CCBlogs thinking critically, living faithfully

Thom Turner's blog

The theological systems of believer’s baptism and infant baptism seem to conflict in irreconcilable ways. The theological implications of infant baptism are too much, too soon for those who favor believer’s baptism, while those who practice believer’s baptism can appear to focus too much on a person’s decision to join God’s family and not on God’s action toward the person since they were born.

Navigating the waters between the two views, as I have in both study and my own spiritual journey, has been a confusing and divisive experience... READ MORE.

Thom Turner's blog

When I was a kid I always liked getting those mixed bags of candy at Halloween or birthday parties. It was my own personal buffet of treats. A buffet that allowed me to trade candy I didn't like for candy I did like, in my eternal quest to end up with all Mr. Goodbars and Special Darks.

I think people are mixed bags too, just like those party favors and treats we received as kids (and Lord willing as adults as well!). I came to this conclusion after a brief episode of anger. A screed if you will. Let me explain...

I came into my house last night and saw a printout of material Andy Stanley had written about kid's ministry that my wife was looking over. This did not enthuse me one bit. I do not want to take the advise of someone who champions McChurch franchising and building five million dollar bridges over fragile wetlands so that his congregation can attract peple to the church because of the increased ability to speed away in their SUVs faster. I certainly don't want the bridge perspective effecting kid's ministry. I just imagine all the solutions as ways to streamline goldfish cracker disbursement and more efficient passing of infants from the hands of nursery workers back to their parents.

Yet I have read an Andy Stanley book on leadership and there was good advice in it.... READ MORE.

Thom Turner's blog

"I wish we could just get rid of the sermon."

That's what one friend said to me at Starbucks recently. For us that view worship as holistic and not as song and sermon, both music and preaching seem to take precedence over other forms of worship: prayer, silence, meditation, Scripture reading. Inlieu of these things we instead sing and preach about them. How many sermons have you heard mention silence as important to worship? How many times has your own church been silent? How many times have pastors preached the necessity of Scripture reading? How many times has your own church read Scripture at any great length (more than a whole chapter)? Preaching far outweighs doing in most Protestant churches.

Using the motto lex orandi, lex credendi (what one prays is what one believes) as our measuring stick, we should look at the worship service as a microcosm of how we want the local church to worship. The goal of every church is to have a congregation that reads Scripture, prays, meditates, spends time in fasting, in silence, in wonder, sings, preaches, teaches, and fellowships with one another. Yet we don't model the right way of worship in our own worship services. We are not modeling what you pray is what you believe. We are really showing our congregations that true worship is active only in song and passive in everything else. We have taught our congregations that beyond singing and talking around a cup of coffee we are to let others do all the heavy lifting of Scripture reading, preaching, prayer, and silence.... READ MORE.