Pastor’s Blog

At Old Peachtree, we consider our Sunday services to be our primary means of discipleship. That discipleship takes place through all the elements of the service; for example, what we sing shapes our view of God much more than we realize. However, the main instrument for discipleship in our worship services is preaching.

Too much that passes for “preaching” these days is self-help pop-psychology: “Five steps to peace of mind,” for instance. Biblical preaching is the exposition and application of the Scriptures with an eye toward making known God’s plan of redemption  in Christ. While I make no claim to perfection, or even being close to “arriving,” nevertheless that is my goal each Sunday: to proclaim God’s grace in Christ (what could be more relevant?) through the explanation and application of his word.

We should read and study our Bibles on our own, as close to daily as we can. But as beneficial as may be our own private study of the Bible, or even study in a small group, listening to the Scriptures preached is quite a different experience.

Craig Brian Larson, a pastor, author, and editor of PreachingToday.com, describes listening to preaching as a “spiritual discipline” all its own. He lists nine characteristics that separate sound, biblical preaching from Bible reading, memorization, and meditation:

1. Good preaching rescues us from our self-deceptions and blind spots. Left to ourselves, we tend to ignore the very things in God’s Word that we most need to see. Preaching covers texts and topics outside of our control.
2. Preaching brings us before God’s Word in the special presence of the Holy Spirit as he indwells the gathered church.
3. Good preaching challenges us to do things we otherwise would not and gives us the will to do them. God has given speakers a remarkable power to spur others to take action.
4. As our church communities listen to good preaching, it brings us into the place of corporate — rather than just individual — obedience.
5. Good preaching causes humility by disciplining us to sit under the teaching, correction, and exhortation of another human. Relying on ourselves alone for food from the Word can lead to a spirit of arrogance and spiritual independence.
6. Good preaching gives a place for a spiritually qualified person to protect believers from dangerous error. The apostles repeatedly warned that untrained and unstable Christians — as well as mature believers — can be easily led astray by false doctrines. Christians are sheep; false teachers are wolves; preachers are guardian shepherds.
7. Preaching and listening are embodied, physical acts. Good preaching is truth incarnated through a person who can translate its meaning from an ancient setting to today. Good preaching is truth we receive sitting shoulder to shoulder.
8. Good preachers do what most Christians are not gifted, trained, or time-endowed to do: interpret a text in context, distill the theological truths, and apply those truths in a particular time and place to particular people in a particular church. This is a challenging task for well-trained preachers who have access to 2,000 years’ worth of the church’s resources; how much more so for those who are not trained?
9. Listening to preaching has a low threshold of difficulty. While many spiritual disciplines sound like exercises for the spiritually elite, both young and old, educated and uneducated, disciplined and undisciplined can listen to a sermon. It is the equal-opportunity spiritual discipline.

Our own Westminster Standards put it this way in the answer to Shorter Catechism Question 89:

Q. How is the word made effectual to salvation?

A. The Spirit of God maketh the reading, but especially the preaching of the word, an effectual means of convincing and converting sinners, and of building them up in holiness and comfort, through faith, unto salvation.

Ecclesiastes 7:8 tells us, “Better is the end of a thing than its beginning.” Nevertheless, beginnings can be exciting, too, and this week OPPC saw a couple of good ones.

The Women in the Church (WIC) got the fall off to a good start with their kickoff event last Tuesday night (Sept. 16). Barbara tied us up for a while with an ice-breaker to get to know each other better. The WIC Bible study will be on Colossians and Philemon (Tuesday mornings at 10:00 a.m.), and I gave a brief introduction to those books. Natalie talked about PresWIC and Jane gave an overview of her service as WIC coordinator for the PCA. And we had good dessert. Many thanks to Stephanie and the WIC leadership team.

The Men’s Bible Study, on hiatus since last fall, resumed this morning. We are studying Oswald Sanders’ book Spiritual Leadership. We had a great turnout. I’m looking forward to some good interaction with the book and the men in the studies ahead (Fridays at 6:30 a.m.).

Some churches see attendance at morning worship as a bare minimum of commitment for believers, or even gear their main service primarily as an outreach to unbelievers. If you really want to grow as a Christian, you’ll get involved in a small group or other program.

At Old Peachtree, our philosophy is that worship on the Lord’s Day is for Christians. It is a time for believers to gather and worship God. It is the main way that we grow in our faith and our chief instrument for teaching and discipleship. Unbelievers are welcome, of course. We hope they will come, witness our worship, hear and believe the gospel, and become part of us.

In addition to our morning service, we do offer other opportunities for study, discipleship, and fellowship  and encourage you to take advantage of them.

Our Adult Sunday School Class this fall is studying Dr. Sean Michael Lucas’ book, On Being Presbyterian: Our Beliefs, Practices, and Stories. Dr. Lucas, a professor of church history at the PCA’s Covenant Theological Seminary, wrote this book to give readers a greater sense of what it means to be Presbyterian in government, theology, and heritage. The CE committee thought this such an important study that it limited the fall adult Sunday School program to this one class.

The Women’s Bible Study will meet this fall beginning Tuesday, Sept. 23, at 10:00 am in fellowship hall room 1 (by the kitchen). The study will focus on Paul’s letters to the Colossians and to Philemon. Childcare is provided. Also, don’t forget the Women in the Church (WIC) kickoff event at 7:00 pm on Tuesday, Sept. 16, featuring dessert and an overview of our WIC ministry.

The Men’s Bible Study begins Friday, September 19, at 6:30 am in the church fellowship hall. We will be studying Oswald Sanders’ book Spiritual Leadership: Principles of Excellence for Every Believer. As in the past, we will rotate providing breakfast.

The Evening Service abides. Join us at 6:00 pm on the Lord’s Day. We are beginning a study of the Old Testament book Jeremiah. Why attend the evening service (or even have one at all)? Need you ask? More worship (informal), more prayer, more Bible, more fellowship. The evening service is the other bookend that, together with the morning service, brackets the Lord’s Day and sets it apart as holy.

Our children need the means of grace, too. Don’t forget Sunday School, and on Sunday nights, children’s choir and catechism, and youth group.

Peter exhorts us to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). God has given us means to do that; namely the Scriptures, prayer, the sacraments, and fellowship. While our morning service will always be the main avenue for the means of grace, smaller gatherings allow us enjoy them in more personal and interactive ways. Take advantage of those means through both large group and small group gatherings, as well as your own personal Bible reading and prayer.

Presidential candidate John McCain surprised the nation recently by choosing Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his VP running mate. Many evangelical Christians like her conservative position on the issues. But Washington Post columnist Sally Quinn, of the Washington Post/Newsweek project “On Faith,” poses a question to Christians (and Southern Baptists in particular): Women are not allowed to become clergy in many conservative religious groups. Is it hypocritical to think that a woman can lead a nation and not a congregation?

Dr. Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (and a strong proponent of Calvinism within the Southern Baptist Convention), is a panelist for “On Faith” and responds to that question here.

Dr. Mohler’s blog is one of the few I check almost daily; I commend it to you.