Pure Church

For a couple of years now, the Lord has been forming and reforming my view of the pastoral ministry through the letters of the Apostle Paul. Obviously I'm not the first to be struck by Paul's writings in general and his view of the ministry in particular. But I count myself in the line of men who have been humbled, inspired, convicted, instructed and made hopeful by God's Word through Paul.

So, I'm going to spend a little time just meditating out loud (or on the blog anyway) about some of the things I am drawn to again and again, things that seem to me to be foundational to the pastor's heart, and that have become a large part of my hope/vision for pastoral ministry.

We start today with one of the first verses I ever memorized. I can recall where I was when I first read it, and it was one of those verses that I understood by God's Spirit immediately, as if (I know it's a cliche) I were struck by lightning. Romans 1:16--

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

I said I understood this verse right away. That's a bit of a mis-statement. I understood in that "deep knowing" sorta way that leaves you without doubt about the certainty and truthfulness of the thing, though you'd be peeling the layers of meaning for years. That's been my experience.

Here's what struck me right away:

1. Not ashamed. Paul was not ashamed. I was at the time... in subtle ways... ashamed. When I read this there was no doubt that I shouldn't be and that I wouldn't be any longer. The statement sounded to me as much a resolution as a statement of fact. Somehow just by reading this verse my faith instantly became profoundly and unabashedly public; its proclamation moved aggressively to the center of everything, or at least the proclamation of the gospel made its claim to the center of everything. The years that followed have been the outworking of that claim.

2. The gospel. I was a young Christian when I first read this verse and the fact that Paul was not ashamed of the gospel just screamed "know the gospel well!" It's quite easy to be "ashamed" of things you don't know well. The very state of not knowing puts you in a slightly cowering posture, provoking doubt and hesitancy. But knowing the gospel, knowing that it is the Truth... well that emboldens and strengthens.

3. The power of God for salvation. Here's the basis of Paul's resolution against shame--this message about Christ is itself power... God's power... entailing the glorious end called salvation. Power. The gospel is power. That demands pondering. The message, the good news, is itself explosive, potent, effectual. Recently I heard Canadian evangelist T.V. Thomas say that he thought the greatest hindrance to the gospel today is that many Christians no longer have confidence in the message. I think that's probably correct. But here we're confronted with this grand truth that the power of God resides like so much gunpowder inside the keg of the gospel! That demands confidence. And it was something like confidence that I remember overtaking me on that bright day back in N.C.

4. Salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Salvation to everyone who believes. That's good news. Here's where my affection for the apostle Paul really grew. He intentionally related to others the applicability of the gospel to all peoples. Jew and Greek or Gentile. This was the primordial stuff of my view of the church. The same gospel saves all, and over the years I've been wrestling with how it unites (or should unite) all in the body of Christ, or at least how ethnicity shouldn't be an impediment to unity in this great salvation.

So, for ten years or so, Romans 1:16 has been shaping my view of the pastor's heart. The pastor is one who is not ashamed of the gospel, who builds his ministry on the gospel and relies on the gospel's power rather than worldly techniques, and who through the gospel has an expansive love for all people. There's much more that could be said about a pastor's heart, but the centrality of the gospel and confidence in its power should be in the marrow of the man.

I’m thankful for the Ligonier webcast of the conference happening right now in Florida. I’m thankful for the opportunity to watch, listen and learn from some of the best apologetic, preaching, and theological minds in our day.

I’ve not been able to catch all the sessions, but what I have seen has been thought provoking. Just a couple of reflections so far, both from Piper’s sessions.

First, the Thursday evening talk on apologetics struck me again with the necessity of loving Jesus for who He is. Piper’s task was to define faith. And in his characteristic way, he went beyond typical definitions and analogies to underscore the indispensable place of affections for and highest valuation/esteem for Christ. Piper questioned whether a person really had faith if they had not received Christ, that is come to prize Christ above all things and for who He is instead of “receiving” Christ as an effective solution to fear, comfort, safety, escape from hell, etc.

Pastorally, I’ve often wondered about individuals who “confess” Christ but seem to have no genuine affections for Him. The number of people who say “I believe in him” as though assent were all there was to following Christ, and at the same time say or demonstrate that their affections reside elsewhere, is really quite concerning to me. It’s as though the gospel nestles in the ear or in the mind but doesn’t worm its way into the core, the heart, of the person.

And I was reminded of how many times I’ve been guilty of distinguishing between “head religion” and “heart religion” but construing the difference as a matter of whether or not “heart religion” was reflected in service to the church and various other outward displays that were supposed to indicate being “on fire for Christ.” I’m thankful for the ways that Piper and others have helped me draw, I think, a better distinction. The head may give intellectual assent, but true faith is a work of the Spirit that opens the blinded eye and stirs the heart of man with rejoicing, pleasure, and deep, centralizing affection for Jesus as He really is. The person with such a heart has “heart religion,” genuine saving faith.

Second, I was struck with Piper’s meditation on the effect of relativism on the use of language. Language when used to describe objective truth has a high, noble and glorious purpose. But he described how relativism is used to actually hide the truth, counterfeit reality and to evade real commitment and conviction. In a relativistic culture, language becomes ultimately about spin, about appearing to believe or hold the same truth but actually masking either shallow understanding or real denial of the truth.

It provoked me to think about the use of language in preaching, to be sure that my speech in the pulpit and outside the pulpit is plain and granite where the Truth is concerned. That doesn’t do away with the need to be loving, etc., but the Truth needs to be in al our speech.

I missed his first couple points in this sermon. But I caught a couple other effects of relativism. Relativism…

• Cloaks greed in the guise of flattery.
  Cloaks pride in the guise of humility. “All over the country relativism is being sold in the currency of humility.”
• Enslaves people. “If we create a kind of Christianity that says there is no truth we will simply create a kind of Christianity that colonizes slaves.”
• Leads to brutal totalitarianism. “When relativism holds sway in a society over time sooner or later more and more people do what is right in their own eyes. And when enough people do what’s right in their own eyes we call it anarchy. There are only two solutions to anarchy. One is revival. Or a dictator.”

I'm tired this morning. I've been tired all week. And things appear to be getting busier. I think that's par for the course for pastors--and it's a peculiar joy to be able to give yourself to labor with eternal reward! But I'm still tired.

So, here's my question for fellow pastors... what do you do to rest? How do you keep things in balance?

Here's my question for non-pastors... what do you do to rest? How do you encourage your pastors to rest and maintain a good pace/balance?

I'm going to turn my attention away from writing about reforming the African-American church for a while. The comments and engagement both on the blog and by email were thought-provoking and encouragement.

But one last piece of evidence for why we should be praying and urgently laboring for reform is this Black Church Summit recently held in Philadelphia. The first line in the press release:

"Newly out-as-gay former NBA player, John Amaechi will make a special guest appearance...."

A description of some of the conference's workshops:

"Some of the topics covered during the summit will include how to build effective HIV ministries; how to create gay affirming congregations in order to end spiritual homophobia; how to interpret scripture in regards to homosexuality...."

The conference is being hosted at Mother Bethel AME Church, the birthplace of the first independent African-American denomination in the country. I wonder what Richard Allen, Daniel A. Payne, Morris Brown and others in that denomination's rich history would think.

Actually, there's no wondering about it at all. They wouldn't recognize this as the church they founded, the gospel they preached, or the community they sought to build. It's a tragic betrayal of a rich and wonderful heritage.

While skimming through Bridges' Christian Ministry again, several quotes jumped out at me. Some are quotes Bridges lifts from other saints. I hope they're an encouragement and challenge to you this Monday!

"The most effectual hindrances, therefore, to our work are those which impede our personal communion with the Lord. When the great enemy thus successfully intercepts our spiritual supplies, the work of God in our hearts, and connected with it, the work of God in our hands, languishes fromt eh want of its accustomed and needful support. We have great need to watch, lest public activity should be considered to atone for neglect of privated intercourse with God; and thus our profession should become a snare to ourselves, and divested of all spiritual savour to our flock" (Bridges, p. 150).

"Men frequently admire me, and I am pleased; but I abhor the pleasure that I feel" (Henry Martyn in Bridges, p. 153).

"They are not our best friends, that stir the pride of our hearts by the flattery of their lips. The graces of God in others (I confess) are thankfully to be owned, and under discouragements and temptations to be wisely and modestly spoken of; but the strongest Christians do scarcely show their own weakness in any one thing more than they do in hearing their own praises. Christian! thou knowest thou carriest gunpowder about thee.--Desire those that carry fire, to keep at a distance from thee. It is a dangerous crisis, when a proud heart meets with flattering lips. Faithful, seasonable, and discreet reproofs are much more safe for us, and advantageous to the mortification of sin in our souls" (p. 153, footnote 1).

"Verily, it is the common danger and calamity of the Church, to have unregenerate and unexperienced Pastors, and to have so many men become preachers, before they are Christians; to be sanctified by dedication to the altar as God's Priests, before they are sanctified by hearty dedication to Christ as his disciples; and so to worship an unknown God, and to preach an unknown Christ, an unknown Spirit, an unknown state of holiness and communion with God, and a glory that is unknown for ever. He is like to be but a heartless preacher, that hath not the Christ and grace that he preacheth in his heart" (Richard Baxter, p. 155-156).

"Like John the Baptist, we should point out the Saviour to our people from our own perception of his glory and love" (Bridges, p. 158).

"We cannot live by feeding others; or heal ourselves by the mere employment of healing our people; and therefore by this course of official service, our familiarity with the awful realities of death and eternity may be rather like that of the grave-digger, the physician, and the soldier, than the man of God, viewing eternity with deep seriousness and concern, and bringing to his people the profitable fruit of his contemplations" (Bridges, p. 163).

"The leaven of Antinomianism is indeed most congenial wiht the corruption of the heart; and its deadly influence is but too apparent in the inconsistent lives of its professors" (Bridges, 227).

John Piper has written a moving account of his time with his father as the elder Piper went home to be with the Lord. I'm giving God praise for such a faithful evangelist, husband and father in William S.H. Piper.

Mark Dever has some well-deserved words of praise for Don Carson. Carson's forthcoming book sounds really interesting as well.

Speaking of Dever, the 9Marks crew continues its work on elders in the new issue of 9News Journal. I'm really looking to diving into Lig's piece on training elders and into the 4-parter on lessons in leadership.

The short answer is "yes."

The longer answer is: "but we can't start by assuming that what is popularly referred to as the 'Black church' is a true church by any historical definition. So, yes, but reforming her is closer to reviving her and may mean the end of the 'Black church' is we know her."

But having said all of that, the people of God have every reason to trust that He will beautify and reform His people, His church. And there are encouraging signs of reform already available to us.

Tyrannus Hall is a pastor development initiative launched by Elliott Greene. The effort is currently working in four cities across the United States. We should pray that others would create similar efforts and that much support would be given to this work.

The Council of Reforming Churches (site under development) is a new cooperative organization dedicated to networking like-minded people and resources in the cause of strengthening the local church. Many of you will know Anthony Carter who blogs at Non Nobis Domine and brothers Michael Leach and Lance Lewis. They are laboring together to launch this effort. Networks of reform-minded African-American pastors are rare, in my experience. There are lots of personal relationships, but these can only benefit from a more organized symposium of sharing and learning.

The growth of conferences with this concern and theme is encouraging. Ricky Armstrong's efforts with the Miami Pastors' Conference at Glendale Baptist Church and Lou Love's and New Life Church's annual conference in the Chicago area are two events that have been growing. In addition to these, I'm hopeful that more reform-minded African-Americans will participate in the host of conferences offered by our brethren in predominantly white organizations (see Challies' list of conferences).

This is a sampling of what I pray are early tremors in a seismic shift in the church world.

But why should anyone care that the African-American church be reformed?

There are many reasons I suppose. Folks will have varied interests. But here is the one that grips me.

In the first post, I suggested that at its best, African-American Christianity was perhaps the most complete expression of Christian discipleship in American history. We put it this way:

"The African-American church" was once the home of the purest form of Christianity practiced on American soil and she can be the fulcrum of reform in not only the African-American Christian world but the larger Christian world as well."

I really believe that bit about the "fulcrum of reform." Though it's rarely spoken, in many people's minds, the African-American church is the weakest member of the evangelical family. She's like that cousin who can't seem to stay out of trouble with the law, who lives a wanton life and always looks to be bailed out by the rest of the family.

I don't know if she is the weakest part of the family, but I do know that even in her weakness she is a powerful behemoth. The problem, in my mind, is she exercises that influence in all the wrong places and for all the wrong causes. If we could steer her back to the Gospel, back to biblical faithfulness, back to a concern for discipleship and growth... the landscape of American Christianity and culture could change quite dramatically.

In earlier posts, I've lamented the too-close connection between racial identity, culture and the church. I still think that's a problem to be addressed. But looking at the diamond from another vantage point, there is great opportunity here as well. African Americans, particularly Hip Hop and youth cultures, exert a lot of influence on the cultural scene in the U.S. and worldwide. While riding through a quiet street in southeast Asia a couple weeks ago, what did I see tagged on the wall of some villa? Grafitti styling of "G-Unit" and "50 Cent"! Even in the Middle East Hip Hop has pull!

The destiny of the wider church and world culture is more connected to the spiritual condition and outlook of teenage and 20-something young people in Brooklynn and Long Beach than we can imagine. Now, if we care about the "culture wars," especially those involving young people, if we're concerned about slowing the tide of materialism, violence, and sexual immorality, for example, we must be concerned about the state of the African American church. I can't think of a platform that has as much ready potential for engaging these issues and the cultural trendsetters than the African-American pulpit. But she has to do so from a position of biblical integrity and strength, not a pragmatic position that settles for "gettin' along" with the culture.

I think the benefits of reforming the African-American church are exponentially more than we can imagine. She is a great fulcrum for change... but she desperately needs fixing.

Well, it's time to revisit and complete this series of posts. Lord willing, in this post, I'll offer some preliminary thoughts or proposals to advancing reform. In tomorrow's post, D.V., I want to make a case for why the African-American church may be the fulcrum in a much larger reform movement.

Here's what I'm assuming in the strategies below:
A. We want churches committed to the faithful preaching of the gospel and the teaching of sound doctrine.
B. We want pastors who are well-suited for the task, who have a high view of pastoral ministry and the local church.
C. We are laboring intentionally for not just the African American church but the entire church, which means our focus though starting in one ethnic church is ultimately multi-ethnic.
D. We want to reform the church such that her practice is increasingly in line with the Word of God, her people increasingly reflecting the likeness of Christ, her mission is all nations in scope, and her witness vibrant and loving.

How do we go from where we are today to where we'd like to be? Here's a brief list of proposals--five P's of Reform: Pastors writing, Pastor training, Popular education, Partnerships, and Planting churches. I welcome everyone to jump in with thoughts--a lot of thought and exchange is needed on this issue.

1. Solid African-American pastors must write. This, I think, is the cornerstone of the reform strategy. Historically, African-American pastors have not been writing pastors. Lost to us, then, are volumes upon volumes of sermons and addresses that would be helpful in defining and defending the faith and shaping the church. In that void has stepped writing academics, almost all of whom are advancing a theologically and socially liberal agenda. They've created a certain zeitgeist that downplays the biblical gospel, elevates social and political concern, and reduces the local church to a service organization. All of this is wrapped in a rather selective reading of African-American history and provides the default understanding of the Black Church. Unless the Lord raises up pastors committed to writing (sermon manuscripts, essays, lectures, even blog posts) we won't have a legacy to leave following generations and we will not counter the prevailing message in any sustained, critical, and effective way. Right now, if you're in seminary somewhere and you want to read works by African-American authors, 75% or more of what's available to you will not be evangelical or Reformed. But if we can leave a written legacy of collected sermons by sound expositors, critical works engaging the issues of our day, sound pastoral instruction and reflection, commentaries, etc., we can define for subsequent generations what 'good preaching,' pastoral ministry, sound exegesis and interpretation, and the mission of the church looks like. That's done by writing. We must write.

2. We must take over pastoral training. This can happen in a couple of ways. First, we must recover the idea that it is the local church that trains pastors. The professionalization of the pastorate has meant that men are shipped off to the local HBCU divinity school or seminary and received a thorough-going liberal education. If theologically conservative, evangelical and Reformed pastors would reverse this trend, perhaps the easiest way to do so is to organize and operate internship and pastoral training programs housed at the local church. The advantages are numerous: 1. Cost would at least be comparable if not cheaper than sending the would-be pastor off to school; 2. could more easily train the non-traditional student (the 40 year old with a family to feed); 3. the training would occur in the practical setting of the local church, so folks could both learn and see the church at work; and 4. the instruction would be consistent with the theological distinctives of the local church. I understand that this would be more difficult in denominational settings with specific educational requirements. But those who have the lattitude to do this should consider it prayerfully. If we could organize 6-12 such churches around the country, we could slowly begin raising up a crop of pastors for succeeding generations. We should check out Capitol Hill's internship program, Bethlehem's pastors' institute, and Sovereign Grace's pastors' college--three models for equipping future generations.

In addition to the above, we need more solid pastors to consider teaching posts at area seminaries and universities. Not as alternatives to pastoral ministry, but as an extension of that ministry. Honestly, I need more faith to be able to imagine that historically black divinity schools and seminaries could experience the kind of resurgence we saw in the SBC a couple decades ago. I believe, and I'm asking the Lord to help my unbelief. But reform must also happen at these schools.

3. Popular education. We need to figure out a way to provide air cover for those soldiers on the ground laboring for reform. That "air cover" comes, I think, with popular education. How many of you reading this post came to a Reformed understanding of the faith through Ligonier Ministries--their radio broadcast or TableTalk magazine? My journey began there. Well, how does Ligonier see themselves? As providing education somewhere between Sunday school and seminary. In other words, it's a solid effort to reach the average Christian with educational resources that create the ambient atmosphere for growth and change. We need to do two things, I think. One, we need to figure out a way to get more Ligonier material and other material like it to our congregations. We don't have to replicate everything. Use the good stuff already out there; introduce our people to great teachers and their resources rather than letting the local Christian bookstore stock their shelves with the cotton candy that sells and passes as Christian literature these days. Two, on some issues really pressing to African-American churches, we've got to figure out a popular education and dissemination strategy for addressing those issues. The Miami Pastors' Conference and the annual conference in Chicago are good starts. We've got to promote these and add other opportunities (again, I think written is critical) for the average Christian to be exposed to reform issues.

4. Partnerships. We must partner with "non-Black churches" (I hate the label!) in the pursuit of reform. There are like-minded brethren across the ethnic spectrum that we should be locking arms with in this effort. My guess is there are not two better persons to talk seminary reform with than Al Mohler and Paige Patterson. Shame on us if we don't learn from them. I've already mentioned Piper, Dever, and C.J. as models for training pastors. We've got to beg, borrow, and steal from their work to speed along our efforts. The FUBU (for us, by us) mentality among African Americans is killing us! We need to recognize it as immature, proud and antithetical to the unity of the body of Christ. And after repenting of it, we need to get on with the gettin' on and learn from, accept resouces and help from, and trust others.

5. Plant churches. Here, I mean the establishment of more multi-ethnic churches that leave behind some of the baggage we're laboring under in historically ethnic churches. We need a both/and strategy. On the one hand, we should work for reform in predominantly African-American churches. And on the other, we should be unapologetic in the creation of new churches that better reflect the unity and diversity of the body of Christ across ethnic lines. We should oppose replicating in new churches the issues and problems we all currently lament.

And while we're on church planting, not every group that goes out from our churches should be seeking to start a new church. Part of our "church planting" strategy (perhaps the major part?) in countries like the U.S., should be sending teams from predominantly white, Asian, Black, or Hispanic churches to join already existing churches made up predominantly of some other ethnic group. We don't want to overwhelm another congregation with a mass of folks and cause them to feel "invaded" or "taken over." But, a slow trickle of folks to another congregation, integrating their lives there, diversifying the local body, contributing to the health of a congregation would be a good strategy in my mind.

Thoughts? Help? Partners?

Well, I'm trying to get back in stride here at the church and with life in Cayman. It's been a great couple of days back. I returned to the same loving family and congregation that sent me off nearly ten days ago. It's wonderful to return to such love and care.

I also returned in time to see a precious young couple from our church leave for a life of overseas service in the Gospel. We had their ordination service the Sunday we left for southeast Asia. And yesterday, we met them at the airport for a time of prayer and send-off. The young man look at me and said, "I feel like we're tag-team wrestling for the Gospel as you're returning and we're leaving." I love the image... tagging one another, taking turns combatting darkness with the light of the Gospel. And it's such a tremendously humbling, encouraging, faith-building, worthy, sad and joyous thing to see men and women give their lives for the Gospel in so committed a fashion. What a privilege.

The 10 days or so in southeast Asia were packed! The first night there was the night of the Christian-Muslim dialogue. We were discussing the question "Who Is Jesus Christ? In Light of the Bible and the Qu'ran". This is a topic that the muslims insisted on... and so we happily obliged! As far as the folks there are aware, this is the first time that this question has been openly discussed in a public forum by Christians and Muslims in any country in that region. A couple hundred folks (90% Muslim) turned out on just three days advertisement. Nearly 100 ESV Bibles were distributed. And to be sure, this is the first time most of them have heard the Gospel proclaimed in person.

The rest of the week was a blur! We spent several days interacting with college students on two campuses in the region. I had the privilege of preaching two sermons and doing a Q&A session on the dialogue at a local church. It was wonderful rejoicing in the Gospel with about a 1,000 believers from all nations in that region! It was just powerful looking out on so clear a manifestation of the Gospel's power as reflected in the tremendous diversity and unity of that body in Christ. And we ended the trip with a church-sponsored conference on evangelism. T.V. Thomas, an evangelist who now resides in Regina, Canada, served as the keynote. Due to another speakers' illness, the privilege of pinch-hitting on the topic "How to and how not to witness to Muslims" fell to me. That was a lot of fun.

Aside from the joy of serving with brothers and sisters there, I've left southeast Asia still processing several impressions and thoughts. Without much elaboration and in no particular order, here they are:

1. Islam is not impregnable. The Lord is at work! We need to pray for more laborers and that they would be bold to open their mouths with the gospel as they ought, but we really need to drop any impression that Islam is a steel door shut tight to the Gospel. It certainly is nothing of the sort.


2. There are many who are paying high costs to follow Jesus. Being there and interacting with a number of people who have come to faith in Christ out of Muslim backgrounds really blazed that across my mind. Our conversations weren't about whether God wanted them to take this or that job or NPP or emerging/emergent. They were counting the costs of telling family and friends that they were followers of the Lord--costs that ranged from being disowned to being killed by those same family and friends. To see their faith and commitment in such circumstances impressed upon me the shallowness of my own service to and identification with the Lord.

3. In the words of Piper, "risk is right." There's no two ways about it. It is good and right for us to take bold, faith-filled risks for God's glory and the spread of His name to all nations. And in point of fact, we're the only ones who can safely take such risks because we actually risk nothing eternal and can only receive glory with our Savior.

4. The Gospel is the power of God. Be confident in it. T.V. Thomas at one point in the evangelism conference stated that he thought the greatest risk to the gospel was that so many were not confident in it. I think he's on to something there. Romans 1:16 is still true. What vascillates is our confidence and reliance upon that truth.

5. I mentioned this earlier, but I was struck afresh by the glories of God revealed in His church. And I'm struck with the rightness of a church comprised of people from every nation united in their worship of the one true God. The church is a secondary doctrine, but the life of the church together is anything but secondary! There is a difference between the importance of the doctrine (formal systematic and biblical statements) and the living, abiding thing itself. And doing the living, abiding thing well is of utmost importance

6. I fear too much and am too often in fear.

7. Regard no man from a worldly point of view. My friend Mack, who also spoke at the evangelism conference, did a fabulous job of expounding 2 Cor. 5. I was convicted at how often I think of men in fleshly terms, and how often that prevents me from regarding them from God's vantage point, and how often that causes me to bottle up the Gospel and love from them. How easy it is to see the beards, the robes and head gear, and to think of them with something less than God's viewpoint. Lewis' words kept ringing in my head: "You have never seen a mere mortal." Amen. And I need to stop regarding men from a worldly viewpoint

8. Hold the rope. You all will know the famous story of William Carey and Andrew Fuller. Carey went to India to reap a Gospel harvest and Fuller stayed behind to excite support for the missions effort. Fuller's words: "We saw that there was a gold mine in India, but it seemed almost as deep as the center of the earth. Who will venture to explore it? "I will go down," said Mr. Carey to his brethren, "but remember that you must hold the ropes." We solemnly engaged to do so; nor while we live, shall we desert him."

9. Darkness is really dark indeed. This was so evident in some of the conversations I had with Muslim friends. They were lost in the darkness of their own minds and hearts. Their reasoning was confused, proud, and self-serving. This, of course, was not because they were Muslims but because they are like all of us who once walked according to the ways of this world, according the prince of the air, as children of wrath. That darkness is deeply dark and nothing but the light of Christ can pierce it. See #4.

10. Love is necessary. On the plane ride back, I began reaing Alexander Strauch's little book, Leading with Love. So much of the ministry in southeast Asia and the ministry in the local church would be "clanging cymbals" if it lacked love. At times, the Lord allowed me to see plainly when I was moved with love and when I was moved with pride or fleshly comfort. I could hear the clanging by God's grace. I'm struck by how love for Christ, His people, and the lost are so essential to everything. And I'm struck by how much farther I have to go in having and demonstrating the love of Christ.

We'll know in eternity what this labor produces to the glory of God. But right now, I'm thankful to all of you who sent notes of encouragement and to all of you who prayed for the trip. And right now, I'm more sure than ever that the Gospel ministry is the most important service to mankind and that our selling all for this great treasure is the wisest investment. May the Lord bear much fruit!

For once, Sharpton looks stunned and silenced.

They were given 30 minutes each to speak on the subject "Who is Jesus Christ?" in light of the Bible and the Quran.

Estimated at 200 in attendance, mostly students from university

q & a

Tomorrow, a friend from church and I have the privilege of traveling to Southeast Asia for a week. We'll be there visiting some friends. The Lord has opened an opportunity to engage in a public dialogue with a leading Muslim apologist on the Person and work of Jesus. It'll be second such dialogue I've had the privilege of participating in. I'll also have an opportunity to preach at a church there pastored by a dear friend.

Please pray for our trip if the Lord lays it on your hearts. Pray that Christ Jesus would be high and lifted up and for the saving power of the Gospel to work in the audience of 99% Muslim men and women. Pray that we might have boldness as we ought, and that the Lord would fill our mouths once opened.

I'll try to post some trip highlights during the week, though that may be tough. Lord willing, when we return, we'll resume blogging with a couple concluding posts on reform in the predominantly African-American church.

Grace and peace in Him who has purchased us with His own blood.

Beliefnet recently published their list of "who's who" in African-American spiritual circles (HT: Tim Challies). It's an interesting smorgasborg of spiritual ideas, and exhibit A in why the African-American church needs to be reformed! And what a most tragic report to release in African-American history month....

My good and faithful brother Eric asked me to put forward a bare-bones Christ-centered solution for disentangling "blackness" and "whiteness" from "church." If I understood his comments correctly, there is a good and natural question about how to jettison idolatrous notions of blackness and preserve a recognition of the imago dei in black folks. He asks: "what aspects of the image of God in browner skin tones will/should remain when "'black'ness" is Reformed?" A great question.

Trusting Eric's discernment, I've probably reached the point where I need to get past lament and offer some thoughts aimed more clearly at solution. And to do that, I want to be as "bare-bones" about it as I can. And to do that... let me simply ask and answer the question, "Ideally, what kind of church would I really, really like to belong to or pastor?"

Here are my answers in descending importance. "I would really, really like to belong to or pastor a church where":

1. The gospel of Jesus Christ is faithfully preached each Lord's Day and consistently applied to the Christian and non-Christian. I would love to belong to a church or pastor a church where the teachers "bring da Word," rightly divided, in season and out of season, where the Gospel is proclaimed and protected by leaders and members who search the Scripture.

2. People love radically. Across class, ethnic, language, political, citizenship status, gender, generational and every other natural division. A church of deep and wide fellowship between members, not just on Sundays but daily from house to house and in the workplace. Rejoicing together, mourning together, bearing with one another, receiving the weaker brothers, laying down liberties. A church where the watching world says, "Yep... those folks must be Jesus followers. Surely God sent Jesus to save the world. Look at how they love!"

3. The saints are called up into heaven or call heaven down in prayer. Put me in a church where the people of God call on the God of the people day and night with fervency, expectation, and joy.

4. People are growing and are concerned to help others grow. The fruit of the Spirit are evident and lasting. The brances are abiding in the True Vine. Bible knowledge increases, but so too does obedience to what the Bible teaches, and all without arrogance or being puffed up.

5. Clear, healthy, loving distinctions are kept between those professing faith in Christ and those not professing faith. I'd love to belong to a church that owns its responsibility for knowing the spiritual state of its members and for calling its members to live holy lives depending upon God's gracious aid.

6. Members are zealous in doing good. A church where members are first focused on the needs of the body and secondly the community. Where there are no limits to their generosity, compassion, and commitment to serving others. And the one good they do at all times is spread the Good News to every creature.

7. Family worship is modeled and practiced by all with families. Where Christianity is not a solo sport and nor is it a public, pay-per-view event but is practiced in homes when no one is watching but the children and the Lord. Where seeds are planted and watered by fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, and God gives abundant increase in the conversion and discipleship of young people.

8. Missions is a high priority budgetarily and in individual personal decisions.

Okay... this is the church I'd love to join or pastor. Right about now, the old joke is ringing in my head. "If you find a perfect church, don't join it. Because if you do, it won't be perfect anymore." There are probably other things I'd consider in some measure, but I think this is the meat. And I think this would be a bare-bones, Christ-centered corporate body. Now, to return to Eric's question....

Nothing is said in this list about culture or ethnicity. How much of our cultural identity (black, white, Asian, etc.) needs to be put aside and how much retained? We need put aside everything that hinders the 8 items above, in my opinion. If these 8 things are more or less indicative of the agenda of Jesus in the Church, His body, and if anything associated with our identity hinders any of these eight things, then our "identity" has crossed a very wide and important line.

I receive a fair amount of email from good white brothers in the Lord asking, "How much should I be willing to do to accomodate non-white attenders and members in the church?" And I get an equal amount of mail from good black brothers in the Lord asking, "How much of my culture should I give up in order to join predominantly white churches?" (Notice how both questions arc in the same direction... blacks joining white churches. I almost never get these same questions from the vantage point of whites joining black churches).

The answer in both cases is the same, I think. Accomodate or give up as much as is necessary to live like Jesus in the church, as much as is necessary to live out these eight things (or some similar but better defined list).

Make no mistake. The cost of doing this is quite high--especially for ethnic minorities joining predominantly white churches (again, that's the direction most of this conversation takes. I assume there may be similar costs for white brethren joining predominantly black churches; I just don't have any real data). We might measure the costs on an increasing scale that looks something like this:

• Mild discomfort at being "the only one."
• A sense of alienation triggered by "foreign" or "white" music styles, sermon illustrations, or jokes
• Loss of genuine fellowship and friendship with other Christians at the "white church"
• Family mildly, half-jokingly questions your racial identity or loyalty to the community
• Family and "friends" reject you as "too white"; loss of significant friendships and relationships in your native community and your "white church"
• Troubled self-perception; internalized self-hatred as an ethnic minority
• Isolation, misunderstanding, fear and in some cases depression
• Parents watch their children experience pains of confused ethnic identity

These aren't strictly linear or stagewise. Not everyone experiences the same thing or the same degree of intensity. But these are some of the real costs.

My white brethren need to understand that these are real costs experienced by the brave who would live, love and labor together across ethnic lines, and that a staunch, uncritical adherence to "white" (misread, "neutral") cultural styles is inflicting unnecessary harm on their brown brethren. My black brethren need to trust God that the potential costs will be met (if not in this life time, then in glory) with staggering rewards and crowns of rejoicing. More of my white brethren need to experience these costs and take these risks of faith by joining predominantly black churches instead of driving by half a dozen to find the nice suburban white church. More of my black brethren need to actively seek non-blacks to be a part of their spiritual family. All of us need to risk as much as we can for a vision of a reformed church where all nations are welcomed and loved.

The cost is high, but great are the rewards if we by God's grace can live this way.

I've stayed away from discussing corporate worship (music styles and singing) in pretty much all the posts I've written on race and culture and the church. Eric politely called me on it :-) I've stayed away from it because (a) it's emotional and explosive for many, often leading to unproductive conversations, and (b) I don't think it's really the issue that matters most. In other words, if we really wanted to live like Jesus would have us live in the church, we'd figure something out. We wouldn't mind singing something from 16th century Europe or Latin America or a hymn in Swahili from East Africa (groups ranging from Selah to Donnie McClurkin have figured out how to do this) as long as it celebrated and exalted our one Jesus.

I'm musically illiterate, but I sing just about everything except that rock stuff (I don't get it... where's the beauty?). I've learned to enjoy most classical. Hymns of the Reformation are cool. Mahalia Jackson is still the queen. Fairfield Four... Gaithers... Mercy Me... Budy Jewell... Peter Tosh... Dinah Washington... Marian Anderson... Kathy Trocolli... Phillips, Craig and Dean... Albertina Walker... Kurt Carr. This is a partial list of the artists I'm looking at in my bookshelf right now. Half the folks aren't "native" to me, culturally speaking. But there's much I've learned to appreciate. And learning to appreciate is another way of saying learning to love. And perhaps that's what's missing in our churches when it comes to Christ-centered reform and questions of culture... we've not yet learned to love the way Jesus loves.

At the end of the day, my hunch is that our churches are not integrated--not because our cultural heritages are so intractable and music styles so divergent--but because we're not even trying. We have all the omnipotent aid of heaven to sustain us in our efforts and an omniscient wisdom to guide us in our thinking. There's really no excuse; we're complacent in our cultural enclaves. It's to the church's shame that Jackie Robinson integrated baseball before the church has integrated. It's to our shame that Brown v. Board integrated public schools before the churches have integrated. It's to our shame that the military beat us to it by several decades. It's to our shame that unregenerate men have made more progress on at least co-existing in the same space than the blood-bought church of Jesus Christ has made on loving across boundaries.

I want to join a church so deeply marked by those eight things above that cultural reforms in the church, if not easy, are at least considered an essential part of what it means to be the body of Christ. What parts of the imago dei in darker hue will remain? I suspect the parts that have nothing to do with hue... but with love, peace, reconciliation, and union with Jesus. I also suspect that will be costly.

Not without reforming the pastor.

It seems that so much of the church's health rides on the health of the pastors/elders and the men of the church. And that's by God's design.

Pastors and elders are to be examples to the flock in everything (1 Tim. 4:12b). They are rightly looked to as a model of Christian faith, conduct and virtue. And their prominence and teaching role in the congregation more or less guarantees that they will impress their character upon that of the congregation. The congregation, over time, will think and act much like the elders/pastors think and act. Which is to say, over time they will think and act more like Jesus if that's the pastors' manner, or they will think and act in ways well beneath the calling of Christ if that be the pastors' way of life.

This makes reforming the man in the ministry of paramount importance. Will he leave the imprimatur of Christ on the people of God, or will he leave them stamped with the stains of his deficiency and unprepared to meet Christ on the Day of Judgment? Each time we enter the pulpit, each time we gather as the church, we confess our belief in the coming Day of the Lord. We need the kind of reformation of pastors that makes such faith in the coming Day clear in our lives, our pursuits, our preaching, etc. Here's how Lemuel Haynes expressed it in one ordination sermon:

[His preaching] is not to display his talents; but like one who feels the weight of eternal things, he will not address his hearers as though judgment was a mere empty sound; but viewing eternity just before him, and a congregation on the frontiers of it, whose eternal state depends upon a few uncertain moments; Oh! with what zeal and fervor will he speak! How will death, judgment, and eternity appear as it were in every feature, and every word! Out of the abundance of his heart, his mouth will speak. His hearers will easily perceive, that the preacher is one who expects to give account. He will study and preach with reference to a judgment to come, and deliver every sermon in some respects, as if it were his last, not knowing when his Lord will call him, or his hearers to account. —We are not to suppose that his zeal will vent itself in the frightful bellowings of enthusiasm; but he will speak forth the words of truth in soberness, with modesty, and Christian decency.

The reformation of the African-American church--again, the entire church--will come when the men who shepherd her "feel the weight of eternal things" and leave off vain and trivial trifles. Eternity will press itself into their personal lives and will overflow in their public ministry. Fitness for heaven will be their grand theme. He will disdain the praise and applause of men, the diversions of the world, and the trappings of a perishing society, and choose instead the ineffable joys of glory in the presence of the Father and the Risen Lamb!

You don't get this at convention meetings, or seminaries for that matter. You get this primarily by sitting at the Master's feet, seeing the world the way He does, and usually through the careful discipleship and training offered by a godly, seasoned, serious pastor. The Lord and the church train men for this kind of ministry.

A couple weeks ago, a small swirl was created when Bro. Piper issued a call for ethnic minorities to join his staff. Now I, for one, would send every prospective African-American pastor I know to Bethlehem to learn from John. I would send every prospective African-American pastor I know to the internship program at Capitol Hill Baptist Church. Both of these congregations and pastors give themselves to training future pastors, and I'd have no problem flooding their efforts with young ethnic brothers. Never mind the politics of race or the angst of affirmative action. We want the church reformed according to the Word of God and that will require reforming the men who lead her--"by any godly means necessary!"

I wish every solid African-American church had a similar training effort. But even lacking that, I would send every prospective African-American pastor I know to learn from Ken Jones, Tony Carter, Michael Leach and a thousand other faithful shepherds laboring in anonymity with the weight of eternity resting on their hearts and minds.

This weekend, I had the disquieting experience of attending a local church in my home town. It was "disquieting" for a number of reasons.

1. There was the blend of hope and history so characteristic of African-American churches. What's wrong with that? Well... at first glance, nothing. But... it was a humanistic hope and a selective history.

2. The sermon was full of truth and the preacher said some things that took real boldness and love. But... almost none of it had anything to do with his chosen text nor were Gospel links and implications drawn out. Good truth... no grounding.

3. The songs... well, it was a Black church! The songs were great. There was good theology in most of them, sung in the experiential key of black folks. I was moved. Then, the shoutin' began. One lady immediately in front of me; I placed a stiff arm in the small of her back and tucked my feet and toes under the pew. A few moments later a lady sitting next to my wife and youngest daughter lept from her seat. An older woman left the choir stand and began shouting. The pastor, a slight fellow with a big mouth (his self-description), tried to hold her up but was buried beneath her when she came down on him in piles! The most disquieting moment came in the midst of all this when my 7 year old daughter looked up at my wife and said, "It's a zoo in here!" We don't know where she got the phrase from; we don't like the overtones that she is oblivious to but we know all too well; we don't want her confused theologically or practically about what she saw and its appropriateness; we are concerned about her conception of black religious expression and identity; and, yet, the ethos feels so important, so essential to our experience.

It was a disquieting Sunday.

Perhaps it became a bit clearer for me that reforming the African American church isn't merely a matter of adopting a preaching technique or membership procedures. Those help, and I'd argue are essential. However, there's that something more. There is that something that leaps to the mind and the heart for most African Americans when you say "black church." There is an emotional memory and a certain longing for place and space that intertwines itself with the very definition of blackness itself--even when the person you're speaking with isn't a Christian or church attender.

In one sense, talk of reforming the Black church is or can be a call to re-evaluate the concept of "blackness" itself. In the secular literature, Debra Dickerson has called for just such a re-evaluation. Meanwhile, in the African-American religious literature, the concept of blackness is central, defining to the point of launching the school of Black Theology that makes an idol in black face. All the while, most black folks go on somewhere in the middle, thinking that our core notions of blackness are just fine. Don't get me wrong. I don't know many folks who aren't at least privately troubled by images of blackness in the latest rap video or prime time news. And I don't know many people who don't lament absentee fathers, youth under achievement and crime, and a host of other problems that get lumped together rightly or wrongly with "blackness."

But to lament the problematic conception of blackness where the Black church is concerned appears to me exponentially explosive... not just because of the likely reaction from the uncritical apologist of the Black church but more importantly because it conjures questions of identity that no one seems capable of resolving or addressing. "Blackness" and a certain expressive/emotional spiritually are siamese twins in the minds of most. You can't separate them without risking traumatic complications.

And yet... from my little beach side perch in the Caribbean... the surgery to separate historical notions of blackness (and all the memory and emotion it entails) from a much-needed contemporary call to church reform is critically urgent. Put another way... I left church Sunday thinking, "There's no way to reform the Black church without detangling the adjective 'Black' from the noun 'Church'." And I'm concerned that the surgical incision will cause the patient to convulse and hemorrhage in revolt against the procedure. It is quite possible that the patient has grown so accustomed to life with ailments that they'd rather the debilitating disease than the painful cure.

For the longest while I've been thinking that we need a new theological anthropology for our day, one that addresses the question of our humanity with a particular eye toward "race," culture, and the church. The historical formulations seem so inadequate to me. Our "natural" thinking seems wholly inadequate for fostering reform inside the church--black, white, Asian, and Hispanic/Latino.

Can the predominantly African-American church be reformed? Am I the only one that thinks this question is a little like asking, "Can 'blackness' be reformed?"

Can the predominantly African-American church be reformed? If so, almost certainly it will require a revival of sound, biblical preaching.

The last post explored the assertion that by any historical definition of "true church" the African American church (writ large) is not one. At the top of the list of woes contributing to this situation was this critique:

The Word is not rightly preached in most African American churches. That is, the biblical Gospel is wholly absent in far too many churches. Forget about a commitment to exposition... topical rules the day and ironically, many African-American preachers sound like white plantation preachers (only it's not "slave don't steal massa's chicken," it's "black folks, you gotta vote democratic down the line or God wants you rich"). Different lyrics, same tired tune.

This is by no means an original observation. There is a trail of African Americans lamenting the woeful state of black preaching, including some of African America's greatest church statesmen.

For example, Bishop Daniel A. Payne, one of the most influential and tireless bishops of the African Methodist Episcopal Church described the preaching in his day this way:

First, then, the preaching of the Gospel. What do we understand by this? Various are the answers given. Some there are who believe it to consist in loud declamation and vociferous talking; some in whooping, stamping and beating the Bible or desk with their fists, and in cutting as many odd capers as a wild imagination can suggest; and some err so grievously on this subject as to think that he who hallooes the loudest and speaks the longest is the best preacher. Now all these crude ideas have their origin in our education, for we believe just what we have been taught. But if any man wishes to know what is preaching the Gospel, let him not ask of mere mortal man, but let him find his answer in the teachings of Him who spake, and whose wisdom is without mixture of error. Hear him in the matchless sermon on the Mount, teaching us to find blessedness in poverty and meekness, in peace and righteousness, in mercy and purity, and to find exceeding great joy in persecution for righteousness sake. See with what divine skill he expounds the moral law, and carries its application beyond the outward and visible conduct into the interior and invisible workings of the human soul. Behold Him either in private houses or on the sea shore, or in the temple, by parables of the most striking beauty and simplicity, unfolding the great principles upon which the moral government of the universe is based, enlightening their understandings and warming their hearts with the sunbeams of eternal truth. This is preaching—preaching of the highest kind. We will do well to imitate it.... ("Who Is Sufficient for These Things?", 1852).

Payne's assessment of African-American preaching prior to Emancipation was that it was largely a product of education (read, miseducation) and full of "loud declamation and vociferous talking." He is, in effect, calling for preaching that takes Jesus as the model, that is preaching that is expositional, doctrinal and application oriented.

Dr. Frances J. Grimke, for 55 years the pastor of the prominent 15th Street Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. and long-time activist in the cause of racial equality, assessed the African-American pulpit of his day in these words: "If we turn now and examine carefully the character of the pulpit ministrations of the Afro-American pulpit, its three leading characteristics will be found to be emotionalism, levity or frivolity, and a greed for money." Does that ring a bell for us?

Grimke went on at length to describe the emotionalism, frivolity and greed he saw. Consider this long description of emotionalism and its effects (I'd highly commend the entire sermon, "The Afro-American Pulpit in Relation to Race Elevation," 1892):

First, it is emotion. The aim seems to be to get up an excitement, to arouse the feelings, to create an audible outburst or emotion, or, in the popular phraseology, to get up a shout to make people “happy.” In many churches where this result is not realized, where the minister is unable by sheer force of lung power, and strength of imagination, to produce this state of commotion, he is looked upon as a failure. Even where there is an attempt to instruct, in the great majority of cases this idea is almost sure to assert itself, and become the dominant one.Now, where emotionalism prevails, three things will be found to be true: First, there will be little of no instruction from the pulpit. The minister whose sole or chief aim is to get up a shout, to excite animal spirits, will not give much time to the study of God’s word, or to the instruction of the people in the practical duties of
religion....

Second: Where emotionalism prevails there will be a low state of spirituality among the people, and necessarily so. Christian character is not built up in that way. It is a growth, and comes from the knowledge and practice of Christian principles. If the body is to grow, it must be fed, and fed on wholesome and nutritious food. And the same is true of the soul; and that food is God’s Word, line upon line, and precept upon precept. There is no other way of getting up out of the bogs and malarious atmosphere of selfishness and pride, and ill-will and hatred, and the many things which degrade and brutalize into the higher regions of love and purity and obedience and felicity, except by the assimilation of Christian principles, except by holy and loving obedience to the will of God. We cannot get up there on the wings of emotion; we cannot shout ourselves up to a high Christian manhood and womanhood any more than we can shout ourselves into Heaven. We must grow up to it. And until this fact is distinctly understood, and fully appreciated, and allowed to have its weight in out pulpit ministrations, the plane of spirituality upon which the masses of our people move will continue low. Shouting is not religion. The ability to make a noise is no test of Christian character. The noisiest Christians are not the most saintly; those who shout the most vigorously are not always the most exemplary in character and conduct.

Third: Where emotionalism prevails the underlying conception of religion will be found to be false, pernicious, and degrading. The conception which James gives us of religion is this: “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this—To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.” The conception which Paul gives is,—“Covet earnestly the best gifts, and yet show I you a more excellent way.” “Charity suffereth long and is kind,” etc. The conception which Micah gives is: “What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God” (Micah 6:8). The conception which the blessed Lord himself gives is: “When I was an hungered, ye gave me meat; thirsty, ye gave me drink; sick and in prison, and ye visited me” (Matt. 25:35), etc. Running through all these statements of principles, the dominant, controlling idea is character. In emotionalism, however, this element is entirely overlooked, or sinks almost entirely out of sight. The measure of one’s piety is made to depend upon the strength and the amount of his emotions. Thus the true ideal is shut out from view, the standard set up is a false one, and the result is not only stagnation but degradation. The ideal of religion which is held up in our pulpits, and which is cherished by the people, must be in harmony with the facts as revealed in the Word of God, if it is to have an elevating and ennobling effect upon their everyday life.

Ouch. Just scanning the popular preaching of our day, the preaching that most regard as "good Black preaching," I'd have to say we've not made much progress since Payne or Grimke. I'd have to conclude that emotionalism, frivolity, and greed are still ravaging too many pulpits.

If reform is to happen, we need men in the pulpits of our churches who are:

• Committed to bring the Word of God to the people of God as the only manna by which they must be nourished. Teaching is needed, not entertainment. God's Word is needed, not pop psychology and the latest business fads. Now this will mean distinguishing between style and substance (and casting off "style"); faith that God works in the world by His Word; a life of serious study; reverence before God knowing that those who teach receive a stricter judgment; and great love for the people of God such that we want to see them grow up into Christ in all things. What an abuse it is to take the Word of God out of the mouths of God's people. What an unloving and hateful practice.
• Committed to exposition. Exposition of the Scriptures should be the primary form of that teaching. Personally, I tend to think we need men to teach through entire books of the Bible. Having said that, though, even topical series should be comprised of solid expositions. We need men to open the meaning of God's Word and convey that meaning as the main point of their sermons week after week.
• Doctrinally sound. Most revivals in church history have accompanied doctrinally rich preaching. Moreover, emotions rise and fall, so preaching to emotions or felt needs inevitably leave people "tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine." We need preachers rooted in solid systematic and biblical theologies, and who bring those categories to their preaching and to their people.
• Evangelistic preaching. In every sermon, we need men to preach the gospel. We may preach more than the gospel, but we should never preach less than the gospel. The Good News of Jesus Christ must be prominent, clear, penetratingly applied, and driven from the text. If, as Jesus taught, all of Scripture points to Him, then all of our preaching should point to Him whether in the OT or the NT, and specifically point to Him as the only fulfillment of God's promises and man's need for a Savior.

Apart from the recovery of expositional, doctrinally-rich and sound, evangelistic preaching, reform and revival are impossible in the predominantly African-American church--in any church.

Did you know that Desiring God has launched a new blog? Several of the DG staff contribute to the blog and they've been posting audio and some text of the DG Pastors' Conference going on now. Check it out.

Last night the DG pastors' conference kicked off! It was a great start to the conference. 1,200 men singing, as Luther put it, "lustily," to the glory of God! The conference theme is the holiness of God. Who better to be the opening speaker than R.C. Sproul? He was vintage R.C.! I never tire of hearing him expound Isaiah 6! If you haven't read any of R.C.'s works or listened to him teach, you owe that to yourself. Consider starting with The Holiness of God or Grace Unknown: The Heart of Reformed Theology.

The thing that most encouraged and impressed me on the first night happened before the conference. The speakers and their wives were having dinner, and at one point R.C. expressed his great confidence in the Word of God as the power of God. It wasn't a long statement or great treatise... just a humble confession of confidence in the God of the Word and the Word of God. And it was great to hear and see such confidence in a man that has written over 60 books, led a ministry for over thirty years, and who is nearing the end of his ministry. The same unwaivering confidence. I pray we all have it.

About 3pm today, I'm abandoning the 75+ degree climes of sunny Grand Cayman and heading off to the frozen tundra of Minneapolis, MN! I know... I know... why?!

Well, to enjoy the fellowship and instruction of godly pastors, church leaders, and saints at the Desiring God Pastor's Conference! I'm looking forward to the time and hope to meet many of you there! Perhaps we can even collectively lobby Bro. Piper to move the conference to Cayman next February! :-)

Lord willing, I'll pick up posting again on Monday with some thoughts from the conference and continuing to ponder the question, "Can the predominantly African-American church be reformed?" Grace and peace in Him who purchased us with His own blood!