The (North American) House Church Movement

In the last decade or so we have seen a rise in cer­tain Chris­t­ian cir­cles of a church break­ing into self-proclaimed “house churches.” In fact, USA Today recently ran an arti­cle talk­ing about the rise. The mem­bers of this “house church” are part of what experts say is a fun­da­men­tal shift in the way U.S. Chris­tians think about church. Skip the ser­mons, costly church build­ings and large, face­less crowds, they say. House church is about rela­tion­ships forged in small faith communities. House churches in North Amer­ica (read more...)

A Call to the Ministry

As recently men­tioned, I’ve taken part in a practicum for those aspir­ing to the pas­toral office; and I’ve found it both enlight­en­ing and encour­ag­ing. Of the mate­ri­als I was required to digest by far the most encour­ag­ing was a ser­mon series by the well know Reformed Bap­tist Albert Mar­tin. The name of his series is the same as this post: “A Call to the Min­istry.”  His five-part series on the topic is the most gut-wrenchingly hon­est and thor­ough look at the topic I’ve (read more...)

Ministry Practicum Sermon

I have been blessed by my mem­ber­ship in Par­sons Bap­tist Church in a sim­i­lar way to Kemp Road Bap­tist Church. At both churches the lead­er­ship there desired to aid men in dis­cern­ing God’s pos­si­ble call on their lives into the min­istry. At Par­sons, Pas­tor Charles Blake set up a min­istry practicum to expose a man to the var­i­ous the­o­log­i­cal, per­sonal and min­is­te­r­ial oblig­a­tions sur­round­ing a man in ministry. One of the parts of the practicum was to preach on a Wednes­day night. I did this recently, and I’d (read more...)