Jared C. Wilson's Blog, page 62

I Need to Tell You About My Friend Anne

I know it has been a while since my last post. I’ve never really been the every day kind of blogger, but the lull is still unique for me, I know. We’ve been in an especially eventful season of ministry over here, and the request in that last post is actually just one piece of why.

We lost our friend Anne this morning. I don’t have the interest right now in waxing theological about life and death and what-not. That will come later, I’m sure. I just left the hospital room about an hour ago, leaving Anne’s husband Jeff and son Mark and sister Eve, my wife Becky, Elder Dale and his wife Kim, and Barby (our church’s worship leader and wife of Elder Dave), as they prepared for the right people to come and take Anne’s body away. There were lots of tears in that room when I left it but lots of joy too, the kind only Christians can really understand. Yesterday as we kept watch with Anne’s family over her last labored breaths, I witnessed all afternoon and into the evening a steady stream of Middletown Church folks come in and out, spend time, share hugs and stories and smiles and tears. I left last night brimming with joy. What an enormous privilege it is to pastor this great church.

But I have to tell you about Anne. Just a little bit for now. Anne was a very Jesusy person. Here are just four reasons why that are very personal to me, that I just have to get out…

1. The first is less serious than reasons two thru four, but still important to my family. Anne and her husband Jeff introduced our family to our favorite New England vacation spot — Stonington, Maine. Three years ago in late summer, the two of them led the four of us to this sleepy little fishing village on the rocky coast. It’s not very touristy, which is why we love it. Jeff and Anne had discovered it a few years before and then had some friends move near there, so it became a regular getaway spot. The two years since, my family has taken our end-of-summer vacation week there. It’s become just the right place at just the right time for a family refresh and reboot before the hectic schedule of school and fall ministry season begin. Becky loves taking pictures all over the place. The girls love playing in the water (yes, it’s wicked cold, even in August). I love just sitting there, breathing. It’s kind of a selfish reason to be grateful for Anne, I guess, but it does remind me of Jesus because he’s always showing us new things — in his word as well as in his world — that become old treasures.

2. Anne also reminds me of Jesus because of her honesty, her directness, her passion, her forthrightness. Specifically, she was “Jesus to me” a couple of years ago when she asked if we could meet for coffee. As we sat one morning together at Cafe Terra in Rutland, I was nervous that she was nervous. It was difficult for her to do but she was letting me know that I had hurt her feelings with a careless word. Of course, I hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings, and we weren’t even in conflict. I wasn’t mad at her or anything when I hurt her, which was why it was so surprising to me. But something I said had taken her to a wounded place, whether I meant it or not. She couldn’t let it go, so she had let me know. Of course I wasn’t happy to know I’d hurt her. And I asked how I could make it right. (She said just listening would do it.) But I thanked her. She had done me a great honor. See, in my world, when someone is offended by something I’ve said or feels somewhat slighted or hurt in some way, it is more typical that I hear about it later on down the line and through a third party. Often I don’t even know who it is that’s upset. That’s understandable in one sense; I can figure out why that might happen. But Anne did me the great honor of telling me herself, to my face, as soon as she was able. She trusted me with her hurt. As saddened as I was by what she was relaying, I was also encouraged by the way she relayed it. She didn’t do it angrily or with any demands. But she was willing to risk my getting angry or my being defensive or whatever other terrible responses I could have given her in my flesh or she could have anticipated in her nervousness. She was willing to risk our relationship by telling me the truth. And our relationship grew stronger because of it. That’s like Jesus, isn’t it? Always shooting us straight, whatever it may cost.

3. Do you know the people in church or other community circles that most people have difficulty talking to? (I’m trying to tread lightly here.) There are some sweet, genuine people who seem to need more patience in conversation, more empathy, more grace in social settings, more time, less hurry. People you maybe don’t mind chatting with if only someone else will come relieve you. Well, Anne was a magnet to those people. Anne, like almost nobody else I can think of, had a heart for the people on the margins. Wounded people, people who feel unheard, people who feel misunderstood, people who we might call “emotionally needy” but are perhaps unaware of it, people like even me maybe — they were Anne’s friends. She always made time for the people that many of us selfish folks checked our watches with. Isn’t that like Jesus? Unhurried compassion with the lonely people on the outskirts of communal efficiency and social acceptability? Jeff says people have come in to pay respects in the last few days that he didn’t even know about, hurting people that Anne had regular tea appointments with to be a listening ear.

4. Anne was brilliant. Her insights in Bible study or even casual conversation often related to neurology or some intellectual thing she’d lately read. She was always answering questions by telling us some obscure thing the brain does. A recovering Catholic and a recovering flower child, she loved talking about her relatively “late” interests, conservative politics and Reformed theology. In the last few years, Anne had gone back to school. In her late 50′s she had decided she wanted to study psychology and parlay that into becoming a gospel-centered Christian counselor. (She absolutely devoured all the CCEF materials I fed her.) So this year, at age 61, when she was diagnosed with this brain tumor just a couple of months ago, we all just felt it was kind of . . . cruel? ironic? I don’t know. Interesting? The last meaningful conversation I was able to have with her was right after her first brain surgery. I said, “You’ve just spend three years studying the brain. And now . . . this?” She looked at me and said, “I know, right? God’s funny sometimes.” Funny? I’m not sure funny is the right word here, but I know what she meant by it. And now means by it, as she’s laughing it up with her brother Jesus in glory. (Anne has a great laugh, by the way.) Just like our brother Jesus, Anne faced death with a natural amount of fear and a Spiritual amount of faith in the Father who loves her, cares for her, and secures her. Like Jesus, she had abandoned her self to the sovereign grace of God.

Photo 1: Me and Jeff, in Stonington

Photo 2: Jeff and Anne

Pray for Anne

After a very rough couple of weeks, including a third brain surgery, Anne felt able to walk to the hospital chapel last night.

Getting Bored With the Right Things

And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy, and they did not know what to answer him. And he came the third time and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? It is enough; the hour has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.

– Mark 14:39-41

Jesus is in emotional and psychological agony in this garden. He is sweating blood. And the disciples are sawing logs.

One of the important exercises in reading Scripture is making connections. Thinking through what passages and narratives the passage or narrative before us reminds us of. Where do we see parallels, similarities, foreshadows, fulfillments? Sometimes the exercise doesn’t take us anywhere discernibly meaningful. Many times it does.

As I reflected on this passage, it reminded me of another time in Christ’s ministry, another time when someone was in agony and someone was sleeping. I think of Jesus and his disciples in the boat. The storm is crashing all around them. The disciples are despairing of life itself. It seems they will be sunk and drowned. And Jesus sleeps.

“Don’t you care that we’re going to die?” they cry (Mark 4:38).

As the disciples agonized, Jesus slept. Later, in Gethsemane, as Jesus agonized, the disciples slept. What gives?

Well, it’s just like the disciples – I mean, it’s just like us – to freak out about the world’s storms and be asleep to the things of the cross.

Whether it’s outrage about the sinful state of popular media — whatever new scandal the news people want you to get mad about — or fear about the declining state of our political process — “It’s the Democrats!”; “No, it’s the Republicans!”; “No, it’s politicians!” — or just the crushing anxiety of everyday demands and stresses, in the flesh we are like the disciples in that boat, thinking the skies are crashing down on us as if God is not in control, as if all sin will not be judged, as if justice will not prevail, as if the church will not endure, as if the Spirit is not ever-present and all-powerful, as if our hopes are pinned to what happens to our bodies and bodies politic. But when it comes to the things of the gospel, we can barely keep ourselves awake.

But not Jesus. He has the right priorities. When it comes to the temptations of earthly things, the temporal stresses of cultural idolatry, he is practically stoic, uninterested.

e.g. “What about taxes, Jesus? God, the tax burden!”

“Pay them,” Jesus says.

“But they’re so oppressive!”

“Pay them,” he says.

He’s revealing his view of temporal things. And exposing our false comforts and idolatrous securities.

Insist Jesus order the stress du jour, and he will decline. But when it comes to redeeming sinners — to the praise of his glorious grace! — he brings all his energy to bear. Show him the array of worldly treasures offered by the glossy pages in the grocery checkout line, their bold lines and photoshopped bait promising lurid gossip and fabricated scandals, and he rolls his eyes. Show him the latest People magazine cover, and he will yawn. (Oh, that Christians would YAWN more when the world tries to bait us into outrage over shallow things!) But show Jesus not People magazine, but people — needy, desperate, sinful people — people who are like sheep without a shepherd — put him in the thickest thick of dealing with souls, and he weeps, he prays, he loves.

In the light of Christ’s cross, may we find the Spiritual energy to carry our own cross and the courageous conviction to be utterly bored by comparison with the stuff that is passing away. And let’s remember Jesus blood in that garden and on the cross was for those sleeping disciples. Now that is something amazing. And exciting. Let’s get bored with the right things.



And the things of earth will grow strangely dim…

- “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus”

I Hope I Die Before I Get Old

Rose: “Don’t be worried, Mr. Allnut.

Allnut: “Oh, I ain’t worried, miss. I gave myself up for dead back when we started.”

- from the film The African Queen

I pastor a church in the midst of a sizable population of the elderly. And while our church has over the last couple of years begun attracting more and more young singles and young families and is enjoying a bit of a baby boom in our congregation, we are still smack dab in an aging community in a state that sees most of its young adults exit its green pastures for socioeconomically greener pastures. So I have had the heavy privilege of helping a few older folks pass to the other side. I’ve lost count of the funerals I’ve officiated.

Sometimes it is a great joy ministering to an old saint departing into glory. Sometimes it is a great heartbreak when the one mourned has given no indication of saving faith. Even more heartbreaking is sharing the gospel with folks basically on their deathbeds who see no need for Christ. I think of two men in particular in their final days. I sat at their bedsides praying for them, understanding they did not have long. I told them about Jesus and what he’d done and how trusting in him would mean so much gain, from the forgiveness of sins to the life everlasting.

I have stopped becoming surprised when a dying old man says he is not interested in the gospel. You would think that even a spurious reception would be likely! You’d think if any time lent itself to a bet-hedging, what-could-it-hurt bit of life insurance for the soul, this would be it. Of course, I never “pitch” the gospel this way, as if one just needs to say a prayer or some magic words, like the gospel is some good luck charm you can add to the hunches you call hopes. But I just used to figure if any situation would give way to even a “Well, what could it hurt?” Pascalian wager-taking, literally nearing certain death would do it.

But no. One fellow told me that I could pray for him but he wasn’t interested in doing anything religious himself. He’d never done it before; why do it now? The other fellow just sort of entertained my notions as the requisite “last rites” or some such things, but gave no response to the invitation to repent and believe in Jesus.

My mind goes to Richard. He passed away 3 weeks ago last Sunday. I preached his funeral 3 weeks ago today. He was 32 years old. And by grace he was totally abandoned to Jesus. When you listen to his widow Erin talk about the turning point for them as far as dedicating their marriage to the glory of God concerns, she will say it was not when Richard was diagnosed. It was during a frustrating car ride home one day. Circumstances in their lives led them in that car ride to through tears and faith say to the Lord, “Whatever you want, whatever will magnify you, that’s what we want.” Richard had his seizure that led to his diagnosis a few days later.

What makes Richard different from these old coots who go out shaking their fist at the things of grace? Well, God. But also: Richard decided to die before he got old. He decided to die before he died. May we all do the same. Remember that Jesus said, “Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39).

Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, “I have no pleasure in them.”

– Ecclesiastes 12:1

They Believe That God is the Only One That Wants Them

So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life…

- John 6:67-68

I had the great privilege of preaching at the Rooted Conference last weekend in Atlanta, helping to serve youth ministry workers from around the country in equipping their students for times of suffering. One of the other speakers was Sharon Hersh, adjunct professor of counseling at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, and a story she told during her talk on “The Gift of Suffering: God’s Compulsion for Our Liberation” was one of the most moving things I’ve ever heard.

Dr. Hersh recalled visiting a village in a region of Cambodia once strong with the Khmer Rouge, which of course gave the Cambodians the evil Pol Pot and were responsible for enough torture and murder to constitute genocide. The people in this village, Hersh said, never venture far from home. Most of them have never been outside the village. It is too dangerous. While the days of the Khmer Rouge appear to be gone, the pain and anger is of course not. To be identified with the Khmer Rouge in any way is to risk one’s life. So these villagers are cast-offs, prisoners in their own land, hated for the presumed sins of their fathers.

Hersh said that a Christian church service in the village might have been one of the most vibrant experiences of worship she’d witnessed. There was so much joy, so much emotion, so much confession, so much exaltation of and desire for God. They were excited, expectant, enthusiastic, enthralled. “Is it always like this?” she asked a local.

“Yes,” came the reply. “They believe that God is the only one that wants them. And so they want him.”

That phrase — They believe God is the only one that wants them — was so heartbreaking and thrilling at the same time. “To be totally known,” Dr. Hersh said later, “and still to be wanted is the way to liberation.” I know that this gospel truth has made all the difference in my own life.

…You who seek God, let your hearts revive.

For the Lord hears the needy

and does not despise his own people who are prisoners.

– Psalm 69:32-33

Why You Should Criticize Your Pastor

Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.

– James 3:1

No, your church leaders are not above criticism. Sometimes they deserve it and need it. Here are some reasons you should criticize your pastor(s):

1. They don’t preach the gospel.

As in, they actually don’t preach Christ’s finished work. Not that they don’t emphasize the points you would or they don’t present the gospel the way you prefer or they don’t give an altar call or they miss this angle of the good news or that one or they don’t preach like Carson or Keller or Piper or Chandler — but that they actually don’t preach the gospel.

(Titus 1:9; Galatians 2:11-14)

2. They are regularly engaging in sins or unhealthy habits that would disqualify them from the office.

He’s cheating on his wife or engaging in other sexual immorality. He’s a drunk. He has no self-control. His reputation in the community is terrible. He’s inhospitable. He doesn’t know how to teach. He’s violent. He’s domineering or emotionally, verbally, or otherwise psychologically abusive. He’s argumentative. He’s greedy. He doesn’t take care of his wife and kids. He got saved recently. He does not submit to his authorities. He’s arrogant. He’s undisciplined or lazy. He doesn’t rebuke those who contradict sound doctrine, won’t correct heresy or protect the flock from wolves. He himself teaches doctrine in contradiction to the tenets of the historic Christian faith.

(1 Timothy 3:1-7; Titus 1:5-9; 1 Peter 5:1-8)

Well, that’s pretty much it. But that’s a lot and can be applied in a variety of ways.

Now, just because you are allowed to criticize your pastor doesn’t mean you are allowed to do it any way that seems right to you. So when criticism is merited, how should you criticize your pastor?

1. Gently.

2. Personally and privately, first. If necessary, personally and with witnesses, second.

3. Humbly.

4. Respectfully.

5. Graciously and lovingly.

And it bears mentioning that there are ways to have conversations with your pastor that sharpen him and encourage him toward improvements of various sorts without criticizing him. And there are ways to make suggestions without criticizing or complaining (but be sure you’re actually doing that, not being passive aggressive).

And it bears going the other way, too. Why should you not criticize your pastor?

1. He just kind of annoys you.

2. He’s not your best friend. (Or, for the ladies, his wife isn’t yours.)

3. He knows how to teach but he’s not as dynamic or animated or interesting as you’d prefer.

4. He makes decisions that aren’t the result of sin or unhealthy habits but are simply decisions that you wouldn’t make if you were in his shoes.

5. You think every critical thought needs to be expressed or that being the “loyal opposition” or “devil’s advocate” is normal.

6. You don’t understand something he’s done or said. (This would be cause to ask questions, not lodge complaints.)

7. He’s not ____________ enough. (See: political, creative, extroverted, entrepreneurial, rich, poor, outdoorsy, indoorsy, scholarly, etc.)

8. A bunch of other stuff the Bible doesn’t condemn or forbid.

This may all seem a little burdensome when you feel like you ought to be able to say whatever you feel however you feel whenever you feel it. But your pastor bears similar burdens. Keep in mind that he likely has multiple people with “helpful suggestions” speaking to him every week. Measure your thoughts out appropriately, choose the right hills to die on, and pray for your pastor. He needs it.

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.

– Hebrews 13:17

Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

– Galatians 6:1-2

How the Gospel Establishes the Law

This reminds me of what Theodorus long ago replied to Philocles, who was often hinting that he preached doctrines which tended to licentiousness because he enlarged diligently and frequently upon faith in Jesus Christ: “I preach salvation by Jesus Christ,” said Theodorus; “and give me leave to ask, whether you know what salvation by Christ means?” Philocles began to blush, and would have declined an answer.

“No,” said Theodorus, “you must permit me to insist upon a reply. Because if it is a right one, it will justify me and my conduct; if it is a wrong one, it will prove that you blame you know not what, and that you have more reason to inform yourself than to censure others.”

This disconcerted him still more, upon which Theodorus proceeded. “Salvation by Jesus Christ means not only a deliverance from the guilt, but also from the power of sin. `He gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity and redeem us from our vain conversation,’ as well as deliver us from the wrath to come. Go now, Philocles, and tell the world that, by teaching these doctrines, I promote the cause of licentiousness. And you will be just as rational, just as candid, just as true, as if you should affirm that the firemen, by running the engine and pouring in water, burnt your house to the ground, and laid your furniture in ashes.”

Indeed, both the doctrine and the grace of faith, are evidently, yea, and designedly injurious to heathen morality as well as pharisaic righteousness. But with regard to true morality, which forms a necessary part of godliness or evangelical holiness, instead of being, in the smallest degree, injurious to this, they directly tend to it; yea, and they are the necessary, the fundamental principles of it. Sooner might fire be without heat, and a solid body be without weight, than a true faith of the gospel be without evangelical holiness.

– John Colquhoun, “The Establishment of the Law by the Gospel”

Questions to Ask Yourself About Eternal Security

Because “eternal life” is integral to the gospel’s promise, I believe eternal security is an integral blessing of the gospel, and to deny it is to embrace a truncated gospel. Eternal security is near and dear to my heart, and I have been grateful and sobered by the many opportunities I have had to teach it to others in counseling situations over the last several years. Eternal insecurity, the doubting of grace for me, has been one of the prevailing counseling issue I have encountered in both Bible Belt Nashville and the traditionalist wasteland of rural Vermont.

When I reflect on God’s promise of eternal security for those in Christ, I go to these common Scriptures and posit these questions of conviction.

John 6:39
And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.

1. How perfect is the Father’s will?
2. How good is Jesus at his job?
3. Does the word “nothing” mean nothing, or does it mean “some”?

John 6:40
For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

4. What does “eternal” mean?
5. What does Jesus’ promise about the last day mean for “everyone who believes”?

Romans 8:28-30
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

6. How does “predestined” jibe with insecurity?
7. If God commits to glorify those he justifies, why do we think he won’t?
8. Is justification really justification? Does it mean what it says?

1 Corinthians 1:8-9
He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.

9. How long does God commit to keep us blameless?
10. Is security dependent on our faithfulness or God’s? And how faithful is God?

Hebrews 7:25
Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.

11. Does “completely” mean “partly” or “temporarily”?

Hebrews 13:5
[H[e has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you."

John 10:28
I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.

12. Does “never” mean “never”?
13. Does “no one” mean “no one”?

Hebrews 10:10
And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

14. How long does Christ’s sacrifice last?
15. How much does Christ’s sacrifice cover?

Titus 1:2
. . . in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began

16. What kind of life did God promise?
17. When did he promise it?
18. Are God’s promises reliable?
19. Wouldn’t denying his promise of eternal life be tantamount to calling him a liar?

Finally:
20. Is your sin more powerful than Christ’s blood? Is your weakness more powerful than God’s might? Are you the nut he can’t crack?

If our religion be of our own getting or making, it will perish; and the sooner it goes, the better; but if our religion is a matter of God’s giving, we know that He shall never take back what He gives, and that, if He has commenced to work in us by His grace, He will never leave it unfinished.

– Charles Spurgeon

When Revival? How Revival?

From Tim Keller in 2010:

I was very glad to see appear the new book by Collin Hansen and John Woodbridge, A God-Sized Vision: Revival Stories that Stretch and Stir, because a generation ago, there was far more interest in and desire for revival than there is now, though everyone had somewhat different conceptions of it. For many in the Baptist and Methodist tradition, “revival” meant a season of vigorous activity for the purposes of prayer, renewal, and evangelism. For Pentecostals and charismatics, it meant a time in which the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit were evident. For those in the Reformed-Puritan tradition who looked to Jonathan Edwards’s theology of revival as definitive, it meant an intensification of the ordinary means of grace and a great wave of newly awakened inquirers, soundly converted sinners, and spiritually renewed believers.

When my wife and I got to Gordon-Conwell Seminary in 1972, we had both seen, on our respective campuses, an extraordinary year of spiritual renewal. (Kathy went to Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania.) Before 1970, the Inter-Varsity fellowships of central Pennsylvania campuses were all small and sleepy. At my campus, Bucknell University, I-V had consisted of 5-15 students for a number of years. Then during the 1970-71 school year there was an explosion of spiritual interest, and by the end of the year we had about 100 students attending meetings, even though there had been no “outreach” programs to speak of. I also remember that spring that we went to the central Pennsylvania area retreat and discovered that the same thing had spontaneously been occurring on most of the other campuses.

When we got to Gordon-Conwell we took a course with Richard Lovelace called “The Dynamics of Spiritual Life” and the next semester I took his course on the history of revivals and awakenings. There I read deeply in Edwards and also met his “modernizers” D. M. Lloyd-Jones and J. I. Packer, and Lovelace himself, who distilled Edwards in his classic, The Dynamics of Spiritual Life. Their descriptions of revival were an enormous help in understanding what I had seen, albeit briefly, on our college campus. After seminary Kathy and I went to a small church in Hopewell, Virginia, where we saw solid growth and some wonderful individual conversions, but where we wouldn’t say we saw the things usually described as revival. Later however, during the first 18 months after the founding of Redeemer here in New York City, we again saw the “spiritual dynamics” we had seen on our campuses 20 years before. Manhattan at that time (1989-1991) was very crime-ridden and was going through a recession. There were very few evangelical churches in the whole metro area, and Christians were not moving into the city, only out of it. Yet we saw probably a hundred people come to faith and a church grow from zero to hundreds in attendance in just a few months, all in a location where absolutely no one said it could happen. In my reading of Lloyd-Jones’s life, it appears he had the opposite experience to mine. Originally he pastored a struggling mission work in a small town in Wales, Aberavon, where he saw many conversions and growth to an attendance of almost 900 after a few years of ministry. That was simply unheard of in that time and kind of place. However, he did not see the same kind of revival dynamics in his church or in his city during his later center-city ministry at Westminster Chapel in London.

What I learned was this: Revivals can be longer, lasting several years, or shorter, enduring only a few weeks; they can be more widespread, affecting a whole town or region or country, or more narrow in scope, such as just one congregation. But they are seasons in which the ordinary operations of the Holy Spirit are intensified many-fold. “Sleepy” and immature believers become electrified through joyful repentance and put Christ in the center of their lives. Nominal Christians within congregations get converted and testify to the fact, which leads to more sleepy believers waking up. In turn, non-believers are drawn in to the beautified Christian community and begin embracing Christ in numbers that defy normal explanations. The “church growth” can’t be accounted for by demographic-sociological shifts or efficient outreach programs in such cases. Most telling of all, the corporate worship gatherings are thick with a sense of the presence of God that is not orchestrated by the presiders.

What brings about such seasons? Is it even right to talk about ways and “means”?

On a personal note:
“The corporate worship gatherings are thick with a sense of the presence of God that is not orchestrated by the presiders”
I am desperate for this for my local church gathered, which is why I’m not desperate to orchestrate moments or “experiences.” I want to know when it happens that it was unequivocally the work of the Spirit.

The Invitation of the Gospel

“Dear God, the treasures of thy love

Are everlasting mines,

Deep as our helpless miseries are,

And boundless as our sins.

“The happy gates of gospel grace

Stand open night and day,

Lord, we are come to seek supplies,

And drive our wants away.”

— Isaac Watts, “The Invitation of the Gospel”