Tim Challies

What I Want From a Church

Whether we are tempted to leave one church for another over a matter of mere preference, whether we are tempted to remove an element of our worship service because it no longer resonates with people, whether we are tempted to try something novel and new, we must always turn first to the Word, first to the one who knows exactly what we need. He will lead us, he will guide us, he will help us to worship in the ways that please him and that satisfy our hungry souls.

NPR recently ran an article about the future of the Christian church. Church attendance is in decline, they said, but some creative leaders are finding ways to keep it relevant in a new cultural context. Pastor Chris Battle has walked away from traditional church because it “was not connecting with people” and now leads a “spiritual community” called BattleField Farm & Gardens. Rector Billy Daniel and Pastor Caroline Vogel of an Episcopal Church in Knoxville use their sanctuary for yoga, breathing exercises, and other alternate forms of spirituality. “Just because you leave organized religion doesn’t mean the hunger to connect with the divine is going to cease,” she says. Bradley Hyde, a Methodist minister, sees churches like his hemorrhaging members and is also turning away from traditional services to focus more on community involvement.
It needs to be said: I care what NPR thinks of the church about as much as I care about what North Korea thinks of democracy or what Jehovah’s Witnesses think of the Trinity. But the article did have some tremendously revealing components to it and ones that are worth considering because they reveal universal human tendencies and temptations.
One of these comes courtesy of a participant in Chris Battle’s church who describes herself as “a refugee from fundamentalist churches.” When asked why she is part of BattleField Farm & Gardens she says, “Generally, I’m here because I want two things out of church … I want time to sit down, like we do on Sundays sometimes or around the fire, and, like, pray and re-center and figure out what we’re about in the world. Because the world is very noisy. And then I want a church to get [expletive] done with your community and for your community.”
The key part of her comment is not the bit about sitting around the fire and re-centering and it’s not the bit about getting [expletive] done within the community. The key part is at the beginning where she says, “I want two things out of church.” The assumption is that her desires are relevant, that what she wants out of a church is even the least bit consequential.
But then she is well-trained because the pastor, when he became convinced church was no longer relevant, said to himself, “maybe we need to begin to do church differently. But what does that look like? And I didn’t know until I got to the garden.” There’s no indication that he looked outside of himself for answers, but only that he looked inside. He asked what he wanted, not what God wanted. He indicates no source of authority beyond his own desires or his own reasoning.
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Rest Takes Work

I messed up over the Christmas holidays. I made a simple but silly mistake—a mistake that left me entering the new year feeling weary instead of rested, feeling drained instead of energized. It was a failure to plan, a failure to remember a simple truth about work and rest.

Like so many other people, I chose not to work during the week that falls between Christmas and New Year’s—at least, not to do more than the minimum (which is essentially just running my daily A La Carte column). In my case it makes sense because few people take the time to read blogs over the holidays. They are distracted and out of their normal habits and routines, so readership plummets and that makes it an ideal time to reduce my effort. So I didn’t really work. But I also didn’t really rest.
My planning had gone as far as to block the time off but not as far as to figure out what I would do instead. I freed up a solid 40 hours between 9 and 5, but didn’t put anything in its place. And so what I found myself doing was, well, nothing. Or, at least, nothing useful. I watched dumb stuff on YouTube and caught up on some programs on Prime Video. I scrolled through a bunch of sites that were interesting, though not particularly edifying. I didn’t do anything bad, but I also didn’t do anything good. And at the end of it all I just felt bored and I felt drained and I felt bad about myself.
It was only as the weekend came and I faced the prospect of the end of the holidays that I understood the mistake I had made. It was only then that I remembered that I need to plan my rest as much as my work. It was only then that I remembered that I rest best when I rest according to at least some kind of a plan. I just don’t have the instincts or the self-control or the character to make something when I’ve planned nothing.
What I should have done was put at least a bit of thought into the week that loomed empty before me. I should have prepared a book or two that would have been light but still interesting. I should have booked a day trip or two that I would have enjoyed with my family. I should have found a location or two that I’ve never photographed before and planned to visit them. I would have found any or all of this truly restful.
But I didn’t. So I suppose I will simply have to accept the mistake I made and embrace it as an opportunity to grow—an opportunity to learn that rest takes work, that if I am going to truly rest, I will need to rest according to plan.

A La Carte (January 18)

Westminster Books has a deal on what they are calling their group study book of the year.

Today’s Kindle deals once again include some excellent books.
Ethnic Harmony Is a Certainty: Three Good Resolves for the Church
“As a pastor in Minneapolis for more than two decades, I have found that one of the most helpful biblical teachings regarding ethnic harmony in the church is that Christ has already secured it.” That is so important to understand and remember.
Communication Lanes
There is some helpful counsel here on communicating well (and not communicating poorly) in this digital world.
Announcing TGC23’s Microevent Partners
For the first time, The Gospel Coalition will be hosting a “conference of conferences”. In addition to mainstage keynote talks, featuring worship led by Sydney, Australia’s CityAlight, TGC23 registrants will choose from a variety of topical microevents on matters pertaining to ministry and all areas of Christian life. Find out more about what John Piper, David Platt, Andrew Wilson, and many other speakers will share with us this September 25—27 as we explore the theme, Hope in the Wilderness: Encouragement for Pilgrims from the Book of Exodus
How Should I Dispose of a Bible?
I’m surprised how much people struggle with this!
Caregiving as a Calling and Ministry
This one will be encouraging to those called to caregiving.
Remembering Rev. Eric Alexander
“We learned this past weekend that Eric Alexander has gone to be with Christ. It was early Sunday morning when I received a text from a friend with this news. My first response was to get on my knees and thank the Lord for Eric. What a dear man. It is his blessing to be received to glory and our blessing to have known him.”
How Does Temptation Work?
Paul traces the four steps that temptation follows.
Flashback: On Doing Ordinary Things
Beneath and behind and inside those ordinary sermons is the extraordinary God who specializes in displaying his power through my weakness, my ordinariness.

In obedience to their King, Jesus, Christians are to build among themselves a genuine counter-culture, in which the values of the kingdom of God rather than the values of this world are lived out. —Douglas Moo

On the Changing of the Dictionaries

God has given us a source of truth that reigns over every book, every dictionary, every source of information. God has given us his truth in his Word and it reigns supreme…And when even the best and greatest dictionaries have become defunct and crumbled into dust, that Word will remain fixed and constant, inerrant and infallible, as trustworthy then as it is right now and has always been.

There is something morbidly fascinating about watching dictionaries slowly but surely change their definitions of common words. It raises some questions, not the least of which strike to the very purpose of a dictionary. Is a dictionary meant to be an objective arbiter of the meaning of words? Or is a dictionary meant to subjectively list the ways in which words are used among the speakers of a particular language at a particular time? These are valid questions, especially in moments when certain key words are being intensely debated.
It is not without significance that Dictionary.com’s word of the year for 2022 was woman. “It’s one of the oldest words in the English language,” they say. “One that’s fundamental not just to our vocabulary but to who we are as humans. And yet it’s a word that continues to be a source of intense personal importance and societal debate. It’s a word that’s inseparable from the story of 2022.” They explain that searches for the word spiked last year, first when Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson was asked to provide her definition of the term—a request she denied—, then again at the overturning of Roe v. Wade and, though they don’t mention it, probably also when Matt Walsh released his film What Is a Woman?.
It was a rare case of not just a word in the spotlight, but a definition. We at Dictionary.com weren’t the only ones to take notice. The prominence of the question and the attention it received demonstrate how issues of transgender identity and rights are now frequently at the forefront of our national discourse. More than ever, we are all faced with questions about who gets to identify as a woman (or a man, or neither). The policies that these questions inform transcend the importance of any dictionary definition—they directly impact people’s lives.
They make their position on dictionaries clear when they insist that the purpose of theirs is to reflect “how people use words in the real world” and they make their position on gender identity clear when they insist that a “dictionary is not the last word on what defines a woman. The word belongs to each and every woman—however they define themselves.” In other words, they believe people are free to define themselves however they see fit and that a good dictionary will serve people by ensuring it defines words in such a way as to affirm individuals’ self-identity.
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A La Carte (January 17)

Blessings to you today.

Today’s Kindle deals include another good-sized list of discounted books.
(Yesterday on the blog: It’s 2023 and We Need Blogs More Than Ever)
How a Christian Marriage Was Saved by a Wise Guerilla Leader
This is an account of how God worked through unusual means to preserve a marriage.
“I Must Decrease” … But How?
“It’s pretty clear: the world’s loud, incessant voice tells me that in order to be happy, I need to spend more of my time, money, and attention on myself. You’ve probably heard the same message about your need for this, as well.”
The Gospel Coalition Conference 2023
Join us September 25—27, Indianapolis, IN. With worship led by Sydney, Australia’s CityAlight and keynote speakers including John Piper, David Platt, Andrew Wilson, and many more, we’ll explore the theme, Hope in the Wilderness: Encouragement for Pilgrims from the Book of Exodus. Find out more about our theme, full lineup and breakouts. (Sponsored Link)
Eight Counsels for Those Thinking of Quitting
John Piper offers some counsel for those who may be considering quitting.
What is covenant theology? (Video)
You’ve probably heard of covenant theology and wondered what it’s all about. Sinclair Ferguson explains in this brief video.
A Light to My Path
“[The Bible] doesn’t lay out every step on our journey, but it gives us the light we need to take the next step, trusting in the Light, knowing that He not only knows every twist and turn in our path but also has intentionally and lovingly prepared the way for us.”
Flashback: For the Christian Who Is Afraid To Die
What we know of life after death we must know by faith. And what does the faithful heart believe about the experience of death? James Meikle beautifully tells us in these words.

It is one thing to attract a gaping crowd to witness a display of pulpit pyrotechny; it is quite another thing to attract and to hold attentive listeners to the gospel of life. —Theodore Cuyler

Practical and Pastoral: This New Work Will Build Many Up In Their Faith

Today’s post is sponsored by Christian Focus Publications.

For centuries, Baptists have published confessions of faith as formal statements of their beliefs. Chief among these is the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689. This doctrinal statement is a spiritual treasure trove worthy of our fresh attention. In a new study, edited by Rob Ventura, more than twenty contributors unpack its timeless biblical truths, ‘things which are most surely believed among us’ (Luke 1:1). Here, in an interview with Evan Knies of The King’s Table, Pastor Ventura shares some comments concerning A New Exposition of the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689:
Evan: Tell us about yourself?
Rob: Let me start with my salvation. I was raised on Long Island with no Christian upbringing. I was so spiritually lost that I never heard John 3:16 until I was twenty-two years old. However, around thirty years ago while I was working professionally in the music industry in New York City, God brought some Christians into my life. With the Word of God, they showed me my sin and then pointed me to the only Savior of sinners, Jesus Christ the Lord. In His free and marvelous grace, He saved me and I was radically converted. Eventually I left the music industry and enrolled in Bible school in Manhattan.
While studying the Scriptures and through the influence of Pastor Albert N. Martin and others, I became Reformed in my understanding of theology and church life. I eventually joined a Reformed Baptist church in Englewood, New Jersey. I was later ordained there as a bi-vocational pastor in 2007 after graduating from seminary. Shortly after this, I was called to full-time ministry in another Reformed Baptist congregation in North Providence, Rhode Island (Grace Community Baptist Church). By God’s grace, I have been pastoring this church for over fifteen years.
Evan: What led to this new volume being published on the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689?
Rob: While I was writing a new chapter on the doctrine of adoption as found in the Westminster Confession of Faith for a new book by Dr. Beeke entitled: Growing in Grace (Reformation Heritage Books) I noticed that the Presbyterians had many resources which opened up their great Confession, but Baptists only had one, by Dr. Sam Waldron. While Dr. Waldron’s exposition is excellent, I thought that a newer treatment with multiple authors would be helpful for many. After conferring with Dr. Waldron about this, he agreed, so I began gathering some of our best Reformed Baptist pastors to produce this work, including Dr. Waldron himself.
Evan: What do you hope that readers will take away from A New Exposition of the LBCF of 1689?
Rob: Having read this new exposition, I believe readers will see the glories and realities of those excellent doctrines most surely believed among us. This new work on the great Baptist confession is extremely practical and pastoral; therefore, I think it will minister to many and build them up in their most holy faith. This is my prayer and the prayer of many. May God grant it to be so!
Get your copy of A New Exposition of the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689 from RHB here.

It’s 2023 and We Need Blogs More Than Ever

It’s hard to remember or even believe, but there was a time when social media consisted solely of blogs. Blogs were the way writers escaped the gatekeepers of old media to gain a voice of their own on the marvelous new medium we called the World Wide Web. Blogs were an interactive form of communication in which communities of writers would engage with one another while readers would provide feedback through comment sections. It was far from a perfect setup, but it worked well enough and a lot of good came from it. However else we tell the story of the rise and spread of Reformed theology in the early part of this century, for example, we cannot tell it apart from blogs.

But eventually alternative forms of social media sprang up and began to displace blogs as the next big thing. Twitter and Facebook were most prominent, but there were many others besides. Then came the rise of video, first on YouTube and then on Vine and Instagram and TikTok and other “reel” formats. Podcasts arrived on the scene and Substack newsletters. The people had claimed the right to have a voice that was unmediated by the old-media decision-makers and there’s no realistic chance that they will give it back anytime soon.
But while blogs are often regarded as an old and perhaps passé form of social media, I am convinced they still have their place. In fact, I am increasingly convinced they still have their place, even in 2023. And I still encourage aspiring writers to give blogging a chance. Let me offer a few reasons blogging still matters and may even become increasingly (rather than diminishingly) important in the days to come.
First, the foremost benefit of blogging is as important as ever. Before blogs, pretty much the only way to have a voice was to gain the attention and trust of an editor at a magazine or publishing house. Even then, the editor could reject your writing or edit it to make it conform to a particular viewpoint. There were (and still are) benefits to this, but there are also drawbacks. Blogs were the first medium that allowed individuals to create book-like or magazine-like content independent of those old media systems. And we found it to be a good and beneficial thing. There were drawbacks, of course—lots of poor-quality writing and lots of writing that lacked Christian character. But we gained more than we lost when so many people began blogs to share what the Lord was teaching them. And it is still a good and important thing to have writing that is not beholden to the whims, perspectives, political alignments, or theological positions of a select few.
Second, blogging allows us to control our own platform. Over the past few years we have come to realize the downsides of doing our writing on platforms owned and controlled by others in what has simply become a new form of ideological gatekeeping. It wasn’t long ago that progressives were at the helm at Twitter and conservatives had just about had enough of shadow bans, arbitrary account lockouts, and all manner of censorship. The recent “Twitter Files” have shown beyond any real dispute that all of this was happening and more. Today, though, a libertarian is at the helm at Twitter and it is the progressives who are crying foul, insisting that Twitter is now a bastion of the radical alt-right. I guess what we can all agree on is that we will always be at the mercy of the ideology of the people in control. But that is not the case for blogs where we control our own platform and don’t need to be concerned about censors. (Monique Judge makes this point from an opposite worldview to mine at The Verge.)
Third, blogs provide a superior reading experience compared to other forms of social media. Twitter threads are an abysmal way to read that condescends to the medium to far too great an extent. Reading anything of length on Facebook grates on the nerves. Instagram often looks attractive and has its place, but it’s a poor medium for communicating at length or in substance. It is still blogs that allow writers to prepare and share content that is substantial in its length and that conforms to the principles of typology and page layout. I’ll grant that Substack does this well, but it has other drawbacks such as poor search engine “findability” and the fact that the content is still beholden to the ideology of the company itself. Podcasts and video have their place, but text still reigns supreme when it comes to finding, skimming, saving, citing, and accessing in the future. Blogs continue to have unique strengths.
There is much more I could say. Blogs tend to be written by real people rather than anonymous trolls—I suspect most of us have realized by now that anonymity combined with access to a large audience has a power to it that few of us can handle with character and grace. Blogging diversifies the voices speaking to the church—because there are few barriers to entry, blogs invite anyone to participate and, much to our benefit, many have. Blogging serves as an ideal way to practice and showcase good writing—and this can lead to opportunities to write for other forms of media.
So how might you get started? I’ll simply direct you to an article I wrote a few years ago that still lays out a plan I know many have followed with success.
And then let me close this way: We are not going to go back to the old ways in which a few gatekeepers were responsible to determine who could have a voice. Nor do we want to. Blogging was the first medium to shake the old ways and, even 25 years later, it continues to have unique strengths that make it superior to so many of the more recent alternatives. And so, for that reason among others, I continue to encourage writers and prospective writers to give it a try. You may just find you love it, you thrive at it, and you can make use of it to serve the church and bring glory to God.

A La Carte (January 16)

https://www.challies.com/a-la-carte/a-la-carte-january-16-6-2023/

Let the Sunlight In

It is one of the great paradoxes of the Christian life—we have been saved, but we still sin. We have committed ourselves to the Lord, but are sometimes still so committed to rebelling against him. We have been forgiven, yet still at times spurn his grace. I expect thoughts like these were in the mind and heart of a poet named M.A.B. Kelly when she wrote “Without and Within” and pleaded with the Lord to “let the sunlight in.”

The sun shines in my outer world,But darkness reigns within,A fearful gloom enshrouds my soul,The nebula of sin.Dear Savior, smile away this gloom,And let the sunlight in.
Sweet bird-songs cheer my outer world,But anguish wails within.Ambition, pride, and gross deceitHave bound my soul in sin;Then, O my Savior, break these bonds,And let the sunlight in!
Temptations throng my way without,Remorse broods dark within;The chains that bind my tortured soulAre festered o’er with sin;Dear Savior, send thy healing balm,And let the sunlight in.
While pleasure gayly smiles without,What torment reigns within!And still, poor weakling that I am,I tread the paths of sin,My Savior, I am lost if thouLet not the sunlight in.

Weekend A La Carte (January 14)

My thanks goes to Reformed Free Publishing Association for sponsoring the blog this week to tell you about their children’s magazine, Ignited by the Word.

There is quite a good collection in today’s Kindle deals. I have it on good authority that we will see plenty of good deals next week.
Westminster Books has a deal on a neat new family devotional.
(Yesterday on the blog: And Then There Was One)
The Chosen and The Word
This article is worth reading and considering. “As I gazed at the smiling, gentle face of Jonathan Roumie, I felt uneasy. This actor who portrays Jesus in ‘The Chosen’ was different to any other Jesus actor I had ever encountered. He had the right skin colour for a start. But more than that, his face somehow simultaneously conveyed a strength and kindness that attracted and drew me in. I felt the need to remind myself that he wasn’t Jesus, and that thought gave me pause.”
The Ultimate Balanced Guide to Arminianism (from a Calvinist)
This is a kind and clarifying explanation of Arminianism.
A Family Vacation, a Broken Transmission, and a God Who Is with Us
I always enjoy reading stories like this one. “Recently, I said these words to my wife as we began to panic about twenty-five miles north of Jackson, Wyoming: ‘God is with us. He will help us and provide for us. This is no surprise to him. We need only to be faithful and not lose heart.’”
I Was Preaching to My Twitter Feed
“I noticed the problem when my joke didn’t land. I thought it was a witty take on a major cultural issue, but no one had any idea what I was talking about. My wife, who usually laughs politely at my humor, stared blankly. I was astonished, because this issue was all anyone had talked about for days . . . on Twitter. That was the problem.”
Don’t Women Need Access to Abortion for Rape?
“You don’t have the right to tell my fourteen-year-old daughter she has to carry her rapist’s baby.” Andy Naselli considers this common argument for the right to abortion. (See also: An Open Letter to a Young Woman Contemplating an Abortion)
Being Made New
“In His hands, our worst sins, pains, and sorrows are re-woven into a new and glorious creation. Every broken relationship, illness, tear, and sin is bound together in God’s redemptive way and made beautiful in Christ.”
Flashback: The Easiest Sin to Justify
When it comes to the sin of anger, we can always find an explanation that exists outside of us. We can always dump this sin in the lap of a husband or wife, a child or stranger. Failing that, we can plead fatigue or hormones or waking up on the wrong side of the bed or something—anything!—else.

You will never be smarter than God, your plan for your life will never be better than God’s plan for you, what you want for you will never be better than what your Savior has died to give you. —Paul David Tripp

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