Church is no longer somewhere to go and serve, it is now God’s people gathered together to receive Christ and the benefits of His work of redemption through the means He has established. I now believe when we gather for corporate worship, something happens that doesn’t happen at any other time or in any other place, and it happens through the ordained means of Word, Sacraments, and Prayer. I am now trusting in His means of grace not my own list of what another friend of mine calls means of growth (spiritual disciplines). 

Multiple news outlets have reported the Church of England is no longer describing their new church start-ups as church plants. A new study says the Church is opting for terms like worshiping community and worshiping congregation that reflect the culture change or rejuvenation that is taking place. The designation church is apparently no longer sufficient to describe the new things that are happening like Shh Free Worship for young families with children, Silent Disco Worship for young adults, and Outdoor Worship for those who like to listen to the audio Bible and pray while they walk. But in the words of one Vicar, this movement reflects “a misplaced desire to be relevant and modern-sounding” and communicates “the Church has given up on church.” The author of the report even admits the change is forcing those within the Church to redefine what they think a church is and that it has “left certain parts of the Church – for whom fidelity to ecclesial forms and practices is central – feeling outside of the planting conversation.”(1)
I’ve been a part of three church plants over the course of my ministry. Two as a Baptist and one as a Presbyterian. The first was in 1997 after being sent to the very first Saddleback conference where I drank the Purpose-Driven Kool-Aid. The second was in 2006 after returning from the first T4G Conference as an official card-carrying cage-stage member of the Young, Restless, and Reformed movement. The third was twelve years later after arriving in the PCA. I spent my years in the seeker-sensitive (seeker-centered) movement exhibiting my misplaced desire to be relevant which resulted in being labeled defiant by the denominational establishment due to what they believed to be a lack of restraint within the limits they had deemed to be proper and in good taste (they were right). I didn’t fare any better during my stint with the YRR. Rather than humble me, my newfound knowledge of and appreciation for God’s sovereignty in salvation became an incubator for my pride. I, as so many do, overcorrected and spent a few years reacting to the err of my former ways by being condescendingly critical of other churches and harshly communicating what I was against more than what I was for. This opened the door to a legalism that left me and my family in need of an indefinite period of respite.
The PCA church we began attending was an oasis. We were immediately welcomed into the fellowship and ministered to and restored by a faithful pastor who was committed to the ordinary means of grace and the regulative principle of worship.
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This demolition job on sex, biology and reality is not only senseless and silly, but it is also diabolical and destructive. And if these folks are having a real hard time telling us just what a woman is, that is because these same churchmen seem to have been struggling of late to tell us what biblical Christianity is. The two go together.

When the church follows the world instead of the living God, it is heading down the same slippery slope to hell as the world is. When the church sells its soul to the devil in order to be hip, trendy, cool and “relevant,” you can be sure it is just as lost as any pagan ever will be.
We have seen countless examples of the church selling out and simply imbibing of the secular left’s radical agenda items, including all things woke. The latest example of this should come as no surprise. The Church of England has been on a long, slow downward spiral, and its latest inanity is simply another indication of a church that has well and truly lost its way.
Now it seems it no longer knows what a woman is. Or at least some within its ranks have gone down this moronic path. For a church that was so proud of how it treated women and sought to put them in leadership positions, to now all of a sudden not knowing what a woman is, is the height of woke insanity. Consider how one English newspaper puts it:
The Church of England has admitted it does not have a definition of the word woman. A bishop said yesterday that the meaning of the word used to be ‘self-evident’. But he added that there are now ‘complexities associated with gender identity’ which a church project about sexuality and relationships is exploring. The admission, in an official report prepared for the gathering of its governing body this weekend, stirred criticism last night. It comes despite Anglicanism continuing to oppose same-sex weddings – and only recently allowing women to be bishops.
Campaigner Maya Forstater said: ‘When the Government redefined women through the Gender Recognition Act, the Church of England could have stuck with its long-established understanding, which makes sense whether your starting point is biology or the Bible. ‘It is shocking that they so readily gave up the definition of man or woman for the state to amend, as if this fundamental truth did not matter.’
And Rev Angela Berners-Wilson, who in 1994 became the first woman ordained as an Anglican priest, told The Telegraph: ‘I’m not totally happy with it. I mean, I do think certain things like “men can’t have babies”, just to say the complete obvious thing.’ But she added: ‘But I think we need to be very sensitive and maybe we need to re-examine our boundaries.’ It comes after months in which the definition of the word woman has gripped politics. Several Labour MPs refused to define it, while leader Sir Keir Starmer said it was wrong to claim that only women could have a cervix.
By contrast, Cabinet ministers have been clear that biology defines women and that anyone born male should not compete against women in sport. The church was put on the spot in one of almost 200 questions submitted to its ‘parliament’, the General Synod, in York this weekend. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11000401/Church-England-woman-decide.html

Good grief. No, there are not complexities involved here. Men and women are different, and have been ever since God first created them.
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One day up ahead Satan will unveil his man. When he does, few on earth will discern or resist him since his person and work will hew so closely to Person and Work of the true Christ. Like Christ, the Antichrist will have a coming and a revelation. Like Christ, he will have a spiritual father who leads and empowers him. Like Christ, he will perform supernatural signs and wonders. Like Christ, he will proclaim a gospel of salvation. 

For all its doctrinal complexity, this lengthy eschatological text was written primarily out of deep pastoral concern. As verses 1–2 make plain, a rumor was circulating among the Thessalonian house churches to the effect that the Day of the Lord had come: that it was imminent. Since this rumor was troubling the brethren, distracting them from their spiritual mission and daily responsibilities, Paul addressed it pointedly. His message is clear: The Day of the Lord will not come until certain things happen first; until certain unmistakable signs appear on the historical horizon. Therefore, until you see those signs, stand firm (v. 15) and stay busy (v. 17; 3:6–13).
Because this passage informs the Church about important events leading up to the Consummation, it demands close attention. My approach will be to give the gist of each section and to spotlight the many characteristics indicating that Paul presupposed a single Consummation at the Parousia of Christ.
An Urgent Request (vv. 1–2)
Verses 1–2 give us the apostle’s urgent request. The subject matter is threefold: The Coming of Christ (1 Thess. 2:19; 3:13; 4:15; 5:23), the gathering together of the saints to him (i.e., the “Catching Up” of 1 Thess. 4:17), and the Day of the Lord (1 Thess. 5:2). Dispensationalists assert that the gathering together is distinct from the Day of the Lord, with seven years between the two. But Paul says no such thing. On the contrary, the juxtaposition of these closely related subjects makes it quite clear that he has in mind a single Consummation. Yes, each is a discrete event; but the discrete events are elements of a single Momentous Event. If the concerned apostle and pastor thought otherwise, would he not have said so?
As for the request itself, it may be paraphrased thus: “Don’t let any evil spirit, any false teaching or prophecy, or any fake letter as if from one of us apostles persuade you that the Day of the Lord has come, and so shake you from your proper spiritual composure” (see Mark 13:5–6). Concerning the crucial verb “has come,” the NIV Study Bible well remarks: “Obviously, Christ’s climactic return had not occurred, but Paul was combating the idea that the final days  had begun and their completion would be imminent.” “No,” says the apostle, “certain things must happen first; certain signs must appear on the stage of history.” This simple truth, directly contradicted by dispensational teaching on the Rapture, is of great importance for all of God’s people, but especially for those who will live and serve in the last of the last days. By holding firmly to it, Christians should be well able to keep their cool, even at the end of the world.
It Will Not Come Until (vv. 3–5)
What exactly are the telltale signs that will enable them to do so? In the Olivet Discourse the Lord had identified several. Here, Paul focuses on just two, presumably because they are especially important and will occur closest to the end. They are the rebellion (Greek: apostasia) and the revelation of the Man of Lawlessness (or the Antichrist).
Concerning the first of these, it is true that the New Testament anticipates a large-scale apostasy, or falling away from the (profession of) faith, at the time of the end (Matt. 24:10–12; 1 Tim. 4:1; 2 Tim. 3:1–9). Here, however, the close association of the apostasia with the revelation of the Man of Lawlessness strongly suggests a causal relation. If so, it is surely best to follow the NIV and ESV in translating apostasia as rebellion. On this reading, Paul is saying that the Day of the Lord will not come until the corrupt world system fully and finally rebels against the Law and Gospel of God, paving the way for Satan to go public with his counterfeit christ, and for the fallen world system to follow after him (vv. 10–11; Matt. 24:12; Rev. 13:3).
As for the Man of Lawlessness, Paul draws freely upon OT prophecy to give us the gist of his character and very short career (vv. 3–4; Dan. 7:8, 20–21, 25; 9:26–27; 11:36). Though Paul does not use the word, it is clear that he thinks of this man, above all, as an antichrist. As the apostle John would put it, he is the final human embodiment of “the spirit of Antichrist,” and so is the Antichrist himself (1 John 2:18, 22; 4:3).
Very importantly, the Greek word anti means against or instead of. We see both meanings here and throughout our text. The Man of Lawlessness will act against Christ, even as he blasphemously tries to act instead of Christ as the appointed prophet, priest, and king of the world. Verses 3–5 give us several illustrations of this all-pervading motif.
Like Christ at his first and second comings, the Man of Lawlessness will be revealed in his proper time; his time, however, will be (cut) short, since he, unlike Christ, is “a son of destruction”—that is, a man “doomed to destruction” (v. 3; 2 Thess. 1:7; 2 Tim. 1:10; 1 Peter 1:7, 13; 1 John 3:2).
Unlike Christ, who loved the Father and delighted to do his will, the Man of Lawlessness will oppose every so-called god or object of worship, including the one true living God and his divine Son (vv. 4, 8; John 8:28; Heb. 10:7). He will stand against the triune God and his people.
Finally, acting instead of Christ, the Man of Lawlessness will exalt himself, “taking his seat in the sanctuary [or, temple] of God, displaying himself as God” (v. 4). This verse calls to mind the sin of (the archangel?) Lucifer, who, from the very beginning, has sought to exalt himself above God, and to usurp the worship that properly belongs to the LORD (Is. 14:13–14; Matt. 4:9). In the Man of Lawlessness—who will present himself as God incarnate—he (Satan) will briefly achieve his goal: The whole (unregenerate) world will worship him (Rev. 13:8).
This, I believe, is the sense of Paul’s words about “the sanctuary,” (Greek, naos: the inmost, and therefore most sacred, part of a temple). He is not looking for the Man of Lawlessness to seat himself in the temple at Jerusalem, from which, in Paul’s day, he could hardly have been expected to gain a worldwide following. Still less is he looking for him to seat himself in the Church, since at the time of this letter the Church had neither institutional status nor spiritual credibility in the eyes of the Gentile world (1 Cor. 3:16; 2 Cor. 6:16; Eph. 2:21). Rather, he is simply looking for the Man of Lawlessness to present himself as God incarnate, thereby seating himself in the place of the universal worship rightfully belonging to God and Christ (Is. 14:13-14).
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