What Is Wrong with the Proposed 2019 ACNA Prayer Book?

By Robin G. Jordan

Among the major defects of the proposed 2019 ACNA Prayer Book is that it is a highly partisan book. It strongly favors the doctrinal views and liturgical practices of the Catholic Revivalist wing of the Anglican Church in North America. It does next to nothing to comprehend the doctrinal views and liturgical practices of the other theological schools of thought represented in the ACNA. What little it does do in that direction is purely cosmetic. When the book is viewed as a whole, it is quite evident that the book in doctrine and liturgical usages is unreformed Catholic. It may be shorn of such elements as petitions to the Blessed Virgin and the saints and references to the offering of “this pure victim, this holy victim, this spotless victim” in conjunction with the offering of the bread and wine in the Eucharistic Prayers However, their absence does not make the book any less unreformed Catholic. It incorporates many doctrines and liturgical practices that the English Reformers rejected for good reason in the sixteenth century.

When measured against Anglicanism’s long-recognized standard of faith and practice—the classical Anglican formularies of the Book of Common Prayer of 1662, the Ordinal of 1661, and the Articles of Religion of 1571 (and by extension the two Book of Homilies which expound upon the doctrines set forth in the Articles of Religion) the proposed 2019 Prayer Book comes up short. Indeed it is in many places at odds with these formularies which draw their authority from the Scriptures. The Jerusalem Declaration in identifying what it viewed to be the basic tenets of Anglicanism affirms this standard. The Anglican Church in North America is a signatory to the Jerusalem Declaration.

The events leading up to the formation of the Anglican Church in North America  and the events following the first Global Anglican Future Conference provide an explanation of why the ACNA, while having signed the Jerusalem Declaration, has never honored its provisions. Former Archbishop Robert Duncan who now chairs the Prayer Book and Common Liturgy Task Force, while on a speaking tour before the formation of the ACNA, called for a “new settlement” to replace the Elizabethan Settlement. He called for a return to a time before the English Reformation. The English Reformation and the Elizabethan Settlement established the shape of Anglicanism not only in the sixteenth century but in subsequent generations. The Jerusalem Declaration in affirming the classical Anglican formularies affirms the English Reformation and the Elizabethan Settlement.

Bishop Jack Iker, when he returned to the United States after the first Global Anglican Future Conference assured his fellow Catholic Revivalists that the Anglican Church in North America would not be bound by the Jerusalem Declaration but by the much weaker Theological Statement of the Common Cause Partnership. Iker threatened a Catholic Revivalist walkout at the inaugural Provincial Council if any substantive changes were made to the Theological Statement which had been incorporated into the ACNA’s proposed constitution. By this time the affirmation of the Jerusalem Statement which had formed a part of that statement had been removed from it and moved to the preamble of the proposed constitution where it was purely incidental to an explanation of the events leading to the formation of the ACNA and could not be interpreted as binding the new province.

I have long contended that the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans has been nurturing a cuckoo’s offspring in the Anglican Church in North America. The cuckoo is a parasite that lays its eggs in the nests of other birds which hatches them and raises the offspring. The cuckoo’s offspring pushes the host bird’s hatchlings out of the nest so that it has no competition for the host bird’s attention. The host bird feeds it, mistaking it for one of its own hatchlings. When the cuckoo’s offspring reaches maturity, it flies away.

One only has to examine the ACNA’s ordinal, catechism, and proposed prayer book to see that its doctrines and practices are a rejection of what the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans affirms. Yet the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans continues to recognize and support the ACNA.

One might argue that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. But the Arab sheik to whom this proverb has been attributed was murdered by an enemy of his enemy. History is also full of incidences in which alliances have been formed against a common enemy only to have one member of the alliance turn against the other members of the alliance in the future.

As former Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola pointed out, two cannot walk together unless they agree. The sacramentalism and sacerdotalism that dominate Catholic Revivalist thinking form the basis of a different gospel from what Anglicans have historically understand to be the gospel of the New Testament. The greatest achievement of the English Reformation was the recovery of the New Testament gospel which the English Reformers sought to preserve not only through the Articles of Religion and the two Books of Homilies but through the liturgy itself. The Catholic Revivalist movement seeks to undo the English Reformation and return the Anglican Church to the early high Middle Ages which it idealizes as a golden age of the Church.

Rather than recognizing and supporting the province, the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans should be recognizing and supporting the clergy and congregations in the Anglican Church in North America with which the FCA has a real affinity, the clergy and the congregations that genuinely subscribe to the tenets of Anglicanism identified in the Jerusalem Declaration. One way that the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans can provide this support and recognition is by thoroughly scrutinizing the ACNA’s ordinal, catechism, and proposed prayer book, and drawing attention to where they depart from Anglicanism’s long-recognized standard of doctrine and practice.

The Anglican Church in North America is almost 10 years old. It is not so fragile that it is in danger of imminent collapse. It is time to hold the ACNA accountable for its departures from the tenets of Anglicanism identified in the Jerusalem Declaration to which it is a signatory. It is no longer necessary to go easy on the ACNA.

Another glaring defect of the proposed 2019 ACNA Prayer Book is that it is poorly designed for the twenty-first century North American mission field, which includes the United States, Canada, Mexico, and adjacent territories. It lacks the degree of flexibility and adaptability that is a must on the mission field. Its rites and services are designed for use by an established church with a worship center of its own, a large congregation, several clergy, and ample resources. They are not easily tailorable to the kinds of conditions that are found on the mission field—non-traditional worship settings, shared facilities, small congregations, a shortage of clergy, limited resources, the presence of unconverted, unbaptized individuals who have no past experience with any kind of worship, much less liturgical worship, and the like.

Take for example the entrance rite of the liturgy of the Word of the four forms of the Holy Eucharist, which have been proposed for use in the Anglican Church in North America. It is unnecessarily cumbersome. Rather than reducing the clutter that tends to accumulate in the entrance rite and thereby enabling the entrance rite to better serve its function, the Prayer Book and Common Liturgy Task Force added to it. The Summary of the Law which historically been an optional element, they made a fixed element.

If one strips away the clutter that has accumulated in the entrance rite over the centuries-- the entrance song, Gloria in excelsis, and Kyries added in the fifth century; the Lord’s Prayer, the Collect for Purity, and the Ten Commandments added in the sixteenth century; the optional Summary of the Law added in the eighteenth century; and the acclamation added in the twentieth century; one will reduce the entrance rite to its primitive simplicity—a greeting and a prayer from which the Collect of the Day originated. Perhaps with an opening song such as a metrical version of the Gloria this is all that a small congregation celebrating the Holy Eucharist in one of its members’ living room needs to prepare to hear the Word. All of the other elements are superfluous. One might want to use some of them in a celebration of the Holy Eucharist in a cathedral on a major festival or at an ordination or the enthronement of a bishop but not at a home Eucharist or even at a small weekday day Eucharist.

It would have made far more sense to have kept the fixed elements to a minimum—a greeting and the Collect of the Day--and made the remaining elements optional, leaving to worship planners to decide which optional elements would be used and under what circumstances.

An important liturgical principle is that less is more. Overloading the entrance rite with fixed elements does not enrich the worship of the people. Rather it can weary the congregation at the very beginning of the service. It also gives undue emphasis to what is an ancillary rite.

A small congregation celebrating the Holy Eucharist in a living room also does not need a lengthy Eucharistic Prayer. A short prayer like the one below would suffice.

Lift up your hearts.

We lift them to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

It is right to give him thanks and praise.

All glory and honor, thanks and praise, be yours now and always, holy Father, heavenly King, almighty and eternal God.

We give you thanks and praise, heavenly Father, that in your great mercy you gave your only Son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for our salvation. By this offering of himself once and for all time Jesus made a full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world and commanded us to continue a remembrance of his precious death until his coming again.

Therefore with the whole company of heaven we praise your great and glorious name, forever praising you and saying.

Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest.

Hear us, merciful Father, and grant that we who receive these gifts of your creation, this bread and this wine, according to our Savior’s command, in remembrance of his suffering and death, may be partakers of his body and blood.

For on the night he was betrayed, Jesus took bread and, when he had given you thanks, he broke it, then gave it to his disciples, saying, ‘Take and eat; this is my body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of me’.

In the same way after the meal, Jesus took the cup and, when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink from this, all of you. This is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’

With this bread and this cup we show forth Christ’s death until he comes in glory.

Strengthen with your Holy Spirit, Father almighty, all who share this bread and this cup that we may grow in faith and love and bear much fruit to your glory.

And now let us say together the prayer which Jesus taught us.

Our Father....

This prayer which is adapted from the 1662 Prayer of Consecration is patterned upon the Eucharistic Prayers found in The Church of Norway’s The Order of the Principal Service (See Section 4f) and concludes with the Lord’s Prayer.

During the second half of the twentieth century and even earlier it was recognized that a clear need exists for a form of service that can be used in place of the services of Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer and the Holy Eucharist when circumstances makes the use of these services impractical such as when a congregation includes a substantial number of unconverted, unbaptized individuals who had no past experience with any kind of worship, much less liturgical worship. The Anglican Church of Australia, the Church of England, the Church of Ireland, and other Anglican provinces have developed what are commonly described as Services of the Word in response to this need. These forms of service follow the basic pattern of the services of Morning and Evening Prayer—praise, proclamation, and prayer--but are much more flexible and much less formal. A definite need for this type of service exists on the North American mission field but the proposed 2019 Prayer Book makes no provision for a service of this type. Indeed the proposed book appears designed more for an earlier century than the twenty-first.

What the Anglican Church in North America needs is a far more practical Book of Common Prayer than the one the Prayer Book and Common Liturgy Task Force has produced—a Prayer Book the doctrine and liturgical usages of which are consistent with the Scriptures and the classical Anglican formularies and which provides ACNA congregations with the kinds of liturgical resources they need to fulfill the Great Commission. The proposed 2019 ACNA Prayer Book does not meet these two very important criteria. If it is to serve the ACNA as the prayer book for the province, it needs to undergo an exhaustive revision until it does. Otherwise, it should be shelved. A new Prayer Book and Common Liturgy Task Force should be formed, a task force far more committed to providing the ACNA with a prayer book that does meet these criteria.

Related Article:
A New Year, a New Prayer Book

Image: Diocese of the Western Gulf Coast

Creating an Annual Report for Your Church

It’s that time of year again.

It’s time put together an annual report, something to document what God did in your church and communicate plans for the future.

It may seem like a time-consuming exercise, but the process and the end result are worth it. To help speed things along, here are some tips for putting it together, lots of great examples and some practical suggestions on how to use it throughout the year. Read More

Read the Bible More This Year: Four Great Motivations from God

Several years ago, a friend told me he was struggling to read the Bible. He knew he should read the Bible, but he had no desire to. He’d rather read the news, check sports scores, or look up stock prices. So, what could he do?

Many think the solution lies in trying harder, committing to a certain time every day, or asking for accountability. These can help, but by themselves, they miss the main way God wants to motivate us. James 2:17 says that “faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” So whenever I lack good works, like Bible reading, my problem is not mostly laziness or lack of discipline. My problem is a lack of faith. I am not trusting what God has promised about his word.

So, I gave my friend a list of what God promises to do for us through the Scriptures. I encouraged him to pray over these promises for a few minutes each day, asking God to use these promises to strengthen his faith and change his heart. He said he would.

A few weeks later, I asked how it was going. “Unbelievable,” he said. He told me that by meditating on these promises he now wanted to read God’s word, he looked forward to reading God’s word, and he was carving out extra time to read God’s word. That’s what God did for my friend. And that’s what God will do for us, if we learn, remember, and trust what he has promised. Read More

Also See:
Routine Bible Reading Can Change Your Life

A New Year, a New Prayer Book

By Robin G. Jordan

The College of Bishops of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) will be meeting in January as it has since the formation of the ACNA. I am anticipating that the 50-member College of Bishops will approve the final version of the proposed ACNA Book of Common Prayer at that meeting. The question is whether the proposed service book will be submitted to the Provincial Assembly for final approval. The ACNA canons do not outline a procedure for the adoption of a prayer book for the province.

Title II Canon 6 Section 1 states:

“The Book of Common Prayer as set forth by the Church of England in 1662, together with the Ordinal attached to the same, are received as a standard for Anglican doctrine and discipline, and, with the Books which preceded it, as the standard for the Anglican tradition of worship. The Book of Common Prayer of the Province shall be the one adopted by the Anglican Church in North America [italics mine]. All authorized Books of Common Prayer of the originating jurisdictions shall be permitted for use in this Church."

Section 2 of the same canon goes on to state:

“It is understood that there is a diversity of uses in the Province. In order to use these rich liturgies most advantageously, it is the responsibility of the Bishop with jurisdiction to ensure that the forms used in Public Worship and the Administration of the Sacraments be in accordance with Anglican Faith and Order and that nothing be established that is contrary to the Word of God as revealed in the Holy Scriptures.”

This section charges the bishop of an ACNA diocese (or network) with responsibility of ensuring that the forms of service used within his jurisdiction conform with the “Anglican Faith and Order,” as he interprets it. It also charges the diocesan bishop with ensuring that these forms confirm with “the Word of God as revealed in the Holy Scriptures.” The latter is an interesting choice of phrase since it permits a modernist view of Scripture and leaves the determination of what is the Word of God in the Scriptures to the diocesan bishop. It contrasts sharply with the classical Anglican view of the Scriptures as “the Word of God written.”

While this section may be interpreted as granting the diocesan bishop final authority in regards to what forms of service are used in his jurisdiction, or as recognizing such authority as inherently that of a diocese’s ordinary, depending upon your point of view, it is more than a stretch to claim that it authorizes the College of Bishops to adopt a prayer book for the province.

But when it comes the procedure for the adoption of a prayer book for the province, Title II is silent. It is the writer’s considered opinion that this omission was intentional rather than an oversight. The ACNA’s Catholic Revivalist wing, which has exerted a degree of influence upon the development of the form of governance of the province, its ordinal, its catechism, and its proposed rites and services disproportionate to the size of that wing, and which dominates the College of Bishops, did not want to tie itself to a procedure that it could not control.

Further on in the ACNA canons we read:

“By the tradition of Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, Bishops are consecrated for the whole Church and are successors of the Apostles through the grace of the Holy Spirit given to them. They are chief missionaries and chief pastors, guardians and teachers of doctrine, and administrators of godly discipline and governance.” (Title III Canon 8 Section 2)

The wording of this section is adapted from the canons of the Roman Catholic Church and reflects an unreformed Catholic view of the office of bishop. It is the position of the ACNA’s Catholic Revivalist wing. For those who may unfamiliar with the term “Catholic Revivalist,” it refers to a movement in the Anglican Church to return the church to a mythical golden age of the Church before the Great Schism that divided the Eastern and Western Churches in the eleventh century.

Former ACNA Archbishop Robert Duncan who now chairs the ACNA Liturgy Task Force voiced Catholic Revivalist sentiments when in the days leading up to the formation of the ACNA he called for “a new settlement” to replace the Elizabethan Settlement and the turning back of the clock in the Church to an earlier time, to the time of the lord bishop, arguing that regression was an appropriate response to the crisis besetting the Anglican Church. The Elizabethan Settlement shaped classical Anglicanism. Anglicanism’s classical formularies have their origins during the reign of Elizabeth I, as does its evangelical, Protestant, reformed character.

Bishop Keith Ackerman who is member of the Council of Forward in Faith North America, a leading Catholic Revivalist organization, and a member of the ACNA Liturgy Task Force articulated the Catholic Revivalist view of the episcopal office when he said, “The bishops are the governors of the Church.” It is a view that is at odds with the more reformed view of classical Anglicanism, which limits the authority of the episcopal office and subjects it to that of the magistrate, historically in the case of the Church of England to the King and Parliament. The latter view has ancient antecedents in the role that the Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire played in the Eastern Church and other princes played in the Church in their realms. It is also noteworthy that the canons of Roman Catholic Church acknowledge in their abolition of that practice the historical practice of the prince of a realm serving as the nominator for the bishops in his realm,

The modern expression of the classical Anglican view of the episcopal office is the synodical form of church governance in which the authority and responsibilities of the bishop are clearly laid out in the governing documents of the province, to which the bishop is subject as any other member of the church, and the government of the church is shared with representatives of the clergy and the laity.

Even the Caroline High Churchmen who had a elevated view of the office of bishop acknowledged the subordinate role of that office to the magistrate as represented by the King. It was the King who issued the writ for the election of a new bishop and it was also the King who nominated the candidate for a particular office. The chapter of the cathedral then elected the candidate that the King had nominated. A number of the Caroline High Churchmen were raised to the episcopate because Charles I favored their Arminian theological views as well as their High Church liturgical practices.

In the nineteenth century the authority of the office of bishop would become a major point of contention. In England a series of judicial rulings would affirm that bishops were subject to the canons of the church and to the acts of Parliament as any other clergyman. They were not above the law. In the United States, however, the view that the bishop was a law unto himself prevailed in some Episcopal dioceses. The latter view has its share of adherents in the ACNA today.

One is hard put to find any grounds for the notion that the College of Bishops has authority to approve a prayer book for the province in the ACNA constitution. The ACNA canons refer readers to Article X of the ACNA constitution for “the membership and chief work” of the College of Bishops. Article X, Section 1, states: “The chief work of the College of Bishops shall be the propagation and defense of the Faith and Order of the Church, and in service as the visible sign and expression of the Unity of the Church.” As broad as this description of the College of Bishop’s “chief work” may appear to be, it is also more than a stretch to interpret it as giving the College of Bishops the last word on the proposed ACNA prayer book.

The bishops tacitly acknowledged that themselves when they adopted a resolution calling for an amendment to the canons dropping the requirement that all churches in the ACNA must use the prayer book adopted by the ACNA and permitting the continued use of “all authorized Books of Common Prayer of the originating jurisdictions” in the province. The ACNA canons were subsequently amended to this effect.

However, the revision did not go far enough. It did not outline a procedure for the adoption of a prayer book for the province. It also did not make provision for networks of churches within the ACNA to develop and adopt service books for their own use along the lines of those adopted by the Dioceses of Ballarat and Sydney in the Anglican Church of Australia.

Among the defects of the proposed ACNA prayer book and the various other prayer books presently used in the province is that they were not designed with congregations on the North American mission field in mind. They were designed for use in different times and places. They are insufficiently flexible and adaptable to the circumstances of twenty-first century North American congregations.

While the proposed ACNA prayer book incorporates texts from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, its doctrine and liturgical practices are a radical departure from that classical Anglican formulary. The proposed book goes further than the Episcopal Church’s 1928 and 1979 Prayer Books in the direction of unreformed Catholicism. It not only does not conform to the standard of the 1662 Prayer Book, a standard affirmed by the Jerusalem Declaration, but also to the standard of the other classic Anglican formularies, a standard also affirmed by that declaration. It points to what may be an inherent weakness of North American Anglicanism if it can be characterized as such. It tends to go off in directions that lead away from biblical Christianity and classical Anglicanism—so-called “progressive Christianity” in the Episcopal Church and Catholic Revivalism in the ACNA. Neither is true to what the late Peter Toon called the “Anglican Way.”

At this stage greater scrutiny of the proposed ACNA prayer book, its doctrine and its liturgical practices, and whether they conform to the standard of the classical Anglican formularies, is called for—scrutiny not only inside the ACNA but in all the branches of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans. Among the questions that need to be asked is, “Does this book stand for what the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans stand for? Does it stand for something else?” In its commentary on the Jerusalem Declaration the GAFCON Theological Resource Group calls for such a scrutiny of prayer books that deviate from the standard of the classical Anglican formularies. It is the lack of this kind of accountability that has contributed to the present state of the Anglican Communion.

Any vote on the book in favor of its adoption in the College of Bishops should be treated as the endorsement by a group that has a vested interest in its adoption and not as final. A hold should be put on any vote on the book in the Provincial Assembly until a thorough scrutiny of the book has been completed and needed revisions made.

At this stage more attention needs to be given to equipping ACNA congregations with practical tools for use on the mission field. To this end the congregations themselves may be in a far better position to develop such tools than a task force that is removed from the everyday realities of gospel work. Rites and services that may enrich the worship of the cathedral and seminary chapel often prove impractical in the setting of fire station community rooms, school cafeterias, storefronts, and other non-traditional venues where twenty-first century congregations gather for worship. These types of settings require far greater flexibility, brevity, and simplicity than the proposed ACNA prayer book offers

Practical Preaching Advice for Pastors and Lay Preachers #31

Preaching & Culture: What Is Biblical Preaching?

While the core of scriptural truth remains the same from culture to culture, the outworking of those truths is much more fluid. Read More

Must a Preacher Preach the Gospel in Every Sermon? [Video]

As preachers, we must proclaim the gospel in every sermon. But that doesn’t mean our sermons from Galatians should sound exactly like our sermons from Genesis. Watch Now

The Art of the Sermon Introduction

There are lots of ways to introduce a sermon. Here are a few common approaches.... Read More

2 Things Pastors Can Learn from Spurgeon’s Preaching 

 We need to preach to people where they’re at, but always with the context of the whole counsel of God in how we do so. Read More

The Response of Preaching: Why the Invitation Matters

Oddly, some preachers today avoid extending Gospel invitations when they preach. That seems so unbiblical and strange. Read More

How NOT to Read Your Bible in the New Year

When it comes to daily (or not-so-daily) Bible reading, January 1 can be a welcome arrival. A new year signals a new start.

You’re motivated to freshly commit to what you know is of indispensable importance: the Word of God.

Yet this isn’t the first time you’ve felt this way. You were entertaining pretty similar thoughts 365 days ago.

And 365 days before that.

And 365 days...you know how it goes.

So what’s going to make 2019 different? What, under God, will keep you plodding along in April this year when staying power has generally vanished in Aprils of yore?

From one stumbling pilgrim to another, here are five suggestions for what not to do in 2019. Read More

Also See:
Reading The Bible Fast And Slow In 2019

3 Reasons Music Matters

Early in ministry, a mentor of mine pointed out that, regardless of size, churches tend to excel in only one of the two main aspects of the typical worship service: music or preaching. (Some, according to one of my non-Christian friends, excel at neither and therefore will never be attended by him or any other unchurched person.) I didn’t know if I agreed with my mentor, so I started to pay attention. I looked around our community. I even checked things out online. In general, he was right.

I remember listening to a sermon by the pastor of one of the most popular worship teams in the world and wondering how he had a job. Then I went to an event and heard the worship team of my favorite Internet preacher and wondered how much he got paid, because they obviously didn’t have enough left over to pay a decent musician. Think about it: Most people choose their church based on one of these two factors. Some people I know want good preaching and feel like the songs are just commercials before and after the sermon. Other people have told me they could never attend a different church than they currently attend because no other church but theirs even comes close in the area of music.

So when God called me to plant a church, one of the first decisions I made was that this church would be an exception to this rule. I wanted to lead a church that worked for God’s glory to have both good preaching and good worship. I think most pastors and church planters want this as well; I’m just not sure they are putting enough emphasis on it. So, for what it’s worth, I have three suggestions for improving the level of the worship music in your church. Sure, a lot of it has to do with getting the right type of people involved and using their gifts, but I am convinced there are small steps that a lead pastor can take to help the process along. Read More

Also See:
The Gospel Work of Song

Grow Or Die? Actually, There’s A Third Option – Be A Great Small Church

Church growth principles are important, but we need to know what great small churches look like, too.

Most church leadership principles focus on how to prepare your church for numerical growth.

That’s an important aspect of leading a church, for sure. One I want to learn more about.

But it’s just one aspect of church leadership. It shouldn’t be the entire menu.

We can’t teach church growth principles at the expense of another set of principles that will be even more important for most churches – how to be a great church while we’re small. Read More

5 Factors That Should Move Your Church to Add Another Weekend Service

Is your church wondering whether to add another service on Sunday mornings?

Are you looking to the future and trying to figure out when you should add a second, third, or even fourth time to meet on a Sunday?

Wrestling with the right timeline to add a new service is an important process for your church as you balance the growth taking place against the amount of work required to service that growth. Many churches encounter different factors that drive them to add another service to their weekend line-up.

I’ve recognized five such factors that should move your church to begin the process of adding a new service. You don’t necessarily have to tick off all five boxes—any one of these may be enough to spur your decision-making process. However, if you do identify with several items on this list, that underlines the urgency for you to move forward.

Churches can stunt their own growth if they simply don’t have enough places for guests to sit! If your physical buildings are maxed out, it will discourage people from inviting their friends. When their friends do finally come, they’ll have a suboptimal experience which harms your church’s ability to grow and impact people. See if any of the following factors speak to your situation to help determine whether you should add another service to your church. Read More

When considering the addition of another weekend service, it is useful to remember that middle-sized churches have a tendency to see themselves as small churches although, when the 5 factors Rich Birch identifies are taken into consideration, it is clear that they no longer fit that category. This perception may prompt church members to question the need for an additional weekend service.

Believe Your Children

If your child tells you that someone has sexually abused them, please believe them.

In almost two decades of women’s ministry I have sat with many wounded women. Without a doubt, the women who are hurting the most are those who were victims of sexual assault and also the victims of disbelief. The scenario is common: they were abused as children or teenagers and when they told their parents, their parents did not believe them.

Disbelieving the victims is common. Because abuse often happens at the hands of a family member, neighbor, or trusted friend, parents cannot—or are unable to bring themselves to—believe their children because they would then have to reorder their perception of the perpetrator and also acknowledge that they may have unknowingly played a role in allowing the abuse to happen.

When the victims of abuse are not believed, untold injury is heaped upon them. Not only are they traumatized by the initial abuse, but the structure upon which they rely for safety and support is knocked out from underneath them. The second crime may be worse than the first. I think it may actually cause greater long-term harm.

So moms and dads, please believe your kids if they whisper any hint to you that something has happened. The chances that your child is telling the truth and that you know who harmed them is very high. Read More

The Lost Spiritual Discipline

Earlier this year a young woman from western Asia had been visiting our church in east Asia. A fairly new believer, she’d completed our membership class and was requesting a meeting with me to discuss a troubling issue before moving forward.

This is a common occurrence for any pastor. I was prepared to be peppered with questions of theological nuance. But her difficulty wasn’t with doctrine.

It was conversation.

She had gone out to a post-church lunch with a group of people for several weeks, and she was frustrated that the conversation didn’t turn more frequently toward spiritual health, sermon application, and spurring one another on toward godliness. Christian people were talking, but, as she rightly noted, that’s not the same thing as good Christian conversation. Read More

10 Questions to Diagnose the Evangelistic Health of Your Church

Any good physician will make certain your physical exam includes at least three components.

First, the doctor will want you to have thorough lab work. Second, all exams include a comprehensive look at your physical body. Third, the physician will ask you a series of questions that would lead him or her to know more about your overall physical and emotional health.

In my work with churches across America, I often ask a series of questions that help me assist the church to become more evangelistically focused. Recently, I took time to write down the questions I ask most often.

Look at these 10 questions to get at least some hints of the evangelistic health of your own church. Read More

I may have previously posted this article but with a different title. However, it is not a bad idea to regularly examine the evangelistic health of your church. As we begin a new year, now may be a good time for a church evangelistic health checkup.

How to Reach a 100 New Guests in 2019

Most churches want to reach unchurched people. They take the Great Commission seriously and want their church to make a positive difference for the Kingdom.

At the same time, we’re coming to grips with the fact that fewer and fewer people are attending church. Even regular members show up more infrequently than in years gone by.

The same group of people, attending less often, is not a recipe for growth. For a church to grow and thrive, it has to reach brand new people.

Even though many churches share in this desire, few actually do it.

If your church is serious about reaching new guests, particularly those who are not attending any other church, here are five things to consider to reach people. Read More

What Are the Most Important Elements to Consider When Preparing a Sermon?

I read a story about a bank employee who was fixing an ATM machine. The door accidentally shut while he was inside its tiny maintenance room. When someone approached the machine to receive some money, they instead received a note that said, “Please help. I’m stuck in here and don’t have my phone. Please call my boss.”[1]

As peculiar of a story as this may be, I’m sure there are plenty of preachers who have fallen into a trap of being stuck instead of being unleashed to reach their audience for Christ. One little strange thing happened, and it completely threw you off the base on which you thought you’d stand. I hope this article will help you get unstuck. Read More

Also See
5 Ideas for Your New Year’s Sermon

Thursday's Catch: The Corinthian Mindset and More

Church Planter, Reject the Corinthian Mindset

It’s a danger for any church planter. We suddenly realize that the focus of our heart has shifted, that we’ve started to functionally trust in the wrong things. Read More

When Do I Know I've Hit Rock Bottom in a Revitalization [Podcast]

Thom Rainer and Jonathan Howe end 2018 with a discussion of how churches that may seem “too far gone” are typically not and how God can still work in every church. Listen Now

Is Your Church Ready For 2019? – 5 Strategic Questions

The new year is near! Is your direction clear? Are your plans complete? Is your lead team on board? Whether your planning is near complete, or you feel way behind, I have five questions that will help you get a sense of where you are and help you move forward.Read More

Skip Resolutions in 2019—Make a Rule of Life

I used to love making New Year’s Resolutions—in fact, I loved making them far more than I enjoyed keeping them. But about eight years ago, I was introduced to the old tradition of creating a Rule of Life, and since then, it has proved to be a much better use of time and energy. Read More

Why We Must Not Fear the Rejection of Family and Friends

If you keep caring more about what your family and friends think of you than what God thinks of you, you’ll never do the things God has called you to do. Jesus knew this because he lived it. Read More

How Should We Respond to Those Who Reject Jesus Because Some Christians Are Hypocrites?

All of us probably know co-workers or family members or neighbors who say they reject Jesus because some of His followers are hypocrites. How should we respond to this? Read More

3 Questions to Evaluate This Year and 3 to Help Plan for the Next

When December 31 rolls into January 1 there’s something within us that strives to do things differently. Maybe that involves making changes to our health, our spiritual growth, or the way we pastor our congregations.

I want to propose three questions to help you evaluate the present year and three questions to help you plan for the next. Read More

6 Essentials for Spiritual and Emotional Health

Two years ago I began to hit a wall. I was run down and burned out. It wasn’t that I didn’t love the Lord or people anymore. It wasn’t that I’d lost my passion for God’s Word, teaching the Bible, writing, or taking mission trips to the Amazon and Moldova with Justice & Mercy International. I simply had no margin. I was so busy that there was little room for anything fresh to come in. Little was growing, and I felt as though all I was giving others were crusty leftovers.

I met with my pastor and he encouraged me to evaluate the way I was using my time. He challenged me to guard the most important tasks the Lord has given me to do and say no to what wasn’t part of that agenda. Since that meeting, I’ve recognized six things that have significantly supported my spiritual and emotional health. I’ve put them in the form of questions so you can think personally and critically about how well you’re covered in each area. Read More

5 Ways to Get Closer to God

1. Admit you can’t do everything on your own.

One of the first steps to gaining a closer relationship with God is admitting that you need him in your life. Ironic, yeah? The reality is that we can’t do everything on our own, so admitting this will not only show a sense of humility in your life but it will also show God that are putting your faith in his strength and guidance, rather than your own. As John 3:30 states, “He must increase, I must decrease.”

2. Remove yourself from harmful relationships.

I believe one of the biggest roadblocks to finding a deeper relationship with God is harmful relationships. Whether these relationships be with family, friends or co-workers, taking yourself out of the equation, or at least giving yourself some healthy distance, will provide you the necessary room and energy needed to first get right in your relationship with God. You must make yourself a priority in regards to your spiritual life. Although this might sound tough to accomplish, you won’t believe the freedom and liberty you will encounter when being able to solely focus on your relationship with God without having toxic relationships getting in your way. Read More

He Sought to Kill Sin with a Pen

Fifty years or so ago, you would have been hard-pressed to find anyone who could recognize the name John Owen. Today, he is regularly quoted from pulpits and in articles as though his name were a household word. This is even more surprising because almost everybody who mentions him adds, “But he is not light reading!” After all, he lived in the seventeenth century, thought in Latin, wrote long and profound works of theology, and belonged to the marginalized group of Christians we call Puritans.

Who was this John Owen, and what explains the phenomenon of his rising popularity? Read More

Looking for the Eternal Christmas to Come

As a child, my favorite part of waking up on Christmas morning was the first waking realization that it was Christmas, which was the best day of the year, even in our non-christian family. My first move was to jump up and look out my bedroom window to see if it had snowed last night. Usually not, but several memorable times it did. After the snow-check, my brother, Lance, and I would run to our stockings hung by mom in the living room. I would open the contents slowly, including the ever-present Whitman’s Samplers, stretching it out, not wanting it to end.

We got the big presents on Christmas Eve, but there was a special joy in the little treasures wrapped up in the stockings. I didn’t understand then that these little gifts represented the greatest gift ever given—God’s Son. Now, as an adult, a father and a grandfather, I feel those same childlike feelings, a warmth and anticipation. But what I feel now on Christmas that I didn’t many years ago is anticipation for a New Earth, without sin and curse and suffering—a redeemed earth where I will live and work and play and worship and serve with Christian family and friends, and countless new friends besides.

I feel a spirit of adventure not just for the passing joys of Christmas, but for an eternal Christmas, a great story where—as C. S. Lewis put it at the end of the Chronicles of Narnia—every chapter will be better than the one before. Read More

Six Ways the Cradle Points to the Cross

The good news links the Christmas story with Easter and shows how one is incomplete without the other.

One of my older children recently posed an excellent question during our family worship time: “Is there a place in the Bible that gives a good, short summary of the real meaning of Christmas?” There are many, of course, but as a pastor tasked with preaching many Advent seasons through the years, I’ve discovered one that may be overlooked: the hymn that Simeon sings after seeing baby Jesus in Luke 2:29-32 and his subsequent words to Joseph and Mary in vv. 34-35. It brings the whole Bible together in a powerful summary. Read More

Making Your Church a Rescue Station

I often challenge pastors and Christian leaders to think of a local church as a “life-saving station.” I recently met with Christian leaders and spoke about “rescue.”

I began by sharing the strategy of the former United States Life-Saving Service. I explained that they were heroes in every sense of the word. When a ship was in distress near their assigned area, they’d go out into the surf, or the storm, even the hurricane to try to rescue the people on board. They lived their motto: “You have to go out. You don’t have to come back.” They saved countless lives who otherwise would have been lost.

Does this describe your church? Is spiritual rescue part of the foundational DNA of your church and life?

I described the world we live in today, filled with lost people. In fact, there are more lost people alive today than at any other point in human history.

The bad news is, “Lost people have never known less about Jesus, or have been farther from Jesus.” There is so much hurt, pain and suffering because of sin in this world.

The good news is, what has made people so lost, has made them so ready for Jesus.

Breakthroughs begin when the central passion of Jesus’ heart becomes the central passion of ours: rescue. The mission statement of Jesus is found in Luke 19:10, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

Here are five imperatives for a life-saving church. These five imperatives are modeled by Jesus in John 4, where Jesus met the woman at the well. Read More

A Very Merry Christmas to Anglicans Ablaze Readers

A cherished tradition for me has been attending the late-night Christmas Eve service at a local Anglican or Episcopal church. When my family moved to Iccleshall St. Andrew’s in Suffolk when I was a boy, it was the parish church of Iccleshall St. Andrew’s, a ten-minute walk across the snow-covered Great Common from Rosecott, the cottage in which my grandparents, my mother, my older brother, and I lived. I have memories of walking across the common in the moonlight, bundled up against the cold, opening the door of the church, and gazing into the brightly-lit interior of the church. I don’t remember much else—the carols and hymns that we sung, the lessons and the sermon that we heard—just the bright light spilling out onto the moon-lit snow.

After my family immigrated to the United States and joined my aunt in southeast Louisiana in the late 1950s, the church we attended was Christ Church in Covington, the oldest Episcopal church in the parish of St. Tammany. In Louisiana counties are called "parishes." St. Tammany had two Episcopal churches at that time, at the opposite ends of the parish, both named Christ Church, which was also the name of the Episcopal cathedral in New Orleans, a little over 40 miles to the south. My mother became a member of the choir and my grandfather filled in for the organist on occasion. He had been a church organist when he was younger.

Christ Church, Covington had a late Christmas Eve service, which it does to this day. My memory is hazy as to how often I attend that service as a teenager. It would, however, become a regular practice later on when I became an adult. I continued to attend the Christ Church’s late night Christmas Eve service even after I transferred my membership to St. Michael’s in Mandeville, an Episcopal church that I had helped to launch in the mid-1980s and where I served as senior lay reader for 15 years.

For me Christ Church’s late night Christmas Eve service was quintessential of what an Episcopal late night Christmas service should be. As the members of the congregation arrived, the choir sung a medley of Christmas carols. The service itself began with a solemn procession with incense, lights, and a station collect.

The first year my grandnephew attended the service, he left our pew and joined his great grandmother as she processed around the church. The procession had made one circuit around the nave before the rector pause at our pew and asked for my help. On the next circuit the procession was to return to the chancel and he was at loss as to what to do with a small boy at that point.

The service always concluded with a celebration of the Holy Communion. For a number of years my mother baked the bread for this celebration.

St. Michael’s had a service earlier on Christmas Eve. It was preceded by a children’s pageant. The pre-school’s hand bell choir also performed. Christ Church would add a second service on Christmas Eve for the families of the children who attended the church’s day school. But these two worship experiences were entirely different from Christ Church’s late night Christmas Eve service.

The two churches that I have regularly attended since moving to western Kentucky do not have a Christmas Eve service—one because it meets on the campus of the local university and the university is closed on Christmas Eve; the other because it is very small and its members show little interest in attending a service on any occasion other than a Sunday. A number of its members also go out of town around Christmas.

I have visited several Anglican and Episcopal churches in the region, which have a Christmas Eve service. All of these churches were at least a 30 minute drive from where I live. One church I almost did not find due to its out-of-the-way location and its lack of signage. It was a very cold night and the church was poorly-heated.

This year I thought about attending the Christmas Eve service at the local Episcopal church. But I was not able to determine with any certainty from visiting its website and calling its church office whether it had a Christmas Eve service. The serving schedule suggested that it might. However, I do not like driving at night and I did not want to drive to the church to discover that I was mistaken.

The church itself enjoys a good reputation in the community. I have received positive reports from a number of people who have visited the church or are familiar with it. But like so many Anglican and Episcopal churches whose websites that I have visited, it appears not know how to make the best use of what is today the “front door” of a local church.

I hope that my readers have been or will be more fortunate than I am. For those who, like myself, are unable to attend a Christmas Eve service, I have included a selection of Christmas carols to usher in the Feast of Nativity: Wexford Carol,,Cherry Tree Carol (Instrumental), Noel Nouvelet, Es Ist Ein Ros Entsprungen, Quem Pastores Laudavere, and Deep Peace a Gaelic Blessing.

May God bless you and your loved ones this Christmastide and in the New Year. May he fill your lives with hope, joy, and peace.

A Christmas Carol for the Weak

It may be the strangest Christmas song ever crafted. Modern Christians rarely sing it, even though we often see its lyrics and hear them read aloud.

Its author was no secondhand source or distant observer but (more than) an eyewitness of what really transpired when God himself came into our world, was wrapped in swaddling cloths, and laid in a manger. In fact, it was the songwriter herself who birthed him, wrapped him, and laid him there. The author is Jesus’s own mother. Read More

One of my favorite renditions of the Song of Mary is David Haas' "Holy Is Your Name," set to the tune of the Irish/Scottish folk song "Wild Mountain Thyme.".

The Contexts for Our Carols

Cherished Christmas carols help us to sing with the saints through the ages.

“High King of heaven, my victory won
May I reach heaven’s joys, O bright heaven’s sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my vision, O Ruler of all.”

With these words, the ancient Irish poet brings us into a different world. It is a world where God is not just the omniscient, omnibenevolent deity of scholastic logic, but the “high King of heaven.” This title moves the mind back through time to a different political moment, a time when security rested not in democratic freedoms but in the local king submitting to the high king in his hall. The poet reaches for the political structure of ancient Ireland to describe the spiritual relationship of Christians. Just as the local king ruled his kingdom under the authority of the high king, so each Christian man and woman becomes a king or queen ruling creation under the benevolent grace of our Father.

In Poetics, Aristotle describes the goal of poetry as mimesis, imitation. The poet seeks to artfully construct a sort of mirror reflecting reality back to his audience. It is in this sense that Christian theology is a poetic, or perhaps mimetic, discipline. Theology is not necessarily creative but seeks to reflect the work of God back to the current generation of Christians. Just as the poets of ancient Greece reflected their historical context, so, too, Christian theologians bring their own historical moment into the task of writing theology.

In the genre of Christmas hymns, we can see commonality as medieval, modern, and contemporary hymn writers draw on both the gospel accounts of Christ’s birth and the political and theological categories of their day to shape their hymns. By increasing our awareness of the riches available in the hymnic tradition, we deepen our worship through a new perspective and we demonstrate the chronological unity of Christ’s church. Read More

Image: Twas the Night before Christmas by Henry John Yeend King

How Nigeria's Fear of Child 'Witchcraft' Ruins Young Lives

Abandonment, persecution, violence: Childhoods lost as young Nigerians are branded as witches.

From a distance, the children look like scarecrows as they slowly scour the waist-high piles of rubbish for plastic bottles.

Their ragged clothing hangs loosely from their emaciated frames, their gaunt shrink-wrapped faces are deadened by the drugs they took at dawn.

It is hard to believe that these children are "witches".

And yet this is exactly why several hundred skolombo - or street children - are now living at the Lemna dumpsite on the outskirts of Calabar in southeastern Nigeria. Read More

Tuesday's Catch: Tis the Season to Rejoice

Seven Reasons to Rejoice This Christmas

Andrew Moody gives seven reasons why we should rejoice this Christmas. Read More

Magi, Wise Men, or Kings? It’s Complicated

Christian tradition finds meaning in each of these mysterious monikers. Read More

Jethro, Moses And The Hands-On Pastor

In a smaller church, we can’t equip others to do hands-on ministry unless we’re hands-on ourselves. Read More

  7 Keys to Improving Singing Pitch

When I am auditioning new singers, one of the main things I listen for is their ability to sing in-tune. There are few things that ruin singing more than being out-of-tune. If you are a singer or working with singers, here are seven keys to help improve musical pitch. Read 

More Worry Over Kids’ Excessive Smartphone Use Is More Justified Than Ever Before

Parents who fear their kids are spending too much time in front of screens now have more reason for concern. New research funded by the National Institutes of Health found brain changes among kids using screens more than seven hours a day and lower cognitive skills among those using screens more than two hours a day. Read More

A Carol for the Despairing

Penned during the Civil War, Longfellow's "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" is a carol for our age.

The word apocalypse in the Greek means “uncovering,” and 2018 has been a year of uncoverings, of pulling back the curtain to reveal the worst things that people can do to one another. It has uncovered abuse and corruption at every level—spilled blood, separated families, failure of justice after failure of justice, each headline hitting so quickly that it feels impossible to give anything the attention it deserves. There will be more before the end of the year; there will be more before you even finish reading this piece.

It’s hard to rejoice in an atmosphere like this. “The most wonderful time of the year” does not seem wonderful; shopping, twinkle lights, hot chocolate, ice skating and the bright bombardment of advertisements fill the space like cotton candy, too sweet and flimsy.

Like we do every year, my parents took my brother and me to see “A Christmas Carol” on stage to get everyone into the Christmas spirit (which is no small feat at the end of November). The story is familiar and heartwarming, but the song they ended their production with struck me: “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” Set to music a few decades later, this poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was written over Christmas of either 1863 or 1864, in the middle of the bloodiest war in American history.

The carol is not cotton candy; it is a beating heart, laid bare in seven stanzas with simple language. At the second-to-last verse, I noticed dimly that I had begun to cry; by the end of the song, my face was wet with tears.

“And in despair I bowed my head;
‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said;
‘For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!’”

It isn’t quite right to call this a cynic’s carol, but in this verse it is a desperate and bitter one. It’s a carol from a man who has had the nature of the world uncovered before him. It’s one of the only carols that still rings true to me in 2018.

Like all good poets, with “Christmas Bells” Longfellow reached out across almost 155 years of history to take my hand. Read More

Watch Casting Crowns's performance of "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" on the 2008 TBN Christmas special. Also hear St. Peter's Choir perform a choral arrangement of the same carol.

Keep the X in X-Mas

Over the years, LifeWay found the abbreviation “X-mas” to be just as controversial as “Happy holidays” or more, with 42 percent of Christians and 33 percent of Americans saying it was offensive in this year’s survey. Nearly 6 in 10 of those with evangelical beliefs (59%) find the use of “X-mas” instead of Christmas offensive.

The great irony in the distaste for the term “X-mas” is that it is thoroughly Christian, rather than an effort to remove the word Christ from the holiday. Read More

Related Articles:
Why X-Mas Actually Keeps Christ in Christmas
What Does the X in Xmas Mean?

5 Steps to a Great Last-Minute Christmas Sermon Idea

If you're scrambling to find a fresh idea from the Christmas story for Sunday and Christmas Eve, these steps might help.

39 verses. Less than 900 words.

That’s everything Matthew and Luke wrote about the birth of Jesus.

If you add Jesus’ genealogies and the birth of John the Baptist, you can more than triple its length. But if you go the other direction and remove the Magi who, as we know, were never at the manger, it drops from 39 verses to 28.

However you look at it, there are not a lot of words there.

I’m about to preach my 24th Christmas at the church I pastor. Every year I preach two or three Christmas-themed messages. That’s 60-70 messages on 39 verses. Almost two per verse. To the same congregation. Read More

The Christmas Preacher

There are numerous benefits of preaching at Christmas.

Carols services—normally attract many people who only come to church once a year. This presents us with a wonderful opportunity to preach the gospel to a willing audience of unsaved people.

The Biblical Christmas narratives allow a great opportunity to present a clear gospel sermon:

Matthew tells us about Jesus who will save his people from their sins.
And then the magi—or wise men—who come and worship the King.
In Luke’s account the angels announce that a Saviour is born, who is Christ the Lord.

Christmas services are normally happy occasions, and so give the church an opportunity to present a good face to the world. An engaging sermon, and a well-organised service—in a warm and inviting context—can make a lasting good impression on people. But Christmas preaching comes with particular challenges too. Here are some things to keep in mind.... Read More

‘Joy to the World’ Helps Us Rejoice in Our Past and Future

One of my favorite memories as a boy was singing with our church family on Christmas Eve. As the service would near its conclusion, the deacons would distribute candles while the lights grew dark. As we sang our final hymn, the room would flood with candlelight as voices announced the message of Christmas, “Joy to the world, the Lord is come, let earth receive her king.” I felt a foot taller while singing with full voice among my friends and neighbors thinking about the truth and mystery of the incarnation

. The song that I sang as a boy has now been sung for more than 300 years as a beloved Christmas carol. “Joy to the World” was written by Isaac Watts (1674–1748), who is heralded as the “father of English hymnody.” While the hymn is often featured during the Christmas season, it was originally written to be sung year-round as a metrical version of Psalm 98:4: “Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth.” From the first time this hymn was published in 1709, to the pews of our churches today, its powerful call to “repeat the sounding joy” continues.

The joyful theme we hear in this hymn is a two-fold: it’s a joy that looks back on the incarnation and one that also looks forward to the second coming of Christ. Read More

How the Brain Keeps Faith in a Good God Amid a Weary World

Both C. S. Lewis and Job held onto their faith when their worlds imploded. Now psychologists suggest clues to understanding how the mind endures in suffering.

A 2012 psychology study by Russell McCann and Marcia Webb brings into focus our brain’s ability to grapple effectively with the paradox of a suffering world and a good God. It offers intriguing possibilities for understanding how God created our minds to support our faith. Could this be God’s bodily gift when it feels like our world is falling apart?

McCann, a professor at the University of Washington, and Webb, a professor at Seattle Pacific University, looked at how human cognitive flexibility interacts with our faith. Cognitive flexibility, “the ability to adapt behaviors in response to changes in the environment,” is a critical part of the brain’s executive function and is often noted for its role in childhood development. We use cognitive flexibility to learn as children, to switch tasks as adults, and in daily tasks in everything from sorting laundry to multitasking at work.

McCann and Webb used various assessment scales on 193 participants to assess their cognitive flexibility, traumatic symptoms, and how their faith endured during suffering. Then, they compared how cognitive flexibility, trauma, and faith related to each other. Read More

Image: Painting of Job by Jean-Christopher Benoit, Public domain

What If They’re Happy Without God?

How do we witness to happy people?

Telling miserable people that Jesus can meet their deepest needs seems easy compared to warning satisfied people about the wrath to come. I’m talking about people who, from all outward appearances, seem just fine without God. They don’t appear to feel guilt or shame about anything. They don’t seem to long for something transcendent to add meaning to their lives. They don’t mind sleeping in on Sunday morning and lingering leisurely over brunch. In fact, they look forward to it.

We could try to convince them that, deep down, they’re really not that happy. But I don’t recommend that tactic. To be sure, we do have biblical warrant for telling unhappy people there is something else — Someone else! — that can really satisfy them. I call this “misery-based apologetics.” Jesus modeled this for us when he told the woman at the well, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:13–14).

But when people don’t seem all that miserable, it’s hard to get them to feel something we think they should feel. Read More