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Defining Conservatism

The term “conservative” gets thrown around a lot, but do people really know what it means?

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Recovering Intentional Worship by David de Bruyn

Some Things to Consider Including In Your Church Service

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Missions and Music Contextualizing the Gospel

A blog series from Religious Affections Ministries.

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Scott Aniol speaks on the subject of music and worship around the country. Schedule him to speak in your church, plan and lead your worship service, or lead a hymn service.

Currently viewing the tag: "Gospel"

Relevance is irrelevant (Part 3)

On April 3, 2012 By
This entry is part 3 of 3 in the series Relevance is Irrelevant

Part 1 | Part 2

In part 1, we looked at Paul’s ministry model in 1 Corinthains 1:10-17. Paul took deliberate steps to preach the gospel in such a way that minimized himself and emphasized Christ and his redeeming work. Part 2‘s post showed why Paul went about ministry in this way. [...]

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Relevance is irrelevant (Part 2)

On March 27, 2012 By
This entry is part 2 of 3 in the series Relevance is Irrelevant

Part 1

In emphasizing the unity of the church in 1 Corinthians 1:10-17, Paul asks the church pointedly: “is Christ divided?” (v 13). With their divisions, the Corinthian church was pulling away from Christ, the one who unites his church. This led Paul to explain that in his own ministry he took pains to [...]

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A History of Psalm 130 in Music: Part 1

On June 21, 2011 By
This entry is part 1 of 6 in the series A History of Psalm 130 in Music

Sometimes we really don’t appreciate the continuity of the Christian tradition, especially in that there is, by and large, an approach to the music of worship that can be traced back to ancient Israel itself and its psalmody.

Over the next several weeks, I want to trace how a particular psalm, Psalm 130, has been [...]

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Not the Real Problem

On May 17, 2011 By

Kevin DeYoung (DeYoung, Restless, and Reformed) has a good post today asking pastors and church leaders not to assume that the decline they see in their church is because of (or can be solved by) worship styles. He says,

I do wish church leaders would stop assuming that their problems boil down to [...]

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Being Committed to the Gospel

On April 15, 2011 By
This entry is part 3 of 32 in the series Toward Conservative Christian Churches

As important as understanding the gospel is, it is not sufficient. Churches must be committed to the gospel. That is, churches must be devoted to the application of the gospel throughout church life.

We have already spoken of how the meaning of the gospel must be taught, and reiterated. Beyond this, the believer’s position [...]

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Towards Conservative Christian Churches – Understanding the Gospel

On April 8, 2011 By
This entry is part 2 of 32 in the series Toward Conservative Christian Churches

Since the gospel is the basis and boundary of Christianity, anyone interested in conserving Christianity ought to be interested in conserving the gospel. A cursory glance at church history shows that the gospel has at times gone into near-eclipse, and this while official Christendom remained prominent. Such historical phenomena show that self-identifying with Christianity [...]

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Does contextualization heighten the likelihood of a positive response to the gospel?

On January 25, 2011 By
This entry is part 15 of 17 in the series Missions and Music

Conversations about missions and music often revolve around an insistence that in order to reach unbelievers in a target culture, we need to contextualize the message into their language, be it spoken, acted, or sung.

Here are some helpful words from an excellent journal article by Mark Snoeberger that I think get to [...]

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