The Schoolmaster

"Teachers would shout to no effect if Christ himself, inner Schoolmaster, did not by his Spirit draw to himself those given to him by the Father."  --John Calvin, Institutes

The Call

Below is the link to a message I spoke Sunday to my home church, Sovereign Grace Church of Gilbert.  The message was about the call of Jesus Christ to every Christian to spend our lives for his glory. I specifically referenced the opportunity that church planting is to be entrusted with the mission of Jesus Christ to proclaim his gospel to the world.

http://www.sovgracechurch.com/2012/09/church-planting-2-thessalonians/

One year from now, Lord willing, our church on the north side of Austin, Texas will be starting our public meetings.  I pray that Lord give us faith, desperate prayer, and faithful preparation over the next year. 

May the Lord establish the work of our hands. 

Does Your Church Pray Together?

Does Your Church Pray Together? (From Justin Taylor...)

Sinclair Ferguson on some of the things that concern him about churches today:

There is the lack of prayer and of the Church praying. This is to me the most alarming, for this reason: we have built apparently strong, large, successful, active churches. But many of our churches never meet as a congregation for prayer. I mean never! What does that indicate we are saying about the life of the Church as a fellowship?
By contrast, the mark of a truly apostolic spirit in the church is that that we give ourselves to prayer and the Word together (Acts 6:4). No wonder “the Word of God continued to increase and the number of the disciples multiplied” (Acts 6:7). If this is so, it should not surprise us that while many churches see growth, it is often simply reconfiguration of numbers, not of conversion. I greatly wish that our churches would learn to keep the main things central, that we would learn to be true Churches, vibrant fellowships of prayer, Gospel ministry and teaching, genuine mutual love. At the end of the day, such a Church simply needs to “be” for visitors who come to sense that this is a new order of reality altogether and are drawn to Christ.

Foundations

Next year my family and I are anticipating the exciting adventure of planting a new church in a northern suburb of Austin, Texas.  Over the summer we have been meeting with dear members of our church who are earnestly praying about joining us.  This last Friday we enjoyed our third church plant interest meeting together and I spoke about the primary foundations of our new church.  I laid before the team the reality that a call to plant a church is like coming upon a field and catching a vision for a future glorious structure, one that isn't there right now.  This structure is not a physical one--its the spiritual temple of a local church which we pray will exist for many future generations until the Lord returns.  For the sake of those future generations,  we want to ensure that we lay the foundations rightly, so that those who come after us can continue to go forward in the work with confidence. 

The following are the six foundations that I outlined.  In future posts, I'll explain further what I mean by each one.  By God's grace we will build a church that is:

1. Gospel-Centered
2. Word-Saturated 
3. Spirit-Empowered
And a church that is devoted to:
4. Passionate Worship
4. Deep Relationships
6. Personal Evangelism

In the future I will post thoughts on each of these foundations and draw out what they will look like for our church plant.

 May God establish the work of our hands.