that elusive generation that’s giving churches fits around the country. A variety of ages are represented at Capitol Hill, but the congregation skews young. A few families sat in “bulkhead” seating at the back of the sanctuary, with a little extra leg room to accommodate a fidgety toddler. The rest of us were packed into crowded pews – between 900 and 1,000 are here for worship on Sunday mornings.

Capitol Hill isn’t doing what most churches do to try to reach Millennials. Lately, the normal prescription is a relaxed dress code, coffee bar in the lobby, and maybe a violinist in the worship band.

Are We Really Together For The Gospel? (pt 2)

In my previous article I mentioned how a local pastor actively encouraged his church family to recruit members from other local churches under the banner of biblical "missionary" activity.  Some of my friends had a hard time believing me when I told them this.  This post is for you. 

For the record, the "Reformed" minister who wrote this letter transitioned to another ministry context some time ago.  Even more encouraging, the current pastor of this local fellowship is a godly, like-minded, minister of the gospel.   

As a result of these experiences here are some questions that I have been asking myself recently:  Are we really together for the gospel?  What does it look like to be together for the gospel?  How can pastors and churches that really are T4G come alongside one another in more intentional ways?  How can I better demonstrate to our people that our local church is not the only ministry that is doing things "God's way?"  How do we fight against the kind of behavior that destroys relationships between like-minded churches and pastors? 

The following note is an actual letter:   "As you heard during my presentation, Grace is now entering an exciting stage in it’s early ministry—where the stakes are high! In this stage, we must all start seeing ourselves as “missionaries to Freeport—recruiting other missionaries to Freeport.” Large churches like Crossroads can survive for quite some time based on size, budget, different-ness, and momentum. Park Hills can survive based on size, multiple staff and a broad, mainstream evangelical culture, and migration from broad evangelical churches. 

How One Area Pastor Helped Revitalize Our Local Church

On June 8th, 2014 a small group from First Baptist traveled to Rockford to pay our respects to Pastor Bob Bixby and Morningstar Church.  The special service we were participating in was not a funeral rather it was a special "commissioning service" for Bob Bixby.  We were attending this service in large part to show our appreciation for a selfless servant of God.  Our group also wanted to thank Morningstar Church for what they have meant to our congregation over these past six years. 

For a long time I have wondered if conservative evangelicals are really "Together For the Gospel"?  Yes, I know more and more local churches now say they embrace the chief tenants of biblical Calvinism and I realize that pastors come together in droves today for mega conferences telling the world along the way that we are gloriously united in the truth (see the Gospel Coalition and Together For the Gospel for example).   However, I have witnessed and experienced first hand many actions that seem to tell a much different story.  I have found that professing evangelical churches often function as if we embraced religious Darwinism.  It's the survival of the fittest. It's lets grow my ministry even if it's at the expense of undermining yours brother-pastor.  It's your loss is our gain (praise the Lord). It's, can I say, a dog eat dog world out there!?! 

In one 'real world' situation a former lay leader left our local church, after trying to secretly run me out, only to be welcomed by another evangelical pastor the next Sunday.  No follow up phone call ever came even though this pastor knew me and was fully aware that this member use to joyfully serve at our church.  This whole situation saddened me but honestly it really did not surprise me because I have experienced similar situations like this many times before and I am guessing most of my pastor readers have too.   My favorite story is the (former) "missional" pastor in town who was actually teaching his local church that being a 'missionary' involved actively recruiting Christians from other local church congregations (including ours) to come and join the mission at ___ church.   In a previous ministry context I remember when our senior pastor received an email informing him that in a few weeks a new, like-minded, church plant was going to start up just a few blocks away from our location.  A few months later one of our pastor's fellow elders left to join the "Harvest team" down the street.  With interactions like this, are we really together for the gospel?

Thankfully I/we have also  had the joy of meeting some amazing pastors and local churches.  These shepherds truly care about the spiritual health of local churches that they don't even pastor!  They actually look out for one another and serve one another in the joy of the Lord.  They contact each other if a member from another local church starts attending their ministry just to make sure everything is above board.  Some of them even pray for one another's ministries by name on Sunday morning.  I have briefly written about this refreshing experience in a previous blog post. 

No pastor has modeled this spirit more than Pastor Bob Bixby (pictured above).  Bob was greatly blessed to have a plethora of gifted preachers at the church he "planted" many years ago.  Of course some of these men were the direct fruit of Bob's ministry labors.  Rather than hoard these gifts Pastor Bixby willingly shared these men with like-minded ministries that were in need of assistance.  He even commissioned two of his best men to go pastor other needy congregations.

Six Years Later

Six years ago the Lord brought our family to Freeport, Illinois to shepherd the flock at First Baptist Church.   The revitalization work here has never been dull.  Despite my mistakes as a Lead Pastor God has shown Himself to be faithful and good during this roller coaster journey (Joshua 1:8-9).

The following archived Journal Standard article by Hilary Matheson brings back a lot of memories. 
Posted Aug. 6, 2008 @ 12:01 am

Freeport, Ill.

The son of a pastor, Caleb Kolstad is now into his sixth week as senior pastor of First Baptist Church. Kolstad joined the church after serving First Baptist Church in Carmel, Ind., as an associate pastor for three years.  Witnessing the highs and lows, challenges and blessings, as a pastor’s son was a great learning experience, Kolstad said. “There’s a great group of people that make up the congregation and a great staff – Steve, associate pastor, Sandy, the children’s director – so it seemed like a perfect fit,” Kolstad said.

Becoming a pastor was a change in Kolstad’s plans of becoming a sports broadcaster. He gets different responses from friends who remembered him talking about being a sportscaster since junior high.

The responses vary from those who tell him he should use his intelligence in another job and those who give him a lot of  respect for his decision.  “It depends on really what the perspective of the Christian ministry is. For those who are Christians, they think, as do I, it’s the highest calling God can give to a man,” he said.

Young, Restless, Reformed

Much has been written lately about the Young, Restless, Reformed (YRR) movement.  This is only appropriate seeing that Time magazine (a secular publication) actually identified the New Calvinism as one of the 10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now.  This huge wave of interest in a more God-centered theology is a wonderful thing to behold and to participate in.  Having just attended the bi-annual Together for the Gospel conference for a second time I am happy to say that their is much to rejoice over concerning the work of God in the life of the Bible-believing (evangelical) Church. 

This Reformed resurgence has brought about many edifying things. Such as more praise songs/hymns with precise, doctrinal lyrics that have a more Christ-honoring, gospel-centered bent to them.  A renewed zeal for personal evangelism and global missions.  Thousands and thousands of new titles or republished old books that are theologically astute and Word-centered.  Dozens of helpful preaching conferences for pastors and lay people alike.  A Scriptural understanding of biblical manhood and womanhood (YRR is a complementarian movement).  More attention given to the "Five Solas" of the Reformation (which summarize the biblical gospel).  A healthy appreciation of the past (in the form of gospel creeds and the many saints who have come before us); A renewed affection for Christ and for the grace of God in our redemption; and the list could go on and on.

Having said that, the YRR movement has also tracked in some unhealthy dirt from under its sneakers.  As many have already observed the YRR movement have at times promoted unbiblical and/or imbalanced aspects of doctrine and practice.   Since this is not a monolithic movement and because redeemed sinners are involved in this movement we should not be entirely shocked by this.  With that being noted, if Reformed pastors and churches are unwilling to address the dirt from under our own camps shoes the entire house is going to get really dirty along the way.  Author, Greg Dutcher, recently wrote a book titled, "Killing Calvinism: How to Destroy a Perfectly Good Theology From the Inside." 

During the "Great Awakening" Jonathan Edwards was concerned about something similar in his own lifetime.  This godly concern for sound doctrine and holy living led him to write, Religious Affections.  In this helpful book Edwards points out the signs of true and false revival. 

In that vein, let me express my main concern for the Lord's Church as it relates to New Calvinism and the resurgence of Reformed theology among the YRR movement.  It appears to me that if someone preaches the gospel with a Reformed soteriology many in the Gospel Coalition circle seem to think that everything this pastor/author/leader writes and does must be ok (or at the very least should not be scrutinized). Recent examples of this include James MacDonald's "elephant room" debacle; Mark Driscoll's ongoing ministry issues, confusion surrounding 'free grace' sanctification, and Tim Keller's 400 page treatise on methodology and ecclesiology.  The cycle seems to go like this.  If you are a church leader who embraces the doctrines of grace (especially if you are a Calvinist pastor of a large church) you are one of us.  Since we are together for the gospel we must remain 'center bound' and not really critique one another ("after all, isn't that what killed the early Fundamentalist movement?").

Having recently read Pastor Jon Anderson's three part review  of Pastor Tim Keller's "Center Church" I kept saying to myself, "I cannot believe that (Calvinist) pastors and (Reformed) churches can read this book and conclude that Keller's methodology is apostolic/biblical." Yet the reality is that many pastors are trying to build the Lord's church using Keller's "Center Church" methodology (or something very similar). 

As I read Anderson's thorough review of Keller's very influential book and as I look around at the evangelical church in America I have drawn the following conclusion.  This is what happens when you take biblical, Calvinist soteriology and try and merge it with church growth (Hybels/Warren) methodology and then package your ecclesiology using a little bit of Emergent lingo. (I witnessed this strange merger of church growth methodology and Calvinistic soteriology first hand at a large church in Bothel, Washington).  Jon Anderson is right to sound the alarm (in love) here.  In short, Anderson suggests that Keller is trying to mix good oil with bad vinegar.  It is not only important that pastors get the central message right (per 1 Corinthians 1 and 2) we also need to build the Lord's Church with the right materials and build the right way (1 Corinthians 3-4).  Methodology and Ecclesiology are very important!