The Ancient Christian Faith: Whence come our 'leaders'?
I would like to hear the reactions others like Jeremy Peirce and Jolly-himself on my friends blog, which he calls The Ancient Christian Faith. Bill and I went to chapel together in Germany. Bill sort of called himself a house church advocate for a while. I'm not sure what he would call himself now, perhaps he would want to transcend description. Before I became a part of the PCA, I thought about house churching it myself, but I did not see it as a sustainable way to lead my family in the faith. Simple questions like, how does my wife keep on with it all when I'm out of town made me say, house churching would not be practical for us. I'm not say house churches are wrong, I'm just saying that I found them wanting in regard to how I was able to lead my family.
The Ancient Christian Faith: Whence come our 'leaders'?: "Introduction to the Problem
It has become an unending source of bewilderment for me to see how many people admit to the un-edifying instruction coming from ‘other’ churches, but respond quickly with, “But ours is different.” Yet when you visit their church you are greeted with the same spiritless pabulum. So, what was the difference? The answer is ‘Them’. What we really have found in all these cases is not the good or bad preacher, but the tendency of people to acquiesce to a sullen mediocrity for fear of futility in the hunt for quality. Tragically, the result of such a decision to acquiesce often means the cessation of their Christian growth, an unconvincing witness to the community, the possible loss of their children to secularity or even to another religion, or worse, the irrecoverable fall into life among the church’s living dead never again to hear the word ‘Arise!’ That there might just be something biblically out of step, systemically wrong, or even deceptive, rarely occurs with any conviction. Or, if it does, it does so without an anchor in hope. The result is no action taken."
The Ancient Christian Faith: Whence come our 'leaders'?: "Introduction to the Problem
It has become an unending source of bewilderment for me to see how many people admit to the un-edifying instruction coming from ‘other’ churches, but respond quickly with, “But ours is different.” Yet when you visit their church you are greeted with the same spiritless pabulum. So, what was the difference? The answer is ‘Them’. What we really have found in all these cases is not the good or bad preacher, but the tendency of people to acquiesce to a sullen mediocrity for fear of futility in the hunt for quality. Tragically, the result of such a decision to acquiesce often means the cessation of their Christian growth, an unconvincing witness to the community, the possible loss of their children to secularity or even to another religion, or worse, the irrecoverable fall into life among the church’s living dead never again to hear the word ‘Arise!’ That there might just be something biblically out of step, systemically wrong, or even deceptive, rarely occurs with any conviction. Or, if it does, it does so without an anchor in hope. The result is no action taken."
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