by Michiana Covenant | Feb 17, 2013 | Catechesis, Pastor Peter Wallace, Pastoral Notes, Pastoral Practice, Psalmody, Sabbath
Jamie Stoltzfus linked to this article on Facebook (though it was Jacob’s comment, “Trying to picture Peter Wallace in plaid and skinny jeans” that called my attention to it and convinced me to read it!):
http://marc5solas.wordpress.com/2013/02/08/top-10-reasons-our-kids-leave-church/
It is a good reminder of why we are doing what we do — and a challenge to work on doing it even better!
1) Why do the catechism quiz every week (10:10 a.m.)? Because we are working on instilling within ourselves (and our children) the basic grammar of Christian doctrine. Don’t assume that this is only for children. I never memorized the catechism until we started doing it at MCPC, but I find that the repetition is really helping me to get it stuck in my head and heart (especially as we have added the scripture memory verses). And for those who may say, “Yeah, I did that once,” — I would ask, “Do you still know it?” If not, come back, let’s do it again — and again — and again! Is it perfect? No, but if we wait for perfection we’ll never do anything!
2) Sing. Paul says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” (Colossians 3:16). Notice that in Colossians 3, Paul isn’t talking about what we do in public worship — he’s talking about what we do in daily life! Do you know these songs well enough to sing them in your daily life? Do you incorporate them into your daily life? These are the sorts of customs and practices that sink deep into a person’s soul. If the only place you ever encounter this is on Sunday morning, then don’t expect it to get any further than one day a week in your life!
But Sunday morning is still a good place to start. Come and sing at 10 a.m. We generally sing through the most challenging piece of music that we’ll be singing in the morning service and work on it part by part. And as your children get older, bring them along to work on parts as well (and for those without kids, find a kid — or an adult who wants to learn how to sing — and take them under your wing to help them along). If you want to know how to sing better, stand next to [or in front of] someone who sings well.
And yes, we are planning on making sure that we have enough copies of the new psalter that you can have copies at home!
3) Talk with others about the sermon. Go deeper. Think together about what the scripture says about who Jesus is and what he has done. Let his story become the center of your conversation (it is, after all, the center of everything else!). Use the order of service throughout the week to encourage your daily prayers at home and with others. I include it here in the pastoral notes so that you can make use of it. Obviously, if you already have a thriving family worship time, then there is no need to alter it for this — but if you are looking for a place to start, it may help.
4) Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. The point of the Sabbath has to do with how we think about time. God said to work for six days and rest on the seventh. Do we set aside our labors for a whole day? God did. This was the pattern of creation. No, we don’t keep the same Sabbath as Israel (and we shouldn’t think about the Sabbath in terms of the whole Mosaic code — any more than we should think about theft in the same way as the whole Mosaic code!), but how do we use time? In the same way that we give to God the first of our produce, we should give to God the first of our time. Are we calling the Sabbath a delight? Or are we so focused on our own agendas that we squeeze God’s time out? Again — these sorts of practices and customs are crucial for shaping our life together before God.
Obviously, if these practices and customs do not really touch the core of our lives, then the children will see it — and will decry it as the hypocrisy that it is. But if they see the joy of the Spirit in us — if they see our thankful obedience reflected in our grace-filled walk, then perhaps by God’s grace they, too, will walk with us in the way of Christ.
by Michiana Covenant | Feb 10, 2013 | Pastor Peter Wallace, Pastoral Notes, Pastoral Practice, Psalmody, Worship
What shapes us? What forms us? What is it that makes us “who we are”? Are we shaped mostly by ideas (our intellectual beliefs) or by our practices and customs?
I grew up Baptist — but I became Reformed because I was convinced by the *ideas.* Did that make me Reformed? Sort of. I was a Reformed Christian *intellectually* — but as my friends noticed at the time, I was still fundamentally a Baptist in my ways of living, as one friend told me as I was grumbling about the problems of individualism in American church culture: “Peter, you’re the biggest individualist I know!”
Looking back, if I had continued to be an *ideas* person, who knows where I’d be today. What was it that formed me as a Reformed pastor?
1) Every Sunday morning and evening for more than two years I sat under the preaching of Lendall Smith at Bethel Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Wheaton, participating in their well-crafted liturgy — and coming to the Lord’s Supper (as I began to grasp intellectually what the Lord’s Supper really was, and trembling as I partook of Christ’s body and blood, as I realized that Paul’s warning really meant something!). And then I spent many Sunday afternoons — and other times — with the Larsons, the Brinks, the DeJongs, and other families — learning and watching their practice of being a Reformed family.
2) Every month for nearly five years (two at Wheaton and three at Westminster) I gathered with other students at the home of Darryl and Ann Hart to talk about what it means to be Reformed. Yes, there was deep theological discussion — but it was embodied in the lived practice of a community.
3) At Westminster I was frequently in the Powlison home (usually on the third floor with David and Sharon Covington). Again, the intellectual found its context in a vibrant fellowship of life together. For two years I lived with Steve and Lynn Igo — and their bouncing boys — participating in their family life and worship (our family worship bears considerable resemblance to theirs!), learning to put into practice the counseling paradigm that we were taught in our relationships with each other.
4) My first year at Notre Dame, I gathered with the Deliyannides and Devlins practically every Sunday in the Allison’s tiny 525 square foot apartment — where we always sang a half dozen Psalms. I had been convinced intellectually for years that we should sing more Psalms — but I had never done it! Ben Allison made sure that it happened. The rituals and practices of those few short months shaped me in ways that my ideas never had.
5) As I was licensed and ordained in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, I was enculturated into a particular way of being Reformed — the boundaries and norms of the Midwest Presbytery shaped me both in explicit and implicit ways — some of which were significantly challenged when Glenn Jerrell walked into my life and gave me another way of being an OPC pastor. Two years of sitting under his ministry at Walkerton reshaped me in many ways (some of which I probably do not even realize!).
6) Plainly the content of what I learned and read has been crucial — but also who I learned it from! When you have learned Union with Christ from Dick Gaffin, Judges from Al Groves, Genesis from Doug Green, and when you have heard Sinclair Ferguson pray his lectures every day before he preaches them, you will never be the same again.
But all of this runs into another way of being and knowing and doing — one that is well-articulated by Matthew Vos’s article on the Super Bowl.
http://www.cardus.ca/comment/article/3864/prizes-and-consumables-the-super-bowl-as-a-theology-of-women/
[Thanks to Mark Hanson for the link — and to be fair, I should note that I watched most of the Super Bowl.]
Vos points out that the customs and practices encouraged by the Super Bowl embody a fundamentally idolatrous way of being human (an Ezekiel 16 sort of culture — for those who weren’t at MCPC a couple years ago, Ezekiel 16 could be summarized as, ‘Cinderella becomes a porn star’).
So much of the church today is trying to make Christianity more palatable to our culture by trying to put the content of Christianity into the forms and customs of our culture (see Vos’s comments on this). I once spoke to a young man from Muncie, Indiana, who said he was looking for a church down there. I asked him, “What are you looking for in a church?” He answered, “I just want to be entertained.”
I was dumbfounded at his honesty (so I didn’t quite know what to say!), but it got me thinking. There are two things that I do not want to do:
1) I do not want simply to entertain him (it would only cheapen the good news of what Jesus has done);
2) I do not want to bore him (that would also cheapen the good news of what Jesus has done!).
Rather, I want him to see that there is something so much more grand and glorious that God has done in Jesus! And that’s where the customs and practices of our life together are so essential. If what we do on Sunday morning is disconnected from what we do the rest of the week, then yes, it will feel jarring (and so if that young man would ever come to MCPC, I don’t doubt that he will find it strange — but by the Spirit of God he should see a strange and beautiful power revealed there!). But if what we do on Sunday morning begins to shape what we do the rest of the week, then we will begin to find the practices of our culture to be strange and jarring.
The ideas are relevant to all this — but disembodied ideas are a mere fantasy!
by Michiana Covenant | Dec 2, 2012 | Marriage, Pastoral Notes
I find it immensely useful to read feminist critiques of patriarchy as a means of reminding me of my own sinful tendencies. After all, too often the critique is accurate! Consider this quote from Allan Johnson’s “The Gender Knot”:
“When men’s reflection is obscured by the reality and demands of women’s own lives, men are vulnerable to feeling left out and neglected. Like cold-blooded animals that generate little heat of their own, this dynamic makes it hard for men to feel warm unless the light is shining on them at the moment, something well-known to women who spend inordinate amounts of time worrying about whether they’re paying enough attention to their male partners, about whether they should be sitting quietly and reading a book or spending time with women friends when they could be with the men in their lives. It is a worry few men wrestle with unless women complain.” (p12-13)
If our “patriarchy” is rooted in a heavenly Father’s love and concern for his children, then we should be far more “warm-blooded” than this! If our meaning and purpose is found in Christ, the one who humbled himself to bear our sin and guilt, then our presence should warm and encourage others.
Certainly the feminist critique of modern American patriarchy has a lot of accurate points. No Christian should endorse the sort of social system that encourages the sexual objectification of women and the cold-blooded male who exists for his own glory. When humility becomes the central focus of masculinity, then we will see a patriarchy worthy of the name.
by Michiana Covenant | Nov 4, 2012 | Baptism, Pastoral Notes
What is baptism? What do the scriptures say about what baptism is – and what baptism does?
At the day of Pentecost, when asked by the people, “what shall we do?” When they see that the promised Holy Spirit had been given to the followers of Jesus (and not them!) – they realize that unless they, too, receive the Holy Spirit, they are doomed! And so Peter said, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
So baptism is all about two things: the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit. And the rest of the New Testament fleshes out what this means. Ananias will say to Saul of Tarsus, “Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name.” (Acts 22:16) Paul will speak of baptism as “the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5). In Romans 6:3-4, Paul asks, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” In Galatians 3, Paul will add, “For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ….And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.” (Gal. 3:26, 27, 29)
When you think about how all these passages speak of baptism, it is not surprising that Peter will go so far as to say in 1 Peter 3:21, that baptism saves us. He starts by saying that baptism corresponds to the flood – that just as God brought Noah and his family safely through water, so now, “Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Christ.”
Notice how Peter says this. Baptism now saves you. So we must also say that in some way, baptism saves us. But how does baptism save us? Notice that Peter says that it is not that getting wet saves us – but the “appeal to God for a good conscience” (or “pledge of a clear conscience toward God”).
In other words, baptism saves by faith – through the resurrection of Christ.
If we take the NT seriously, then we must say that baptism is the washing of regeneration, and also that baptism only regenerates by faith.
Think about Simon Magus – who was baptized, but did not have faith, and so Peter said to him, “You have neither part nor lot in this matter, for your heart is not right with God…For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity.” (Acts 8:21, 23) So obviously, just getting baptized does not result in a changed heart!
Think of it this way. What makes a car go? Gasoline. But gasoline can only make a car go, if you push on the accelerator. In the same way baptism saves. But baptism can only save, if you believe God’s promises. Like all the blessings of God, baptism must be received by faith.
As the Westminster Confession puts it:
“Baptism is a sacrament of the new testament, ordained by Jesus Christ, not only for the solemn admission of the party baptized into the visible church; but also, to be unto him a sign and seal of the covenant of grace, of his ingrafting into Christ, of regeneration, of remission of sins, and of his giving up unto God, through Jesus Christ, to walk in newness of life. Which sacrament is, by Christ’s own appointment, to be continued in his church until the end of the world.” (Confession 28.1)
Calvin’s Genevan order of baptism adds:
“All these graces are conferred upon us when God is pleased to incorporate us into his Church by baptism. For in this sacrament he testifies to us the remission of our sins. And for this cause, he has ordained the sign of water, to signify that as by this natural element the body is washed of its bodily odors so he wishes to wash and purify our souls. Here we have a sure witness that God wishes to be a loving Father, not counting all our faults and offenses. Secondly, that he will assist us by his Holy Spirit so that we can battle against the devil, sin, and the desires of our flesh, until we have victory in this, to live in the liberty of his kingdom. Those two things are accomplished in us, through the grace of Jesus Christ: it follows that the truth and substance of baptism is comprised in him. For we have no other washing than in his blood, and we have no other renewal than in his death and resurrection. But as he communicates to us his riches and blessings by his word, so he distributes them to us by his sacraments.” (Geneva, 1542)
But if baptism does not benefit us apart from faith, why do we baptize our children? Remember that in Acts 2:38, Peter said, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” What does he say next? “For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” (Acts 2:39)
Which promise? The promise of repentance and baptism for the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit. When Peter says “the promise is for you and your children” to a group of Jews and proselytes in Jerusalem he is using Abrahamic language. Everyone present would assume that “for you and your children” would mean that their children were included in the promise, just like Isaac was included in the promise to Abraham.
God had said to Abraham, “I will establish my covenant between me and you and your seed after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God to you and to your seed after you.” (Genesis 17:7) You find the same idea in Paul’s call to the Philippian jailer: “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” (Acts 16:31)
Or as the Heidelberg Catechism puts it:
“Infants as well as their parents, belong to the covenant and people of God, and through the blood of Christ both redemption from sin and the Holy Ghost, who works faith, are promised to them no less than to their parents. Therefore they are also by Baptism, as a sign of the covenant, to be ingrafted into the Christian Church, and distinguished from the children of unbelievers, as was done in the Old Testament by circumcision, in place of which in the New Testament Baptism is appointed.” (Heidelberg Catechism 74)
