The Craw

San Louie

I'm headng off to St. Louis tommorow for 5 days. I will be preaching at Providence Reformed Presbyterian Church on Sunday evening and giving a presentation on the church-planting work out here in Santa Clarita. I am also going to talk to some prospective ministerial candidates for the CREC. In addition, I hope to see some of you all while I'm there and to: (a) Eat some Bandanas (b) Go to Growlers, and (c) and shoot some fireworks.

Deep Stuff

This is a profound comment by James Jordan from this blog post:

To be sure, examining the Reformed tradition we FVers also see errors that we wish to leave behind: Keeping children from the table; lack of enthusiastic dancelike hymnody and psalmody (i.e., returning to the Reformers in this area); lack of music instruments (returning to David); lack of festivals. The larger area we see is that intellectualistic tendency to see man as homo sapiens rather than homo adorans, and seeing the production of an “educated” clergy as more important than producing a clergy capable of playing cymbals and trumpets and leading in the kind of worship God likes. Which is why, we believe, God has moved most of His people into churches that, however poorly in execution, do worship Him with joy and vigor.

Some Variegated Tunes

Interesting Stuff

Some interesting discussions are going on over here at De Regno Christi.

Fork in the Road

We have been tentatively offered this church building. With alterations it could seat 150-190 but currently it might accommodate 110-120 (we are getting close to this). It also has a very small parking lot (26 spaces some doubled up) and this presents some dilemmas. On the plus side, it is located in a working-class barrio that is abutted by working class and middle class white neighborhoods. It is a neighborhood where we can definitely engage in some serious mercy ministry. It seems like this church dropped into our lap after we finished our first year, bootcamp-like experience, and now is action time.

Not Much Happening?

Evidence that today was a slow media cycle day.

Proof's in the Pudding

When Roman Catholics brag of their historical pedigree and put forth all their extra-biblical arguments I’m reminded of two things:

1. Matthew 7:20 “Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.”
2. Communism is what it actually produces.

My point relates to this article on the closure of this convent to pay the enormous cost of the Pedophile Priest Scandal (some $858+ million in Southern California alone). Communists always appealed to authority and how we shouldn't look to what is but some ideal that one day will be realized too. You can talk your system up all you want but what comes out the other end is the proof in the pudding.

Let me be clear, I am a post-millennialist who looks forward to a day of a visible, unified, universal church. But these are not yet those days.

Patterned by the Land

I was recently in my local Ikea and noticed a display describing Swedish bath houses. The article printed on the wall said the bath house that was pictured showed the “simplicity” and dislike of “unnecessary decoration” that is common to Scandinavian architecture. This got me to thinking about how severity of climate and geography play a huge role in how a people express their religion. The Scandinavian countries produced Pietism while the English and to a greater and lasting degree, the Scots, produced Puritanism.

Both of these movements, Puritanism and Pietism, share much in how they are expressed and came into being. Both are movements of reaction against state churches. Both are movements of individual holiness. Both work themselves out through a philosophy of simplicity that rejects “unnecessary” decoration whether it is liturgical, architectural, or musical. But both also originate in harsh climates where the land yields its bounty only grudgingly. The farther south you go the more moderated (and dare I say relaxed and joyful) religion becomes: Lutherans to south of the Pietists and Anglicans and the Continental Reformed for the Puritans. How much geography and climate plays a role in how these movements came into being is an interesting question with fairly obvious answers. The implications of this, of course, are larger.