You are here: Home / Archives for The Pivot Blog / Spiritual Growth

Favorite authors: R.C. Sproul

It is no exaggeration to say that God used this man to change my life.  His book, Willing to Believe, devastated some of my most cherished theological beliefs and began to open new windows for seeing and being amazed by the grace of God.  Over the next few years I read just about any Sproul book I could get my hands on – even his children’s books.

  • Willing to Believe
  • Faith Alone
  • Getting the Gospel Right
  • Lifeviews
  • The Holiness of God (probably my favorite Sproul book)
  • Knowing Scripture
  • After Darkness, Light
  • The King Without A Shadow
  • The Lightlings
  • The Priest With Dirty Clothes

For every birthday I’d get a new teaching series from Ligonier.  When our oldest, Hunter (now 11), was a baby we’d joke that he’d grow up thinking of Dr. R.C. Sproul as “Uncle R.C.”, since he spent so much time in the car playing with his mobile and listening to Sproul talk about ‘God and ice cream cones’, univocal vs. analogical language, talks on the sacraments, practical godliness, apologetics, salvation, Trinity, world religions.

I’m grateful to God for Sproul’s strong love for Scripture.  This quote – a recent response to a question about his retirement – is vintage Sproul:

“I’ll retire when they pry my cold, dead fingers off of my Bible.”

I hope that’s not soon.  My boys hope to shake Uncle RC’s hand one day.  Maybe T4G 2020?

Filed Under: Books, Spiritual Growth, Theology

Introducing Joshua Harris

I met Josh when we were kids.  My dad pastored the church where his uncle served as the associate pastor.  During summer times, Josh’s family would come in town and he and I would play together, jumping prickly bushes in the front of the church building.  He also taught me how to do a front handspring and was my inspiration for a 12 week stint of gymnastics classes at the YMCA.

Little did I know back then that he would grow up to be such a godly leader and gifted communicator.

On the Next blog, I took a few moments to intro Joshua Harris.

Filed Under: Books, Messages, Spiritual Growth

Introducing Kevin DeYoung

Kevin DeYoung returns to the Next Conference.  I share some thoughts about why I’m glad to hear this.

Filed Under: Messages, Spiritual Growth

Introducing C.J. Mahaney

A friend and co-blogger, Chris Campbell, introduces our very own C.J. Mahaney, who will also be speaking at the Next Conference in May 2010.  I can’t wait to be there.

Filed Under: Messages, Spiritual Growth

Introducing D.A. Carson

It’s been fun to join the blog-team for the Next Conference 2010, which will be held in Baltimore, MD, in late May.  The conference is outstanding, and I hope to bring a big group up there to benefit from it.

I’ve gotten to introduce a few of the speakers for the upcoming event.  The first was D.A. Carson.

Filed Under: Books, Messages, Spiritual Growth

Introducing Jeff Purswell

Continuing in the blogging series for the Next Conference, here are a few things I’ve most appreciated about Jeff Purswell’s ministry.

Filed Under: Messages, Spiritual Growth

Favorite authors: Andrew Peterson

I’m skating near the edge of the criteria for favorite authors because in Andrew Peterson’s case, I’ve most benefited from his songwriting, which I wasn’t planning to venture into here.  Even more to the edge, I’ve only read one of his books.

I am not a big fiction reader.  At least I wasn’t until recently.  As our kids are getting older I find myself wanting to expose them to a broader range of good prose, good poetry, good music, etc.  The hardest thing to get them hooked on is a wide range of good music.  Peterson gives us some of both.  Here’s a piece of a note I just sent to some friends about his work.

He has an incredibly keen eye to relate the flow of redemptive history to the gospel and the gospel to the grind of life in a fallen world.  Having been through 2 of his cds and recently finished reading his novel to the boys, I’m starting to think that pretty much whatever he comes out with, I intend to get (if I can afford to).

Some places to get acquainted with his stuff:

Some favorite songs from the projects I’ve heard:

  • Hosanna (Letters)
  • All Things New (Letters)
  • Invisible God (Letters)
  • All You’ll Ever Need (Letters)
  • The Good Confession (Letters)
  • Deliver Us (Lamb of God)
  • O Come, O Come Emmanuel (Lamb of God; instrumental)

Some of his songs have serious teaching potential and seem to have been written expressly for that purpose (Matthew’s Begats; So Long, Moses; It Came to Pass – more of the stuff on the Behold the Lamb of God project).

One more snippet that I think gives a sense of the man behind the work was this portion from his blog.  He was talking to his band about his idea for the upcoming tour of concerts:

“The concert has two parts,” I told them. “First, we’ll break the ice by playing in the round. You do a few songs, I’ll do a few songs, we’ll tell stories and let the audience get to know us. Then after the intermission we won’t talk anymore. We’ll just play the songs.”

Now, if you’re familiar at all with concerts by Christian artists, you know that if there’s one thing we love, it’s introducing songs. Sometimes the introduction is several times longer than the song itself. Sometimes this is good, most of the time it’s bad. For the Behold the Lamb half of the concert, though, I was resolved that the songs should do the work of telling the story. I wanted the audience to lose themselves in the story (which, by the way, is a good picture of what our response to the Gospel ought to be). Let me tell you, that was a scary thought. To play ten songs in a row with narry a word between meant there was no way to gauge the audience, no way to change songs mid-set to accommodate a lukewarm crowd, no way to break the ice with a good joke. We had to trust that the story was good enough.

And, of course, it is.

I just found (yesterday) that North Or Be Eaten! was available.  The boys don’t know the second book is finished yet.  It should arrive next week.  Can’t wait to see their faces.  Can’t wait to read the book.

Filed Under: Books, Spiritual Growth

Kauflin on worship as counseling

Characters:  David Powlison and Bob Kauflin

Context:  In between sessions at the recent CCEF Conference

Question:  What does our time of singing have to do with the struggles people bring into the corporate gathering?

Result:  About 3 minutes of pastoral gold on the interface of worship and counseling.

Filed Under: Church Life, Spiritual Growth

Pastoring Pivoters: Cues from 2 Timothy

This past Sunday night, I gave a message at Pivot which was different than anything I’ve given before.  I told them that having studied through 2 Timothy in preparation for the message I had the sense of giving them a sort of “pastoral covenant” which reflects my understanding of some of the priorities given to me by God as a pastor.  I didn’t give the message the original way it came in the study, since – as I told them – I didn’t think I would be able to keep my emotional composure and neither of us would’ve been served by that!  So instead of going through 2 Timothy and sharing personal reflections from passage after passage on how I’m praying that God would help me to serve Pivoters more effectively in those areas, I grouped those reflections under three primary headings:  Proclaim (the gospel), Exhort (doctrinal instruction and exhortations to godliness), and Transfer (looking for ways to facilitate the transfer of gospel-truth, gospel-passion, and gospel-living from one generation to another).

In case you listen to the message, there was one point when I tried to remember the name of a sermon by Thomas Chalmers.  It didn’t come to me, or to two friends who have steel-trap memories – I put them on the spot in a desperate attempt to recover the moment.  The name of the sermon was “The Expulsive Power of a New Affection”.  Chalmers’ sermon is a classic.

For any who may be interested in reading the verse by verse personal reflections on 2 Timothy, I’ll paste them here:

Reflections on Pivot Ministry from 2 Timothy

1:1-2, 5-7  To give implicit and explicit proof of the fact that you’re not being led by a lone ranger pastor, or a first-generation witness to the things you are hearing.  I have mentors who speak into my life – faithful Christian parents, extra local pastors/Christian leaders (dead and alive), and my wonderful friends (LCC pastors) who have and continue to speak into my life.

1:3-4  To pray for you constantly

1:8-14  To center my messages and ministry on the gospel; To not improvise, but faithfully uphold the truth of Scripture, with particular accent on teaching that produces/increases faith and love for Christ.

1:15-2:2  To not let the railings of gospel opponents be a distraction or discouragement, but rather an incentive to discipleship.

2:1-2  To diligently labor at transferring substantive, life-transforming doctrine to the next generation.  Doctrine that turns civilians into soldiers, couch potatoes into (two images here) competitive athletes who have spiritual ambitions – hard-working, mission-minded, field workers for the Kingdom of God.

2:8-21  To resist the temptation to build this ministry on the trends of cultural spirituality.  To build it on the foundational importance of proclaiming Christ and trusting that God’s Word – not my stories, jokes, hair style, cultural savvy, use of  media – particularly the word of the gospel, is the power the Holy Spirit wields for salvation and growth.

2:22-26  To call you to flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.  To warn you about false teachers, bad books, unhealthy movements.  To correct those trends in a spirit of concern and prayer.  To remind you that wrong ideas are not just wrong ideas – they’re snares of the devil that capture people.

3:1-9  To not be trivial about the realities of sin in this world and the presence of sin in our hearts.

3:10-13  To walk in integrity by the grace of God.  To confess sin, strive for holiness, pursue deeper amazement at God’s grace.  To not have a double life.

3:14-17  To stand here under the conviction that if God’s Word doesn’t say it, you don’t need it in order to be equipped for every good work.

4:1-2  To hold onto the truth that the primary means God has given me to serve and disciple you is to feed on Scripture and to feed you scripture.

4:3-5  To resist the impulse to build Pivot ministry by parroting the values and creeds of our culture.

4:9-22  To regularly accent the irreplaceable importance of the larger local church setting for discipleship and mentoring.  As much as possible, to create contexts for mentoring younger ministers and allowing closer friendships to foster a feeling of mutual mission as a group within the church. (Theoforum/Sheoforum/Small Groups)

Filed Under: Church Life, Messages, Spiritual Growth

Why So Many Words in Worship?

The songs we sing on Sunday morning are not chosen, first of all, on the basis of musical style, but of content.  What do the words say?  What truths are brought to mind?  How does this song hold before us the glory, beauty, mercy, power of the Triune God?

Lots of worship songs being written today have moving music and melodies, but lack specificity.  They fall into the habit that C.S. Lewis urged good writers to avoid:

“It’s no use telling us that something was ‘mysterious’ or ‘loathsome’ or ‘awe-inspiring’ or ‘voluptuous….  By direct description, by metaphor and simile, by secretly evoking powerful associations, by offering the right stimuli to our nerves (in the right degree and the right order), and by the very beat and vowel-melody and length and brevity of your sentences, you must bring it about that we, we readers, not you, exclaim ‘how mysterious!’ or ‘loathsome’ or whatever it is. Let me taste for myself, and you’ll have no need to tell me how I should react.”

Not every song that we incorporate in our singing is going to be a multi-verse work of poetic theology.  Not every song will have the shelf life of Amazing Grace or How Great Thou Art.  The overwhelming majority won’t.  Some of our songs will be simpler.  Some will have strings of adjectives.  But I hope that our primary singing diet over the course of, say, a decade, would be composed of songs that direct our thoughts to the glory of God.  Songs that don’t just say He is great, but recall to our minds the great things He has done, so that the natural response of our hearts is to exclaim, “You are Great!”

If you want to read a brief article, hot off the press, on the question of why we should sing songs that are poetic theology, enjoy these thoughts from Kevin DeYoung.

Filed Under: Church Life, Spiritual Growth
« Older Posts
Newer Posts »