Review: ‘Powerful Leaders?: When Church Leadership Goes Wrong and How to Prevent It’
Leaders are servants fundamentally, under-shepherds to bring the flock to feed on God.
The heart of the book describes the “slippery slope” from the accountability, transparency, plurality and embodiment that characterizes legitimate leadership to the murky world of dysfunctional, illegitimate leadership. Honeysett describes the slide as the replacement of transparency with secrecy and concealment, the cutting off of any meaningful collegiality, leading to leadership isolation, power imbalances from... Continue Reading
Strange Lyre: Early Beginnings of Pentecostal Worship
The seedbed from which Pentecostalism grew in the 1900s was actually a considerable departure from prior worship reformers such as Luther, Wesley and Watts.
Pentecostalism grew out of the Holiness movement, and thus drank deeply from the populist movements in Methodism and Baptist and African-American circles. Charles Fox Parham (1873–1929), is usually credited with the beginnings of the movement. He was born in Muscatine, IA, and claimed a revelation of light at age 13. Parham associated with Methodism, but... Continue Reading
Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntington
The more Selina let go of her earthly ties (only her daughter Elizabeth outlived her), the more she poured her life in the spreading of the gospel.
As the Church of England tightened its rules in preventing dissenters from obtaining a license to preach, she found a loophole in the legislation by calling preachers to minister in her private chapels, which was allowed. She stretched however the rule by enlarging her chapels and inviting thousands to attend the services. By the end... Continue Reading
The Hodge Children and Missions
A.A. Hodge: A Friend of the Heathen
In one short paragraph, we see a great portrayal of Christ’s kingship. The Hodges’ main idea points to Christ’s rule over all the world. Since God cannot lie (quoting Numbers 23:19) and the reign of Jesus is promised, the children reason that the people should not be working against Christ. Instead, they should work to... Continue Reading
Who Was David Brainerd?
Though a short life, David Brainerd stands in the pantheon of believers mightily used by God.
God brought awakening to the American Indians, adding more than one hundred to Brainerd’s growing congregation. While experiencing sickness, extreme hardship, and loneliness, Brainerd often took up his pen to write of his increased love for the American Indians under his ministerial care. His heart longed to show them the glory of Christ through the... Continue Reading
Response to Letter from Memorial PCA Member
Remember, such innovation of doctrine and practice and disruption of peace has come from your party, who were under no obligation to host Revoice or publish articles in Living Out.
In the church the right of the denomination to legislate or enforce qualifications for office has been met with the notion that individuals who feel called to ministry have a de facto right to it and that the church may not deny them that without unjustly depriving them; office is regarded as the property of... Continue Reading
Spurgeon: A Fighter and a Lover
Spurgeon fearlessly defended truth while displaying gospel unity.
Spurgeon was solidly on the side of “simple people who believed in plenary inspiration” and the essential doctrines of the Christian faith. And he was willing to align himself in battles for truth with gospel-loving Christians…with whom he differed on important but somewhat lesser matters. Spurgeon was a fighter and a lover. In this, he... Continue Reading
Jennie Faulding Taylor and Her Team of Brave Women
It was obvious that female missionaries – so opposed by some missionary agencies – had many opportunities that were denied to men, since Chinese women were much more eager to open their homes and their hearts to a woman than to a man.
Jennie’s team of female missionaries also set up centers for the elderly and a vocational school to prepare the orphaned girls to find occupations (at a time when education for women was limited in China). At the same time, Timothy Richard held regular worship services and trained the boys. The center taught the women to... Continue Reading
Letter to Editor: From a Memorial PCA Member
I appeal to you to remember that whether Memorial stays or leaves the PCA, we are still one body with one Lord.
Those who criticize Memorial often do so from beyond our walls. I write as one who worships weekly in her pews, who has walked with Greg Johnson through the last five years of controversy, who has seen the toll it has taken upon my leaders and the resources of our church– resources which should have... Continue Reading
Unwitting Reformer: God’s Sovereignty Displayed in the Reformation
In God’s sovereign purposes, Erasmus produced the Greek Testament that led to the salvation of many and served as the foundation for translating the New Testament into common tongues.
“The influence of this work [Erasmus’ Greek New Testament] on the Reformation was incalculable,” is an understatement. The pent-up soul-anguish among students at Cambridge and Oxford, and a parish priest in Zurich found life in the Greek Testament. Luther devoured it and used it to translate the Scripture into the German vernacular. Tyndale did the... Continue Reading
- 1
- 2
- 3
- …
- 390
- Next Page »
