Pursuing a Ph.D While Planting?
Like many in our small world, I did not stop my formal education after seminary. In fact, I did another Master’s degree (History) and went through to the Doctorate (History). Last Monday, I finished my final seminar. In the fall, I have a private readings scheduled and then I sit for comprehensive examinations in March...
Tips for Examinations and Assessments – Spelling and Grammar
Tips for Examinations and Assessments I’ve have the privilege of serving with two groups of folks who regularly assess men for ordination and church planting. I’m a member of my presbytery’s Leadership and Development Committee and I serve The Acts 29 Church Planting Network as a church planter assessor. I’ve also been run through examinations...
Numbers and Faithfulness
Ansgar was a ninth century missionary to the Scandanavian area. We know about him from statues, a biography and other sources. He was the first to establish Christian churches in Denmark. Yet, after his death in 865, those churches disappeared. While Ansgar has his own Wikipedia article and is known in Church History, he probably...
Can Pastors Have Real Friends?
Isolation is the pastor’s enemy. And it’s the enemy to the pastor’s family. Dark times, sometimes long and painful, are as regular to guy in the pew as they are to the guy in pulpit. The big difference is that the guy in the pew has real friends. The pastor typically doesn’t. Should I Make...
Struggling With Faith and Being a Church Planter
Recently, I’ve been realizing that planting a church has been causing me to have some serious struggles with my faith in God. Planting a church pushes you into a situation of total dependence on God. For many pastors there is a struggle against always seeking to control and stabilize their churches. For me as a...
Hobnobbing, Snubbing, or Blissfully Ignorant
I was pleased to see our own prodigious church planter Sam Desocio write a little something about being ecumenical over at his blog. He summarizes the problem, Add to this the postmodern view of personal truth and we seem to have come upon quite a challenge for the people of God. On a continental level...
7 Things We Learned from the AC Funding Fracas
The Administrative Committee funding proposal that last year’s General Assembly sent to the presbyteries for approval has officially failed. What has it taught us? A ton? Not much? Here are a few suggestions: We want to fund the AC. Throughout all the AC funding fracas no one lobbied to detonate the AC. Maybe there is...
ByFaith, Hipster Presbyterians, and Dolla’ Bills (Y’all)
What should the PCA do with ByFaith Magazine? Cut it off from Administrative Committee funding, to allow it to sink or swim? Kill it altogether? Throw even more money at it?
Enough With the Singing and the Preaching
Looking at many churches in the PCA it’s fair to say that singing and preaching seem to be promoted above everything else, and I think that this is a potential problem. Maybe you are thinking “how are they promoted?” The answer is that we give the most time to the things we think are the...
Why is the Pastor Wearing That?!
The more I look around at different churches I realize that dress is one of the most diverse issues seen in churches today. It turns out that there are a lot of varying expectations out there about how people dress at church, and the heaviest expectations are often placed on the people who are up...
Full of Sound and Fury
I really don’t want to think about it anymore. At least that is what I thought to myself when I received a late Friday email. The subject line read, PCA Vote on BCO 14 something or other. And as everyone knows, late Friday afternoon emails really shouldn’t be read late Friday afternoon for fear of...
Don’t Call it a Come Back, Please
I have recently heard a small rumbling in certain corners of the PCA which seem to be suggesting that the environment in the PCA today is very similar to the environment in the PCUS which made a split necessary, but is that really a fair comparison? To get our bearings let’s consider a few questions...
