Forthcoming Journal Article on Church Planting
I just got word that an article I wrote has been accepted for publication in the 2009 Mid-America Journal of Theology. It's entitled, “On Being a Church Planter.” Here is one of the introductory paragraphs with the thesis:
Since we are living in a time in which even the American media recognizes the interest in and spread of what it calls “The New Calvinism,” as seminaries and churches we need to equip our potential church planters to minister in these exciting times. As the King James Version translated Ephesians 5:16, we must “redeem the time.” My purpose in this article, then, is to give those who seek to minister among confessionally Reformed churches as church planters as well as the churches that will call these men to that particular ministry, some practical material from which to develop a passion for spreading the Reformed Faith in our generation. As a result, what I say will not be merely a discussion of the principles (principia) of church planting but how those principles should be applied to the practices (practica) of the person and character of the confessionally Reformed church planter. The necessity of such a practical approach is not only found in the fact that our theology is practical, as William Ames (1576–1633) said, “Theology is the doctrine or teaching of living to God,” but is found in the fact that church planting is extremely difficult and trying work physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.
I also have three book reviews of the following books in the same journal:
- Phyllis Mack Crew, Calvinist Preaching and Iconoclasm in the Netherlands, 1544-1569, Cambridge Studies in Early Modern History (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press; 1978).
- Peter Toon, Knowing God through the Liturgy (Largo, FL: The Prayer Book Society Publishing Company, 1992).
- David P. Scaer, Law and Gospel and the Means of Grace, Confessional Lutheran Dogmatics, Volume VIII (St. Louis: The Luther Academy, 2008).

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