The second phase of my praying life was in and after my conversion. It was a glorious response to what my new pattern revealed to me at that time. I don’t have the exact day, but there was a time as I prayed out the latest crisis and to put if fairly crudely all the… Read More This Praying Life, Phase 2
After 18 months I finished my devotional reading of Calvin’s Institutes. As I wrote here in June 2011, I have owned a personal copy of The Institutes for over 27 years. My two volume Battles translation were one of the few books I carried by suitcase with me to England in 1985. John Calvin dominated… Read More Nothing comes between me and my Calvin, Final
It’s the end of November. After many years waiting the great Puritan theologian John Owen finally moves into 501 Green. Got an amazing Christmas deal from Banner of Truth this year. I’ve picked up and put down the set at the Banner’s Ministers Conference each May, not quite being able to persuade myself that the… Read More The Blessing of Being a Reformed Protestant
About six years ago we started to record my sermons to include in our homebound ministry, “HomeTouch” so that our members who could no longer make it to church were never cut off from church family life and gospel preaching. It was about three years later that we started to think about uploading the recordings to… Read More New name, new addition
My return to a life of prayer started slowly in the beginnings of my conviction of sin and culminating in my conversion in 2007-08. When I say, “I started slowly,” I mean my understanding of what prayer truly is. What is prayer? Prayer is the act of forging a connection between two specific points: our… Read More This Praying Life, Phase 1
In 1538 John Calvin wrote in a letter to Henrich Bullinger, explaining his early difficulties in Geneva, that “…Geneva want preachers and teachers, but not pastors…” As a rector who understands his call to pastor his congregation, I know exactly what Calvin meant. In most congregations, the clergy perform the sacraments, visit the sick, teach… Read More Pastor as Lens
On this 350th anniversary of the Great Ejection, when the Puritans were ejected from the Church of England, I pulled down a volume of Thomas Manton, the ejected rector of St. Paul’s, Covent Garden. Of his influence, the First Bishop of Liverpool J.C. Ryle wrote, “If ever there was an English divine who must be classed… Read More Black Bartholomew’s Day
I was asked the last week if would consider returning to the congregational development committee of our diocese which has left me thinking quite a bit if I would be able to serve the Lord there faithfully. What I have learned in my years off the committee is that a reformation of doctrine, a return… Read More Turning Around the Mainline
With my father’s death on June 7th and funeral yesterday I am much more conscious now than before of losing those precious ties to my Frisian heritage. All of my cousins and second cousins old enough to remember eventually asked the same question yesterday, “How’s your Frisian?” And we we’re not talking about black and… Read More “In Stukje Brakel”
As an Anglican I wear vestments to lead worship. In England I robed in a vestry, in the United States I robe in a sacristy. I prefer the term “vestry” but I can’t use it back in the USA without causing confusion. A Vestry is PEOPLE, to misquote Robert Thorn. When you have robed in… Read More New Clothes
The Vicar's Garden 