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Field Notes – 25/7/T

Kevin DeYoung’s Just Do Something is on sale for the kindle today at the bargain price of £1.40!

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“Our elders meet formally twice each month.  We have a “prayer” meeting on the first Tuesday and a “business” meeting on the third Tuesday.  We try to pray at our business meetings, too, though not as extensively… At the prayer meeting, we share known needs in the church, including our own needs as elders, then we spend the rest of the time praying for those requests and praying through a chunk of the church membership list.” (Jeramie Rinne)

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RCA Book of Church Order:

“At each regular meeting, the board of elders shall seek to determine whether any members of the congregation are:

a. in need of special care regarding their spiritual condition and/or

b. are not making faithful use of the means of grace, i.e., attending worship and participating in the sacraments and shall provide the means of extending Christian ministry to such persons.”

Kevin DeYoung:

“I wonder how many churches, from any denomination or no denomination at all, approach their member care this deliberately?  It requires a system for knowing your people.  It requires elders trained in the work of shepherding.  It requires planning to make this a part of the elders agenda every month.  It requires an honest and deliberate strategy for membership.” 

At every elders meeting we need to be asking “Who needs spiritual help?  Who seems to be drifting from active participation in the church?”

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Keeping watch will involve asking questions about the flock.

“Is anyone struggling with discouragement?  Is anyone lonely or isolated?  Is anyone drifting away from Christ?  What are patterns of attendance at church?  Anyone missing recently?  Is anyone toying with unbiblical doctrine through a recent bestselling paperback they bought?  Are the widows’ needs being met?  Are any faint-hearted, shrinking back from some course of action God commands?  Is anyone suffering medically?  Are there any sick people whom the elders should visit and pray over as James 5 instructs?  Are there broken relationships in the church needing reconciliation?

In facing all these various conditions, the elders are seeking God’s wisdom in understanding what is the wisest course of action: does the individual need instruction? Encouragement? Admonishment? Rebuke? Correction? Praise?  If so, which elders would be the best to give the needed ministry?  Who is specifically going to do what and by when?” (Andrew Davis)

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If you liked Tim & Kathy Keller’s devotional book on the Psalms, you might be interested to hear that they have one on Proverbs – The Way of Wisdom – coming out later this year.

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“Sin brought death into the world.  If Adam had not sinned, he would not have died.  God entrusted Adam with a spark of immortality, which he by patiently continuing in well-doing might have blown into an eternal flame; but he foolishly blew it out by wilful sin: and now death is the wages of sin, and sin is the sting of death.” (Matthew Henry)

Field Notes – 24/7/M

Last Sunday’s Songs at Banstead Community Church: 1) All people that on earth do dwell; 2) His forever; 3) There is a higher throne; 4) Facing a task unfinished.

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“Where the work of visiting is neglected, we conclude one main part of the pastors business lies undone.” (Benjamin Keach)

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“Before the cross they were saved on credit.  After the cross, we’ve been saved on debit.”

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“Catechising children has taught me more divinity than any other means whatever.” (Thomas Charles)

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“Premodernity: “We can know some things.”

Modernity: “We can know everything.”

Postmodernity: “We can’t know anything.”

Of course “we can’t know anything” is a smokescreen.  If I disagree with you, who knows what’s right?  If you disagree with me, you’re wrong.”

(Matt Smethurst)

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As it is in London this year, I might go along to the Sovereign Grace UK Leaders Conference in October.

Field Notes – 21/7/F

Five things to tell Christian parents whose children are living prodigal lifestyles.

Nick Batzig:

1. Pray explicitly for your children’s salvation.
2. Pray God will surround your children with strong Christian friends.
3. Pray God will do what it takes to bring your children to Himself.
4. Pursue your children with God’s Word.
5. Be loving yet firm with your children.

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“In many debates we need more options than either/or & both/and.  Often the truth is “both X and Y but mostly Y”.  So how about: both/and/but?” (David Shaw)

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The August issue of Evangelicals Now is now out.  An online subscription is a bargain at £10 a year.

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“As slaves in Egypt for over 400 years, the Israelites worked seven days a week, 365 days a year.  Their parents, grandparents, great grandparents, and great-great grandparents existed for only one reason – to work.  They never stopped.  They never rested.  They never delighted.” (Peter Scazzero)

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Tim Keller:

“I often ask Christians to evaluate their situation with regard to  prayer by using a metaphor.  Imagine that your soul is a boat, a boat with both oars and a sail. 

In this case here are four questions: 

Are you “sailing”?  Sailing means you are living the Christian life with the wind at your back. 

Are you “rowing”?  Rowing means you are finding prayer and Bible reading to be more a duty than a delight. 

Are you “drifting”?  Drifting means that you are experiencing all the conditions of rowing – spiritual dryness and difficulties in life.  But in response, instead of rowing, you are letting yourself drift. 

Are you “sinking”?  Eventually your boat, your soul, will drift away from the shipping lanes, as it were – and truly lose any forward motion in the Christian life.

Prayer is rowing, and sometimes it is like rowing in the dark – you won’t feel that you are making any progress at all.  Yet you are, and when the winds rise again, and they surely will, you will sail again before them.”

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Sorted is a great event for young people aged 14-18.  The next one is taking place on Saturday 11 November.  All the details are HERE.

Field Notes – 19/7/W

The Big Bible Adventure is a series of talks I’ve written for the weekly assembly I do in a local junior school.  Its aim is over a 4 year period (2 years in OT & NT) to tell the big story of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation so that by the time the children move on to secondary school they will have a basic understanding of it.

It struck me when preparing a sermon on Acts 25:1-22 why this approach of teaching the basic Bible story is necessary.  Most people in the UK today (certainly under 40) are like Festus in these verses.  They haven’t a clue about Christian doctrine and the stories of the Bible.  In terms of basic knowledge and understanding, people are starting a lot further back than they were when Billy Graham came to Haringey in 1954.  We therefore need to look for ways of teaching them the basics in order to lay a foundation, and giving children the facts in an assembly is one of the ways we could do this.

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Mark Dever’s interview with Keith Getty about his hymn-writing, the effects of technology on church music, and more is something I’m planning on listening to in the next few days.

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These courses based on Michael Horton’s book Core Christianity look like a good resource for discipling new Christians.

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Challies recommends Max McLean’s Unleashing the Word for training those who read Scripture publicly in church.

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Greg Gilbert’s excellent trilogy of books have been turned into tracts – What is the Gospel? // Who is Jesus? // Why trust the Bible? – hopefully 10ofthose will start stocking these!

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“Money isn’t just money, its mission ammunition!” (Ross Lester)

Field Notes – 18/7/T

Last Sunday’s Songs at Banstead Community Church: 1) Tell out my soul; 2) Arise, my soul, arise; 3) From the breaking of the dawn; 4) See Him in Jerusalem; 5) There is a fountain filled with blood.

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“The call is important.  So that when the pressure is on, you can say it is God who has called me to do this work, and I must be obedient to His calling… If God calls you to do something He will equip and enable you to do that ministry.” (Bill James)

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Awesome Cutlery is album and devotional to help families worship Jesus together.

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Carl Trueman paraphrasing from Philip Rieff’s The Triumph of the Therapeutic:

“In times past people did not go to church to be made happy, they went to church to have their misery explained to them.”

The actual quote:

“Formerly, if men were miserable, they went to church so as to find a rationale for their misery; they did not expect to be happy — this idea is Greek, not Christian or Jewish.”

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You can get a free ebook of Mark Dever’s The Gospel and Personal Evangelism by filling in a short survey HERE.