What Attracts People into the Young, Restless, Reformed Movement?

What Attracts People into the Young, Restless, Reformed Movement?

That is probably the question I’m asked most often when I talk about the “new Calvinism” that has swept up thousands of Christian young people in the last twenty to thirty years. There’s no doubt this has been and is a religious phenomenon. Most recently even the New York Times has taken notice; a few years ago Time magazine mentioned it as one of ten great ideas changing the world. Everyone seems to be talking about it even though it’s not exactly new.

I first became aware of the Young, Restless, Reformed Movement (YRRM) before anyone thought to give it that moniker. I was teaching theology at Baptist-related Bethel College and Seminary (now Bethel University) in Minnesota. John Piper had left the faculty to take the pulpit at nearby Bethlehem Baptist Church about a year before I arrived. He was still much discussed by students and faculty alike and seemed to have been a polarizing figure on campus. People tended either to love him or despise him. I had read his article about “Christian Hedonism” in HIS magazine (the now defunct publication of the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship) before then and had met Piper when I first visited Bethel a few years before joining its faculty. (I still have that article in my files! I tore it out of the issue thinking maybe someday it would be important to have. Little did I know….)   Continue at Roger Olson

The Word-less “Church”

Many American churches are in a mess. Theologically they are indifferent, confused, or dangerously wrong. Liturgically they are the captives of superficial fads. Morally they live lives indistinguishable from the world. They often have a lot of people, money, and activities. But are they really churches, or have they degenerated into peculiar clubs?

What has gone wrong? At the heart of the mess is a simple phenomenon: the churches seem to have lost a love for and confidence in the Word of God. They still carry Bibles and declare the authority of the Scriptures. They still have sermons based on Bible verses and still have Bible study classes. But not much of the Bible is actually read in their services. Their sermons and studies usually do not examine the Bible to see what it thinks is important for the people of God. Increasingly they treat the Bible as tidbits of poetic inspiration, of pop psychology, and of self-help advice. Congregations where the Bible is ignored or abused are in the gravest peril. Churches that depart from the Word will soon find that God has departed from them.    Continue at Robert Godfrey

Cautions for Church Planters

There can be no doubt that the fulfillment of the Great Commission is disciple-making, and that should result in the planting of local churches. Not long after the church was born on Pentecost, church-planting became the chief endeavor for the Apostle Paul and his team as they were chased around the Roman Empire. If evangelism is the flower of the church, it is seen blooming when new churches are planted.

Thankfully, there is a church-planting movement in evangelicalism today, for which we ought to praise God.

Church-planting is a unique opportunity for many reasons. Your planting team gets to set the doctrinal direction and philosophy of ministry from ground up. Simultaneously there is an unmatched excitement in seeing Christ build his church first-hand.

But the reality is that with this trend, church-planting is becoming a glamorous ministry fad. It’s fashionable to be identified as a “church-planter.” With all the excitement and rush to get new churches off the ground, the movement is becoming hasty and careless, both from pulpits and in pews.   Keep Reading>>>