URCNA Church Planting Conference

I spent the first part of this week in Denver at the United Reformed Church planting conference--a voluntary and ad hoc gathering devoted to planting new URCNA churches.  I'm chatting with Dr. Brian Lee (who used to attend Christ Reformed in Anaheim, before he started Christ Reformed in Washington DC), and Rev. Danny Hyde, of the Oceanside URC.

The URCNA is young -- a mere 15 years old.  We are not terribly experienced, nor well-organized when it comes to church planting.  The conference was designed to develop ways to remedy that.

We know that planting confessional Reformed churches with our particular distinctives is a tough thing in North America.  But we also trust in God's grace and power to call his people to faith, and to form new churches.

So far in our short history we've planted fifteen new churches which have organized, and we have thirteen more which are in various stages of development (South Orange County, CA, Brea, CA, Ventura, CA, Colorado Springs, CO, Washington, DC, Kauai, HI, Chicago Heights, IL [spanish], Grand Rapids, MI, Missoula, MT, New York , NY, Scarborough, ON, Toronto, ON, and Sioux Falls, SD).

If you know of anyone who lives in these areas, please send them our way!

It was great to see so many of our pastors, church-planters, and elders present--more than sixty of us!  Looks like we'll do it again next year.

The Boys of Spring Are Ready to Go -- Opening Day, 2011

If you are a baseball fan, you know what this day means:  box scores, MLB Tonight, Gameday.  Spring has little to do with flowers.  It has to do with the start of the baseball season!

Today, every team is in first place.  Every team has a shot at the pennant.  Future stars are still unknown.  Even Cubs fans are smiling today.  And reality has not yet hit Red Sox Nation.  It will.

But if you are not a baseball fan, please move along, nothing to see here . . .

The Consolation of Prophecy -- Growing Churches Churches Conference, April 1-2

First Chino URC is hosting the annual Growing Reformed Churches Conference on April 1-2, 2011.

The theme of this year's conference is "The Consolation of Prophecy."

This year's speakers include Dr. Robert Godfrey, Dr. Cornel Venema, Dr. Dennis Johnson, and some middle-aged bald guy (me).  I'm speaking on the signs of the end.

Here's the conference brochure:

Click Here

Horton's Review of Bell's New Book (Complete in Nine Parts)

Here's Horton's review of Rob Bell's new book, Love Wins

Here's part one:  Bell's Hell (part one)

Here's part two:  Bell's Hell (part two)

Here's part three:  Bell's Hell (part three)

Here's part four:  Bell's Hell (part four)

Here's part five:  Bell's Hell (part five)

Here's part six:  Bell's Hell (part six)

Here's part seven:  Bell's Hell (part seven)

Here's part eight:  Bell's Hell (part eight)

Here's part nine:  Bell's Hell (part nine)

This Week at Christ Reformed Church

Wednesday Night Bible Study:

There will be no Bible study this week (March 30), due to the URCNA church-planting conference in Denver.  Our study will resume on April 6.

Friday Night Academy:

The Academy resumes on May 6, when I begin a series on Mike Horton's new theology text, The Christian Faith.

Growing Reformed Churches Conference:

I am speaking Saturday, April 2, at the GRCC at the First Chino URC, on the subject of "What to Make of the Signs of the End."

For conference information, Click Here

Lane Chaplin's Interview of Mike Horton

“Who Then Can Be Saved?” -- Matthew 19:16-30

Here's the audio from this morning's sermon on Matthew 19.

Click Here

Audio from Friday Night's Academy

Here's the audio from Ken Samples' Academy lecture, (3/25/2011), “Christianity’s Magnificent Seven Apologetic Truths, Dangerous But Good – The Mystery of Evil and Suffering.”  This concludes Ken's series.

Click Here

This Week's White Horse Inn

Word and Sacrament

Many Christians today are preoccupied with the extraordinary over the ordinary. They see God at work only in the big events such as revival meetings or stadium sized worship events. But in the second chapter of Acts we find the apostles engaged in the proclamation of the Word and the administration of the Sacraments. Is this merely “church-ianity” or is this the apostolic fulfillment of the Great Commission? That’s our topic for this week as the hosts continue their study of Acts chapter 2.

Click Here

Who Said That?

"These books the church holds to be sacred and canonical not because she subsequently approved them by her authority after they had been composed by unaided human skill, nor simply because they contain revelation without error, but because, being written under the inspiration of the holy Spirit, they have God as their author, and were as such committed to the church."

Leave your guess in the comments section below. Please, no google searches or cheating.  Answer to follow with the next post.

Update on Thursday, March 24, 2011 at 01:54PM by Kim Riddlebarger

This is from the First Vatican Council which affirmed papal infallability, yet also made a rather strong assertion abourt Scripture--that its authority did not come from the church.  This is from the third session (on Revelation), April 24, 1870.