Archives for September 2014

10 AM Worship

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3 PM Worship

The Ordinary Church— John MacArthur writes,

“A week or so ago, I picked up a copy of Tabletalk, the monthly devotional magazine that’s produced by our friends at Ligonier Ministry, and the theme was ordinary. And there was a wonderful article by our friend Michael Horton called ‘The Ordinary Christian Life.’ In that article, Michael Horton says this. ‘Radical, epic, revolutionary, transformative, impactful, life-changing, extreme, awesome, emergent, alternative, innovative, on the edge, explosive breakthrough, whole new level.’ And then he asks, ‘Whatever happened to ordinary?’ Whatever happened to ordinary? He says, ‘Ordinary has to be one of the loneliest words in the evangelical church vocabulary. There is this constant call for more experiences that are highly emotional, radical, edgy, relevant, trendy.’ One other writer says, ‘There seems to be a growing weariness with the cult of extraordinariness.’” Read more »

Listen to Michael Horton On The Ordinary As An Alternative For Young, Restless, Radical Christianity

Also, check out:

• Ordinary Means

  Article by Michael G. Brown

  …ordinary? We want the spectacular. We want what is bigger, better, and exciting. We desire extraordinary gadgets, extraordinary kids, and extraordinary lives. To feel validated as a person, one must n…

• The Great Ordinary Commission

  Article by Burk Parsons

  …ordinary commission that we have the great privilege of fulfilling in part as we gather together with every tribe, tongue, and nation to worship with our families every Lord’s Day. Then we partake of …

• Radically Ordinary

  Article by Burk Parsons

  …ordinary way Christ has ordained. Throughout history, God has done extraordinary things through ordinarypeople. The ordinary Christian will always fight the status quo of lukewarm Christianity. The o…

• Disciple-Making is Ordinary Christianity

  Post by Erik Raymond

  …ordinary occurrences. In fact, I picked them from the ordinary lives of people in our church family. It is thisordinary work that pushes the church ahead toward maturity while protecting her from spi…

• Living the Gospel in Ordinary Life: An Interview with Aimee Byrd

  Article by Aimee Byrd

  …Ordinary”—mean? AB: We know that the gospel is the good news of salvation. We often return to it in our deepest trials and struggles. But the gospel message is also needed in ordinary, everyday …

• The Ordinary Christian Life

  Article by Michael Horton

  …ordinary student at Bubbling Brook Elementary”? Who wants to be that ordinary person who lives in an ordinarytown, is a member of an ordinary church, has ordinary friends, and works an ordinary job? …

• Ordinary Christian Work

  Article by Tim Challies

  …ordinary people in ordinary lives who use our ordinary circumstances to proclaim and live out an extraordinarygospel.

• The Ordinary Christian Family

  Article by Tedd Tripp

  …ordinary Christian family is simply ordinary Christian people, living in the ordinary circumstances of life, out of the extraordinary grace of the gospel. And this is not just two-parent families. The…

• The Ordinary Christian Church

  Article by Sean Michael Lucas

  …ordinary display; rather, God uses His ordinary church to sustain and nourish believers through ordinaryministry, people, and means. ORDINARY MINISTRY In His ordinary church, God works through ordina…

• The Ordinary Christian Pastor

  Article by Erik Raymond

  …ordinary. He does this by tending to his own heart, doing the work of a missionary, and shepherding the flock. Through this ordinary work, he fulfills his extraordinary calling.

• An Ordinary Christian Son

  Article by R.C. Sproul Jr.

  …ordinary ways, in an ordinary home, as ordinary parents, raising ordinary children. We do not need special skills or special opportunities to do extraordinary things for the kingdom. We need only to s…

• The Ordinary Means of Growth

  Article by Ligon Duncan

  …Ordinary means ministry is thus radically committed to biblical direction of the priorities of ministry. Ordinarymeans ministry believes that God has told us the most important things, not only about…

• No Ordinary Mercy

  Article by John Sartelle

  …ordinary mercy. In Ephesians 2, God is described as being rich in this mercy (v. 4) and as manifesting the “immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us” (v. 7). No one is surpri..

“…What remains in Christianity when the supernaturalism of the Bible is given up is not Christianity at all. Liberal Christianity and liberal Judaism, for example, turn out to be exactly alike. They have the same … fundamental skepticism about God, the same complacency about man, and the same mild admiration for the prophet of Nazareth. Tolerance has had its perfect work. The equilibrium has been restored. The consuming fire of Christianity has burned out, and we have merely the same feeble moralism that was in the world before Christianity took its rise.”

“It is a drab, dreary world – this modern world of which men are so proud. I for my part feel oppressed when I look out upon it. I admire, indeed, those who try to hold on with heart to what they have given up with the head; but as for me, any religion that is to claim my devotion must be founded squarely upon truth. Where shall such a religion be found?

“At this point, I have a truly revolutionary suggestion to make. How should it be if we should turn to the Bible for help? We have turned to everything else, to things ancient and things modern. Why should we not turn at length to that? I am indeed aware that the demand I am making is very great. I am asking you to do nothing else than to reopen the question whether the Bible is true – true, I mean, not only at the periphery but at the central point. I am not asking you just to extract from the Bible a set of moral commonplaces, vague general principles of religion and ethics that can safely be used, without offending anybody…. No, I am asking you to follow him who came not to bring peace upon the earth but a sword; I am asking you to accept what the Bible itself presents as central. What that is can surely not be in doubt. Skeptical historians are here in full agreement with Christians of the most devout type. Whatever we may think about it, the center of the New Testament is supernatural redemption by the Lord Jesus Christ. That it is to which I am asking you to have recourse.

“… Increasingly the great alternative is becoming clear: give Jesus up, confess that his portrait is forever hidden in the mists of pragmatic legend; or else accept him essentially as he is presented to us by the Evangelists and by Paul.”

From J. Gresham Machen’s The Gospel and the Modern World: And Other Short Writings

Scott Redd writes:

In the first post in this series we briefly considered the heart of family worship. In this post we turn our attention to the timing and manner of family worship.

The Timing of Family Worship

When thinking about the right time for family worship, don’t be afraid to experiment with different times and settings in order to find out what works well for your family. This will also change as children grow up and as new members are added to the fold. For instance, morning family devotions may make a lot of sense during the summer when the kids are out of school (or if you homeschool). For us the evening seems to work best most of the time.

Read more »

10 AM Worship

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3 PM Worship