Written by Kyle E. Sims |
Saturday, May 25, 2024
I believe a pastor needs to move on from the local church you served, so staying at our old church was not an option. But I came to realize that going to a variety of churches was not enough. You need to have your own church. You need to be part of a body of believers. The local church is a gift from the Lord and you need to take advantage of this blessing from Him. 

For our whole married life I was employed in a church until May 2023. Thus there was never a discussion about which church we would attend. Only the occasional decision about where to visit while on vacation. This last year has been a challenge transitioning from local ministry to the seminary. Making this change harder is that as the Director of Church Relations I am preaching or attending different churches many Sunday mornings. When taking this job I did not consider the loss of my local church family to be such a big factor in the coming transition.
At first, I enjoyed being in many different churches each week seeing old friends and making new ones, but as we moved into the Fall of the year, I noticed something was missing. My wife and I talked about how we missed the regular flow of church life in a local congregation. But now came the hard part – we needed to agree on a church to attend. We had never had to choose a church home. There were many good options in our area. We never settled on a church that was right for us, partly because they had to have ministry outside of Sunday mornings. This meant an evening service and Wednesday night activities. We entered the new year a bit lost still needing a church home but struggling to find one that met our specific needs.
Then one Friday afternoon in February, I saw a friend of my wife’s at the local Panera Bread, after talking for a little while the subject of church came up. I told her about our struggles in finding a church and she invited us to her church. This was the answer to our need. They had a Sunday night Worship service and Wednesday night programs. What a blessing it has been to reconnect with a local congregation in the last few months.
Why did we realize we needed a church home?
First, we needed to be fed the Word of God.
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 Jesus Calling isn’t what we do in the PCA. PCA ministry doesn’t do that. Let’s just drop it. It is pointless. Who needs to dwell on things vaguely unpleasant? Methodists are Methodist, and they are Christians. Who should judge another man’s servant? I’m busy doing God’s work. That book doesn’t belong in my sphere of influence. If not a yuck factor, it’s an ick, polite and collegial.

As three or four of my friends know, I have posted two blog articles about the book Jesus Calling and the Presbyterian Church in America. The first is condemnatory, of the book and of the PCA’s birthing it. The second presents an argument for an overture to the General Assembly seeking an investigation to determine whether the denomination is in fact guilty of abetting gross idolatry.
Obviously, the two articles have been wildly popular– almost all of my Facebook Friends know that I posted them. My presbytery added the overture to our January docket for a first reading, and will take it up in April. A total of three elders in my presbytery have actually spoken to me about it. Of course, they were only stirred to interest after watching my gesticulations on Presbycast.
A Mystery to Me
The most interesting turn in that podcast conversation was the mystery: why is Jesus Calling the PCA’s biggest best kept secret? Why did ByFaith introduce their biographical celebrations of Sarah Young with essentially, “you probably didn’t know that this lifelong member of the PCA is the author of Jesus Calling, which made her the best-selling Christian author of all time.” How could anyone in the PCA not know which PCA author had outsold Tim Keller by several Manhattan miles? With the multiple critical reviews of Jesus Calling by Reformed bloggers, ministers and Gospel Coalition B-list celebrities, has any “significant player” in the PCA ever published something positive or negative or even aware of the book? Despite Presbycast’s usual piercing insight, our sagacious trio was stumped.
I recently received a letter  from an independent researcher who has been studying the industry of Jesus Calling for a decade (The book was published in 2004). She is well aware– as I was not– that PCA leaders have been petitioned previously. She and her colleagues have wondered at the silence. She thinks the PCA’s general on-the-ground health has made the book practically irrelevant: by and large a functional conviction of sola scriptura and concern for sound theology has made it of little concern in the pews of the PCA. I am heartened by that assessment from an observer outside the Reformed-ish orbit. Anecdotally, I have the impression that the book had more notice among women of the PCA before 2015, but it has dwindled off– as somewhere else 9 million units sold increased to 45 million.
In point of fact, I do think that Jesus Calling is treasured by some part of the PCA. That was particularly evident at Sarah Young’s Memorial Service in 2023. But, I will return (D.V.) to that in a subsequent post, as I will to the modest request for “critical study” presented to the Stated Clerk in 2019 . Before these apparent outliers, the mystery is more interesting. 
Many seem to know of an aunt or grandmother still quite taken with the book, and they see a copy on and off again– at least they see it on sale at Costco or Hobby Lobby. They know it is still out there, but they don’t see it frequently in the PCA. Sales of 45 million do surprise them, but they aren’t incredulous. They know that it is incredibly popular. A few women have expressed to me an urgent desire for my little teacup to tempt some PCA somebody into making a real noise about it; they report dire and unassailable influence among women they know. Well, if it isn’t even a tempest, I do brew a strong cuppa. With their exhortation to me, these women also report their abiding surprise that the PCA doesn’t seem to know it birthed this atrocious book. Why is Jesus Calling shrugged off in the PCA?
The PCA is a big tent, and differences are noticeable if not everywhere thick on the ground. Still, PCA people commend the denomination with reference to Tim Keller’s various books. I don’t think that commendation commonly mentions our best selling author. If no cantankerousness about the book in the past (?), then why simultaneously no common knowledge? Why no common thankfulness or sanctified bragging about the PCA’s largest published contribution to evangelicalism? What could have eclipsed it? How does something this big become invisible in its hometown? Is this just the fate of every prophet? That is the mystery.
The Yuck Factor
In a pithy phrase, you can’t stop Methodists from being Methodists, but you can sure be obnoxious trying. The word winsome is somewhere in reach, but that is merely descriptive. The PCA teaches convictions which far more evangelicals don’t practice, but they are still our spiritual kith and kin. By and large, it seems that PCA folk know of Jesus Calling as “one of those books” like The Prayer of Jabez (remember that?), or The Purpose Driven Life. Other folks are “into that,” and we recognize common ground; but we are generally polite. 
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Some of the most attractive Christians can lack discernment, and some of the most discerning could use some spiritual and moral attractiveness. Spurgeon was warning us to be aware of the spiritual state of others, and beware of an overly-critical spirit. Test everything (1 Thess.5:20) but do not quench the Spirit (1 Thess.5:19). A lop-sided keeping of one command can adversely affect the keeping of the other – and it works both ways. 

Maintaining a spirit of worship and evaluating all things is well-nigh impossible, even for regenerate Christians. In a sermon on 2 Samuel 5:24, delivered on 31 May 1857, Charles Spurgeon told a story which was meant as a warning to all who profess the name of Christ:
I’ll tell you, many of you Christians do a deal of mischief, by what you say when going home. A man once said that when he was a lad he heard a certain sermon from a minister, and felt deeply impressed under it. Tears stole down his cheeks, and he thought within himself: “I will go home to pray.’ On the road home he fell into the company of two member of the church. One of them began saying: ‘Well, how did you enjoy the sermon?’ The other said: ‘I did not think he was quite sound on such a point. ‘Well,’ said the other, ‘I thought he was rather off his guard,’ or something of that sort; and one pulled one part of the minister’s sermon to pieces, and another the other, until, said the young man, before I had gone many yards with them, I had forgotten all about it; and all the good I thought I had received seemed swept away by those two men, who seemed afraid lest I should get any hope, for they were just pulling that sermon to pieces which would have brought me to my knees. How often have we done the same! People will say: ‘What did you think of that sermon?’ I gently tell them nothing at all, and if there is any fault in it – and very likely there is, it is better not to speak of it, for some may get good from it.
The one who is without sin in this regard can cast the first stone.
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