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Showing posts from December, 2014

The Church 5: Western Christians in a Post-Christian Culture—Merry Christmas!

The Church 5: Western Christians in a Post-Christian Culture—Merry Christmas! Introduction: This brief reflection on a major issue is meant to stir some discussion: I truly hope it brings some change.  The larger issue is, “How are Christians to Live as Christians in a Post-Christian Culture?”  In order to offer a crisp reflection on an otherwise huge topic, I will focus this on the matter of Christmas.  And, Merry Christmas to all reading this post this month!  The subject of mission involves, among many other things, an understanding of the Church as a distinct entity—Christ-focussed—within a larger society that reaches out to that society.  A “Christian” holiday gets to the heart of such a matter. The Present Post-Christian Situation Living in England some years ago, we were amazed to find children in the local Church of England primary school who did not know what Easter was about and who were encouraged to practice Buddhist meditation as an exercise in the classr

The Church 4: Confessing Sin as Congregational Testimony

The Church 4: Confessing Sin as Congregational Testimony Introduction: Ah, confession of sin in the weekly worship service!  Here is a division between various forms of worship in Evangelical churches.  Some churches do, some do not—and who knows why anymore? Here follows my appeal to reinstitute this practice where it is not present, and to understand one role it plays in the worship service where it is already practiced: congregational testimony. I have been a part of a great variety of worship forms over the years: Assemblies of God, Baptist, Evangelical Free, Presbyterian, Kaley Heywet, and Anglican in particular.  High Church worship—liturgical worship—and Reformed theology seem quite comfortable with a confession of sins by the congregation.  Confession of sin is an ancient part of Christian liturgy.  Theologically, it fits well with a Reformed ecclesiology that sees the local church in covenantal terms: that is, as consisting of “Israel” and the “elect” within Israe