Seventeen82

Good Morning, Recently a friend of mine compiled a list of churches, presbytery-by-presbytery, in the Presbyterian Church in America who offer a second service (whether that be in the afternoon or in the evening) on the Lord’s Day. The PCA currently has 1,930 worshipping congregations. 238 of them have morning and evening services on the Sabbath, or roughly 11% of the denomination. Not to be left behind I went about and did my own sleuthing to see what the situation looks like in our beloved Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church. Similar work done for the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (the OPC) and the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America (the RPCNA) showed in those respective communions a near/above 60% rate for evening worship. Our Dutch Reformed brothers (CanRC, URC, etc...) are closer to 90%. I figured we would not be anywhere near those numbers, and I was correct. As with all investigative reporting I am sure my findings are not 100% on the nose accurate, however, I thi...

  In my study right next to a deer skull/antler mount is a picture of Seceder and original Marrow Man Alexander Moncrieff. He’s long been my favorite of the Gairney Six due to his doggishness and godly spirit, both as a minister and as a fighter for the truth of the Scriptures. Moncrieff was called “the Lion of the Secession” and was later appointed as the Secession Church’s Professor of Divinity and served faithfully at the Associate congregation in Abernethy near Perth. He was most well-known later in life for aligning himself with those who were against the imposition of the Burgher Oath, which sadly caused a break amongst his brethren. Yet in all these things Ebenezer Erskine was able to say of Moncrieff that he was the backbone that allowed others to stand tall in the day of trial in the difficult days of 1733. Here recently I had the blessing to re-read a pamphlet of his entitled, The Glory of Immanuel and the Desolation of Immanuel’s Land For the Sins of Them That Dwell T...

  It used to be the case that you could trust someone’s word. It was good enough for deals to be made on a handshake with the understanding that violating that covenant meant more than just a transaction gone bad, it meant you could not longer be a valued business partner. That mattered to people. One of the great sins of our age is that people treat covenantal matters like toilet paper. Good enough for the moment, but at the end of the day it can get flushed without much care. You can just declare bankruptcy, or ignore the requirements of the contract and move on. No big deal. A way we see this play out in real life in the Church is with congregational vows. It is not uncommon for folks to Church hop like a snowshoe hare. They’ll make promises to seek the peace, prosperity, and purity of one place…but will only mean it as long as they are getting what they want out of it. As soon as some other thing comes into view there is little compunction to going somewhere else for worship ...

We’ve all heard the jokes about Presbyterian’s being anti-fun, the so-called frozen chosen. The seen, but not heard denomination. The post you are about to read is going to sound like it came from the official spokesman of the “Presbyterians against anything nice” coalition. Maybe it’s true, maybe I am the grumpiest Presbyterian alive, but my goal here today is not to get hits or cause trouble. Rabble rousers are boring people. Men who seek out controversy don’t have enough to do and they aren’t really seeking to win converts to their position. They just like to see the fight.  At the end of the day I’m really a harmless little fuzzball who just wants Presbyterians to be Presbyterians, Baptists to be Baptists, and Anglicans to be Anglicans. Good fences make good neighbors. If you know where the other person stands it makes it easier to know where you stand. The topic I’d like to get into today is about the meeting space. Some call it the “sanctuary”, others the “preaching hall”, ...

                             2020 was a different year for all of us. A previously unheard-of virus spread across the globe, killings thousands and functionally shutting down entire societies. For the church, the Covid-19 virus provided its own unique challenges. For many of our churches, an adequate response to the virus required an overhaul of the way we’ve always done things. Of course, this shift led to extensive online discussion about the ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’ of worship in the midst of pandemic. One of the most important questions to arise out of these discussions is the question of worship. More specifically, is online worship truly worship as defined by the Scriptures?             Before I attempt to answer that question, I believe that we can make a few important distinctions that clarify this discussion. First, there...

Isaac Watts felt as if the Lord’s songbook was insufficient to teach young and old about the work of Jesus Christ, that they needed to be “updated” to get with the times. He is reported to have complained to his father on many occasions that the psalms were dull and lacked life, and it showed in how people sang them. In his estimation this was because they didn’t clearly enough proclaim Christ. To remedy this he set about writing new hymns and, again in his mind, updating the word of God to fit with the more full revelation of the New Testament.  Watts’ understanding of the psalms was, of course, hogwash , if not something even less pleasant.  This time of year likely his most well known composition is Joy to the World , a meditation on Psalm 98. It is mesmerizing to consider how daft Watts must have been not to see the fullness of Jesus Christ expressed in this portion of Holy Scripture. For centuries these series of psalms (96-98) were understood as speaking to the establish...

                Tensions are high. For Americans, one of the most highly volatile elections of our time is quickly approaching. For Christian’s, there remains a significant amount of uncertainty concerning the future of the American church and of our religious freedom. For many of us, it has become increasingly difficult to decide where we stand as both political parties seem to drift further and further from basic Christian principles, begging the question, “how should we interact with politics in a secular society?”             As we approach the celebration of the protestant reformation on Saturday, there are, I think, a number of similarities that are worth our consideration as we ask ourselves how we should interact with a politically dominant culture. While there are notable differences between 1517 and 2020, there are a surprising number of similarities. In ...

I want to begin this post with a confession: I struggle with self-centeredness occasionally. Ok, you got me, I struggle with it a lot. That should come as no surprise to you or anyone else reading this post. You know that I am no different than you. You are also well aware that we both struggle with self-centeredness. Like the Apostle Paul, we fight the fleshly temptation to honor ourselves rather than God (Rom. 7:15-19). This is true for us even after our hearts have been transformed by the gospel of grace in Christ. I don’t know about you, but my self-centeredness is periodically seen in my attitude before, during and after corporate worship. This was true before I became a pastor, and sadly it’s still true. (Shh, don’t tell anybody. Pastors are supposed to be super-spiritual.) There are times when I don’t want to get out of bed, don’t want to get dressed, don’t want be around people, don’t want to sing the selected songs, don’t want to lead the prayers, and certainly d...