Archive - Life
RSS Feed
Porterbrook ROC brings Porterbrook Network to Rochester, N.Y.
We’re very excited at Evangelical Church of Fairport to be the 11th Learning Site in the U.S. for the Porterbrook Network.
Our first fall term begins Oct. 3.
Update: we’re postponing the launch until January 2 so that we can get the largest possible participation.
More about the Porterbrook Network may be found on our local site’s website, porterbrookROC.com.
Porterbrook Network is a two-year church-based theological training program with a supported self-study structure with others who are training in a similar field, church or geographic affiliation.
Steve Timmis and Tim Chester, co-authors of Total Church and founders of The Crowded House, created The Porterbrook Network in the U.K. in 2006 in response to a conviction for churches to become more Gospel-Centered and for new Gospel-Centered churches to be planted.
The vision of Porterbrook is to equip individuals and churches to rediscover mission as their DNA, to become better lovers of God and lovers of others, and to proclaim the Gospel through word and action for the Glory of God. Porterbrook is being used in the U.K., U.S., Canada, Italy, Ukraine, India, South Africa, and Australia, and Porterbrook Learning material is currently being translated into Chinese, Russian, and Italian.
A ‘letter from God’ by Sarah Palin
There’s been quite the hubbub over the release of some 24,000 emails by Sarah Palin on Friday, June 10 — and a thud of disappointment from the media in finding no smoking gun among the 300 pounds of printed correspondence.
Now, this is by no means any sort of political endorsement of Mrs. Palin. (And no, it’s not an endorsement of new special revelation from God.) But this note, sent to her family in April 2008, is touching — and it speaks volumes about her faith:
Tempted and Tried
I was going to post a review of Russell D. Moore’s Tempted and Tried but Mike Leake’s review at SBC Voices sums it up well enough: Review of Tempted and Tried | SBC Voices.
Just a few additional comments:
Moore’s crisp writing gets right to the point: temptation is a danger and sin is far more serious than we usually treat it. The author’s candid warnings jarred me in several places; for example, when he calls us to be honest about sin: it’s not that we “struggle with procrastination” but rather that we are “lazy.”
I highly recommend this book and I’d put this right along side some of the best works by Jerry Bridges on the subject.
Completed by the Spirit, Part 2: A Resurrection Like His
This is the second part of a series of posts adapted from a paper I presented at a New Covenant Theology think tank in upstate New York in July 2010.
In the first article in this series, we looked at five propositions that Paul introduces in his epistles about our relationship to the law and its relationship to our sanctification:
First, law cannot cope with sin.
Second, it’s the love brought to the saint through the indwelling Holy Spirit that is fulfills the law.
Third, it is the Spirit that produces fruit in the believer, while the law in our remaining sinful flesh can only produce sin.
Fourth, sanctification – a growth in holiness — results from our union with Christ and Scripture’s exhortations about what it means to be Christ-like.
Fifth, that the imperatives Paul gives to us are not themselves laws and are not given as laws or in the category of law, because they flow from the indicative of our reliance upon Christ and our position in Christ.
Before we address those five propositions individually in future articles, we need to consider the eschatology of our sanctification. We will indeed be glorified, Paul promises (Romans 8:30). What is important now about that final and complete sanctification is what that state reveals about us – what that “not yet” tells us about our “already.”
Tchividjian: Too Good To Be True
I enjoy reading Tullian Tchividjian’s blog because of his unwavering commitment to the Gospel — not just in our justification but in our sanctification. Many in the “reformed camp” can focus too strongly on our own wretchedness and on law-based behavior modification in sanctification, while instead we should be relying on the finished work of Christ and growing in grace by beholding Christ. That sort of flesh-based attempt at sanctification leads to despair and a losing battle against sin — rather than the joy and victory we’re called to have — as I am arguing in my current series, Completed by the Spirit.
Today, Tchividjian writes about his new sermon series entitled “Pictures of Grace:”
What the Pharisee, the prostitute, and all of us need to remember every day is that Christ offers forgiveness full and free from both our self-righteous goodness and our unrighteous badness. This is the hardest thing for us to believe as Christians. We think it’s a mark of spiritual maturity to hang onto our guilt and shame. We’ve sickly concluded that the worse we feel, the better we actually are.
A friend refers to that feeling of guilt and shame as “Protestant penance.” Christ’s forgiveness removes that shame. Understanding that grows us in the knowledge and likeness of Him.
Original post: http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tullian/2011/05/24/too-good-to-be-true/
