The WordPress Statistics page told me that my blog passed 10,000 views this week. I am stunned. I know that in the digital world news sites can receive 10,000 views in minutes and large churches can see weekend attendance at that number, but I am just a small church pastor/church planter in a small corner… Read More 10,000+ Views
This quote is from Heinrich Bullinger’s Decades. These 50 sermons are without doubt his most influential work in the development of reformed Anglicanism in England during the reign of Elizabeth I. Archbishop of Canterbury John Whitgift (1583-1604) made them a required study for all clergy. I have been reading them, 7 pages a day 5… Read More Once in a Decade
Our Wednesday service has been reading through Luke’s gospel consecutively each week. We have just concluded Luke 15, a favorite chapter of many. Jesus tells there the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost sons. Those of you who have read Luke 15 with frequency as I have done and have… Read More The Ninety and Nine
I first read of Isaac Watts as a boy learning American history at school in that battle cry, “Give ’em Watts, boys!” at the battle of Springfield, New Jersey. Over time I spotted his name in hymnals as the author of the some of the most famous hymns in evangelical Christendom. It happened this week… Read More Give ’em Watts, boys!
Just been reading Peter Adam’s St. Antholin’s Lecture, Gospel Trials in 1662: To Stay or To Go? for reasons I will explain if I have more time, when I read this paragraph: Two groups of people prefer the theory that Puritans cannot be Anglicans, nor can Anglicans be Puritans. Some Nonconformists may take this view because… Read More Two Brands of Anglicans
We’ve just returned from our vacation in the Adirondacks. Part of the offerings where we were staying was a series of seminar talks by a well-known Christian celebrity with a very successful women’s ministry. What was so startling in the talks was her use of the Scriptures. Being in my little embattled corner as a… Read More Irrational Numbers
There are times in a regular pattern of study in God’s word and in a regular pattern of prayer that brings together who God is in his holiness and my deep and desperate need in my sinfulness, to see afresh the amazing grace and mercy in our Savior’s bloody sacrifice done for me as a… Read More Man A Nothing
The Diocese of New Jersey elected its 12th Bishop on May 4th. Although the progress of the election and ballots fell out exactly as I had described it in our parish open forum, the Bishop elect was relatively unknown to me. So when I returned home and after a well-earned mug of tea, I had… Read More “Stoking” the boiler
This past week I went to my first Acts29NJ church planters conference at Emergence Church, Totowa NJ about 18 – 20 minutes from where I grew up. The plenary and discussions got my mind working as I sought to apply what I learned from these planters and what I have experienced in ministry these 22… Read More Musical Tone
I read a blog by Brian Croft the other day who asked some questions concerning our assumptions on decline that got me thinking. Like him the more I hear the push “to overcome” the “plateau or decline” the more I pause and think of scenarios where a church’s decline in numbers is not necessarily a… Read More Decline and…
The Vicar's Garden 