Church Growth

Church plants and revitalization is a unique and difficult ministry. Unlike many ministers who serve in an established ministry context, church planters and revitalizers often encounter situations and problems that is distinctive to their contexts. Problems such as facing financial difficulty with...

Having been unable to see my friend, who lives just across the border from me, for roughly two years during Covid-19, I was a little startled when we met and he immediately said to me, “you got grey.” I had, in fact, developed a lot of grey hair, no doubt because of the amount of stress caused by...

The right preaching of the Gospel, the right administration of the sacraments and church discipline have together been held, among Protestants, as the key marks of any true church. And though the third mark, church discipline, has sadly been neglected in modern evangelicalism (greatly damaging the...

In 381 the Council of Constantinople wrote the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed. In that creed we find the attributes of the Church. The famous line says that the church is “one, holy, catholic and apostolic.” However, in the days of the Reformation disputes arose. The Roman Catholics contested the...

Vital Churches Wendell McBurney is our special guest. He’s been dean of research at Indiana University and has done a lot of writing in academic circles. Dr. McBurney has also been a valuable member of the RPCNA—the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America for many decades. Today’s topic is...

A beautiful singing voice is amazing. But then again the whole notion of music can be unfathomable. Maybe you think that is an overstatement or editorial license. But think about it. How can some people with aphasia, a communication disorder, sing with fluency? We see the same phenomenon with those...

Daniel De Superville – Bringing Comfort to a Pilgrim Church If the sixteenth century was a turbulent time for French Huguenots, the following century was disastrous. What little hope they had nurtured in 1598, when King Henry IV’s Edict of Nantes granted them some rights to worship and participate...

Pauline Fathme, Christian Rufo and the Early Missions to the Oromo When we think of Ethiopia, we often think of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, with its impressive buildings and its ancient, unique, and colorful traditions. The religious complex of Lalibela, for example, with its monolithic churches...

Henry ‘Ōpūkaha‘ia and the Birth of Christian Missions in the Hawaiian Islands Henry ‘Ōpūkaha‘ia lived only 26 years and is seldom known outside of the Hawaii. And yet, many believe that his love for the gospel changed the course of his islands forever. A Troubled Childhood Born in Ka`ū, Hawaii,...

In our last post we considered Paul’s warning to believers in the Galatian churches, ‘If you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another’ (Ga 5.15). And we noted that, sadly, this warning needs to be repeated to every church in every generation. The family of God...