The Craw

Bad Moon A'Risin

Well, the analysts tell us all is well in the housing market...in fact:

The National Association of Realtors reported Tuesday that sales of previously owned homes rose by 3 percent last month, the biggest one- month increase since a 3.3 percent increase in January 2005, a time when housing was roaring toward the peak of its five-year boom.

And:

The median price of an existing home sold in January dropped to $210,600, a decline of 3.1 percent from a year ago. It marked the sixth straight month that the median price has been down compared with a year ago. The January decline was the third-biggest drop in history.

So this is great news! Prices are dropping and sales increased month over month on existing homes! Of course they increased over bad drops and the price is dropping. This feels so much like 1989 its frightening. 1989 was the the end of the last boom and the beginning of the last recession but everybody was saying, "it'll be over soon." It wasn't. The housing market didn't recover until the late 1990's.

And speaking of recessions, the former Fed Chair, Alan Greenspan has weighed in:

"When you get this far away from a recession, invariably forces build up for the next recession, and indeed we are beginning to see that sign, for example in the U.S., profit margins ... have begun to stabilize, which is an early sign we are in the later stages of a cycle,"

Let's just say that we intend, by the grace of God, to buy back into the real estate market in a couple of years at a substantial discount.

Adjust or Die

Church revitalization is something we ought to think about as a new church here in Southern California. Because there is little connection to a past or shared story in Los Angeles (it's a city of dreamers and escapees from other places) neighborhoods can quickly change demographics. Church neighborhoods can change completely in a few short years. So, how does one plan for the future? I thought this was an insightful comment from this article:

"If the church is caught up in trying to preserve itself and its institution, then preservation and continuance is exactly what is going to slip out of its grasp," he said, according to the denomination's news service. "Trying to save the store is the surest way to lose the store.'"Rather than trying to save itself, Linthicum said the church has to focus on its changed surroundings and serving the community.

Reformed in Doctrine, Anglican in Heart

I do not suppose I am the only one for whom Anglicanism still means identifying with official doctrinal standards (creeds and Articles, historically understood) and appreciating the Anglican heritage, the 1662 Prayer Book, the ethos of a biblically reformed and informed traditionalism; the concern for catholicity which makes Anglicans eager to embrace everything of value in other Churches' traditions; the hatred of sectarianism which makes them hostile to narrow one-sidedness; the practical, pastoral orientation of theological inquiry; the long-suffering tolerance which waits for things to be thoroughly discussed, lest consciences be wounded or truth squandered; and so forth. Nor do I suppose I am the only one whose active Anglicanism expresses, not complacency at what the Church is today, but hope of what it may be tomorrow, when (please God) it reapprehends its heritage and is renewed in so doing. (From The Anglican Evangelical Crisis)

J.I. Packer

You Gotta Think Big

As St. Andrew's Community Church get's off the ground we have begun to think long-term. What does the church look like 10, 20, 50 years down the road? Since we have intentionally committed ourselves to being a church that plants churches we have been thinking through what that looks like. One workable model is modified off of the Anglican Cathedral system. A large mother church (which fleshes out a broader vision liturgically and architecturally and even educationally) functions as a "cathedral" to smaller outlying churches (parishes). Some evangelical and reformed churches use this model at some level but what we envision is something more comprehensive.

The cathedral will be an intentionally well-designed facility. A church built to convey the glory of God to generations far into the future. It would be a humming beehive of liturgical activity equipped with a massive pipe organ and staffed by a professional chief musician who is capable of training music leaders at the parish level and of composing new arrangements for worship. The pastor of the cathedral would be a senior minister and experienced homiletician who can train interns and parish ministers in the art of preaching and leading worship. Also, staffing the cathedral would be a pastor/teaching elder who holds the position of “theologian in residence.” His job is to teach conferences, act as a theological resource to parish ministers, and to publish books, articles, and web documents.

In addition to all this, all the churches are inter-connected at a significant level for the purpose of cross-pollinating on the creative level, local and on-going accountability, and assisting one another as the need arises. This inter-connection would include significant interaction between all the congregations (parish and cathedral) via joint services, special services, conferences and various camps and retreats.

This cathedral model would be applied in a rather tight geographic circle, perhaps no more than 20 miles in any direction. This is done so that the entire system itself functions as a giant parish where serendipitous contact between congregants and clergy is a constant occurrence.

Finally, as a parish becomes large enough it will become its own cathedral.

One Final Blast of Perspective

Here are the numbers of adherents for various Christian traditions. This is just a bare selection derived from here:

Roman Catholic Church: 1,100,000,000
Eastern Orthodox Church: 225,000,000
Anglican Church: 78,000,000
Seventh Day Adventists: 16,800,000
Southern Baptist Convention: 16,000,000
Church of Uganda: 8,000,000
Church of South India: 3,800,000
Lutheran Church-MO Synod: 2,800,000
Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania: 2,200,000
Presbyterian Church of Korea (Haptong): 2,100,000

Presbyterian Church in America (PCA): 330,000
Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC): 70,000
Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (ARP): 40,000
Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC): 25,000
United Reformed Church of North America (URC): 8,000
Confederation of Reformed and Evangelical Churches (CREC): 5,500
Reformed Church in the United States (RCUS): 4,000

A Little More Perspective

Quibble with Pentecostal theology or not, there are 50,000,000 parishioners in the Assemblies of God, a church that has made deep inroads in Latin America and Africa. With around 500,000 adherants worldwide, conservative Reformed/Presbyterians (PCA, EPC, OPC, ARP, URCNA, CREC) form a mere drop in the bucket on where the action is in the Kingdom of God. Add to this that a small minority of Reformed folk (I'd guess less than 25,000 people) want to hi-jack Reformedom so we can make ourselves even more distinctive by codifying obscure (and sometimes recent) theological implications referenced from 16th and 17th Century Confessional documents. We need to take our heads out of the sand.

A Little Perspective

This post is intended to give a little perspective to those inclined to see orthodoxy and what's going on in the church as something that occurs in a circle of under 100,000 people and centers on Ligonier Conferences. The third largest Christian body (behind Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy) is the Anglican Communion. Talk about a multi-cultural ministry and a worldwide complexion. Here are the stats by major church/province:

England: 25,000,000
Nigeria: 15,000,000
Australia: 4,000,000
Kenya: 2,500,000
U.S.A.: 2,500,000
South Africa: 2,400,000
Sudan: 2,000,000
Tanzania: 1,380,000
Rwanda: 1,275,000

Think about it. There are 2 million Anglicans (our brothers and sisters in Christ) in the Sudan struggling in direct combat with Islam. I wonder how many Presbyterians are there? The Anglicans in Africa tend to be conservative and evangelical. This is the future of the church.

This is a real fight

As the forlorn fragments of conservative Presbyterianism disembowel themselves over doctrinal minutiae, the Anglican church is fighting for survival as a Christian entity. These events also, I believe, mark the end of Western dominance in Anglicanism and the beginning of non-Western (particularly African) ascendancy of the worldwide 77 million strong Anglican Communion:

Akinola gave a letter this week to the spiritual leader of the communion, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, which is believed to demand some concessions to head off a schism. Africa is home to half the world's Anglicans and is dominated by conservative leaders.

These are interesting times. God is no respecter of men and he will grow His church where he sees fit.

The Rift Widens

The rift widens between conservative and mostly non-white Anglicans and their western counterparts over the continued push for regularization of homosexuality. Things have come to a head since the ordination of openly gay American bishop Gene Robinson. The non-Western arch-bishops (representing nearly 40% of the Anglican communion) did not perceive true repentance in the matter in the churches latest apology.

A Few Thoughts on the Church

We must, like a great advancing military camp,
be armed for war.
And yet, we must truly stop and feast along the way,
until all the world is one vast warrior-chorus of praise to the Conquering King.