A few weeks back, I asked the question, “When Do You Leave a Church?” here on the Founders Blog and promised to continue dealing with this issue in a second post. With this post, I want to examine the issue of how to leave a church. When it becomes necessary to find another congregation we…
When Do You Leave a Church?
,It is the conversation with church members every pastor dreads but inevitably comes to every man who has shepherded a local flock: “Pastor, we need to meet with you and discuss our future at the church. We have been praying about transferring our membership to another church.” Naturally, you ask the inevitable question, “Why?” The…
God’s school of waiting: A difficult but fruitful education
,I don’t like to wait. No, let’s be completely forthright: I despise waiting. There is a certain highway in the city where I live that is notorious for traffic that is snarled for several hours on both sides of rush hour: I avoid it like cream of broccoli soup. Every Sunday morning, there are certain…
Perseverance of the Saints: An Essential Doctrine?
,Stir you up by way of reminder: Don’t forget the resurrection
,Is Calvin Guilty of the Popular Charges Against Him?
,Those who hold to what is popularly called Calvinism or Reformed theology have heard the critiques until they could practically recite them from the midst of a comatose state: “Calvinists cannot consistently so evangelism,” or “Calvinists make humans into robots,” or “Calvinists cannot call all people everywhere to repent and believe the Gospel.” These barbs…
Five Reasons a Pastor Should Read the Entire Bible Every Year
,I vividly recall two pivotal conversations that I had with pastors shortly after I surrendered to the Gospel ministry in the late-1990s. The conversations were pivotal because in them I was exposed to two vastly different approaches to ministry and the Lord used them to convince me that I must saturate my mind with Scripture…
Required reading for this long, cold winter: From Heaven He Came and Sought Her
,I was having a theological discussion about the extent of the atonement with a couple of men in my church a few days back—the dialogue was gentlemanly in tone—when one of them said: “There’s just no real defense of particular atonement.” (Like many contemporary reformed pastors, I prefer particular atonement to “limited atonement” for both…