From Kevin DeYoung’s article in Christian Research Journal as posted on his blog. Summarizes many of the reasons that I’m a Calvinist as well

Young Christians have been drawn to Calvinism not because they were looking for Calvin or an “ism,” but because they were drawn to a vision of a massive, glorious, fall-down-before-Him-as-though-dead kind of God who loves us because He wants to.

The influence of Calvinism is growing because its God is transcendent and its theology is true. In a day when “be better” moralism passes for preaching, self-help banality passes for counseling, and “Jesus is my boyfriend” music passes for worship in some churches, more and more people are finding comfort in a God who is anything but comfortable. The paradox of Calvinism is that we feel better by feeling worse about ourselves, we do more for God by seeing how He’s done everything for us, and we give love away more freely when we discover that we have been saved by free grace.

I’d like to think that we are Calvinists because of what we see in the Bible. We see a God who is holy, independent, and unlike us. We glory in God’s goodness, that He should save miserable offenders, bent toward evil in all our faculties, objects of His just wrath. We rejoice in God’s electing love, which He purposed for us before the ages began. We are grateful for God’s power by which He caused us, without our cooperation, to be born again and enabled us to believe His promises. We take comfort in God’s all-encompassing providence, whereby nothing happens according to chance, but all things—prosperity or poverty, health or sickness, giving or taking away—are sent to us by our loving heavenly Father.

As Calvinists and Christians, we praise God for His mercy, shown to us chiefly on the cross where His Son died, not just to make a way for us to come to Him, but effectually for us such that our sins, our guilt, and our punishment all died in the death of Christ. We find assurance in God’s preserving grace, believing with all our might that nothing—not even ourselves—can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. We delight in the glory of God and in God’s delight for His own glory, which brings us, on our best days, unspeakable joy, and on all other days, still gives purpose and order to an otherwise confusing and seemingly random world.

What draws people to Reformed theology is the belief that God is the center of the universe and we are not, that we are worse sinners than we imagine and God is a greater Savior than we ever thought possible, that the Lord is our righteousness and the Lord alone is our boast.

The attraction of the New Calvinism is not Calvin, but the God Calvin saw—not some new fad, but something old with new life blowing through it from the Spirit of God.

Based on this post by Jonathan Dodson, Tim Chester’s You Can Change: God’s Transforming Power for Our Sinful Behaviour and Negative Emotions sounds like a great small group/missional community resource. It goes on the list of resources to get.

Dodson writes that You Can Change helps us “to believe what is true, to live in the pattern of grace” because

1. It is about Gospel-centered change: “The secret of gospel change is being convinced that Jesus is the good life and fountain of all joy.”
2. It heads off Gospel-distorting approaches to change: 1) Proving ourselves to God 2) Proving ourselves to others 3) Proving ourselves to ourselves.
3. Personal Change Project: Every chapter includes Reflection Questions for discussion and a Personal Change Project that helps us identify an area of sin in which we need gospel-centered change. This a powerful process.
4. Ten Key Questions: Each chapter raises an important question that leads us through the process of gospel-centered change. See Table of Contents here.
5. It emphasizes Faith and Repentance as key to change: “We begin the Christian life in faith and repentance, and we continue the Christian life in faith and repentance.”
6. Chapter 7 changed me on the spot: “If you let any of those gods down, they will beat you up. If you live for people’s approval or your career or possessions or control or anything else and you don’t make it or your mess up, then you’ll be left feeling afraid, downcast or biter. But when you let Christ down, he loves you still. He doesn’t beat you up; he dies for you.”

From Jonathan Dodson, of Austin City Life, posted on his blog Church Planting Novice

We just finished a class called Interpreting Scripture and Culture in a church that is very unchurched. The goal was for people to learn how to read their Bibles well, while also reading their culture well. In short, we are trying to plant a self-theologizing church.

It was a six week course that laid out a Trinitarian, Christ-centered approach to interpretation, followed by five weeks focusing on genres. This method taught them to depend on the Spirit, begin with the Text, move to Theology, and end up at Culture/Life.

Here is the syllabus for the course. I drew from various resources, many of which are just rolling around in my head, but the actual books and articles I returned to included:

Biblical Interpretation

• How to Read the Bible as Literature – Ryken provides a literary perspective that is typically neglected by hermeneutics books. He helps every genre come to life, to activate our imaginations, to enter the world of the text with intrigue and anticipation.
• A Basic Guide to Interpreting the Bible – Stein has decades of experience and offers a basic, accessible approach to reading the genres of the Bible well.

Cultural Interpretation

• Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism? Smith
• Is There Meaning in this Text? Vanhoozer
• v.Culture Dodson
• Counsel Ephesians – Powlinson’s article, now in Seeing With New Eyes, is marvelous. It is a tour through exgesis, biblical and systematic theology, ending up at practical theology. Although it assumes a certain level of knowledge of hermeneutics, its worth reading several times.

Pointers

Although it was a small class, we all learned a great deal, worshiped during our study, and grew in our understanding. Here are a few things I learned:

• Don’t call it Interpreting Scripture and Culture and people will be less intimidated. Call it Reading Bible and Culture Well or something.
• Use Fee & Stuart’s Reading the Bible for All It’s Worth for required reading again. It was well received.
• Continue to insist on homework and have the students run the last class.

From David and Sally Michael at the 2009 Children Desiring God National Conference via Jared Kennedy at SojournKids.com

How do you raise a generation that is Bible saturated?

1. Use the Bible in Bible Teaching…  Isaiah 55:10-11
   Sometimes the audio-visual explosion of methods for teaching the Bible can pull us away from actually open the book.  We should encourage our kids to bring their Bibles and use them.  If we are serious about teaching the next generation being biblical, then we should give some consideration to the place that our Bible—the book itself—should have prominence in our homes and our classrooms.  Are we teaching the Bible to our children, or are we just teaching lessons?  Are we teaching them to use their Bibles?  Are they biblically literate?  Can they find truth in their Bibles?  We wrongly assume that using the Bible is too difficult.  When we challenge our children to use the Bible, our children will rise to the challenge.

   Practically:

   • Encourage children to bring their Bibles to church.
   • Encourage Scripture memory.  Give rewards for putting the Bible on your heart.
   • Teach the children to treat the book with respect.
   • Put the Bible in your lap as you are teaching.  Read at least small portions (even to preschoolers).  As they become older, have them read.  Ask them difficult questions about the text.
2. Teach the Whole Counsel of God
   • Children need to be exposed to a wide variety of Bibles stories. We often repeat Bible stories to the exclusion of certain parts of the Scripture.  Acquaint children with us much as they can absorb.  We should not continue to give them the same shallow teachings.  When we limit the Scriptures to which our children are exposed, we limit their understanding of God.  When God is shown to be unchanging in so many different stories, we see that God is himself unchanging.
   • Children need to see all aspects of the character of God so they worship the one true God. When acquainted with large sections of the Bible, children will see the God of the Bible as who he is.
   • Children need a wide breadth of theological understanding. When we avoid the breadth of the Bible, children have an insufficient understanding of God and who he is.
3. Give a Chronological Bible Foundation
4. Teach True Doctrine
5. Inspire Children to Memorize the Bible
   What is learned in childhood is kept for a lifetime.  One of the most spiritually influential things in a child’s life is what is memorized in childhood.  It is best if this is a church wide program… because adults need the Scriptures too.  When we began a Bible memory emphasis in our church, we began to see adults and children praying the Scriptures.  When we are impressing memorization on our kids, it is important that they see our parents do this as well.  It is encouraging to our kids when they see that this is not merely something to regurgitate for a lesson but something that applies to their life.
6. Use the Word in Everyday Life
   The Words of Life can be used to inspire children to trust in God in the midst of the difficulties and fears of life.  If you want your children to think biblically, then we must think biblically.  We must put these words in our hearts and apply them to our lives as well.

Three Common Objections:

1. Children can’t sit and listen to a half-hour Bible lesson.
   It is too much to ask children to study the Bible. Children will rise to a high level of expectation.
2. Many of the truths of the Bible are too difficult for children.
   But children are not colored against the truth of Scripture.  We teach about hell to children.  They need to know the plight before they can recognize the rescue.  Many of our adults are learning along with their children.  You can explain difficult stories in a pre-school appropriate way
3. Sunday school should be fun.  Children learn by doing—they need to play games and do activities.  Otherwise, they will be bored.
   Children must be active listeners.  We must engage them.  But we should not assume that Bible is boring.  The Bible is not boring!  God is not boring!

What is the goal of all this Bible teaching?

To lead children to see their sin, repent, and turn to the living God.  When we are teaching the Bible, we can’t assume the Gospel.  “We must not allow marginal matters to become central, because, in a generation, that marginal thing will become the central thing.” –D. A. Carson  The gospel must always be central.

From John Piper at the 2009 Children Desiring God Conference via Jared Kennedy at SojournKids.com

First caution regarding indoctrination

We must be careful not to simply indoctrinate children without a due concern that they should also have a good reason for believing them.  Indoctrination tries to preserve a viewpoint from group to group or generation to generation without also helping them to “test all things and hold fast to what is good.”  You shouldn’t just be passing on blocks of information.  You should also be thinking about the process of how they learn to think about those truths.

Second caution regarding contextualization

It is amazingly helpful to think about how we do things with children first.  Then, this helps us understand something about how to do ministry and missions. Contextualization is a hot buzzword today.  Our task in contextualizing for kids is not merely contextualization as typically understood but concept creation (and with adults concept destruction).

When I say, for example, a ministry needs to be “God-centered,” everyone agrees.  But when I talk about the God-centeredness of God, people shake their heads “No.”  Do you feel more loved by God when he makes much of you or when he helps you make much of him forever?

Why is it so wrong for us to be self-exalting and so right for God to be self-exalting?  We find examples of God exalting himself throughout the Bible:  Ephesians 1:5; Psalm 19:1; Jeremiah 13:11; Psalm 106:7; Ezekiel 20:14; 1 Samuel 12:20; Romans 15:8; 2 Corinthians 5:15; Philippians 2:9; 1 Peter 4:11; Acts 12:23; 2 Thessalonians 1:9; Habakkuk 2:14; Revelation 21:23

So, this creates a crisis in people’s lives.  The idea of self-adulation is a huge moral hindrance to people believing in the God of the Bible.

John 11:1-4 (ESV):
Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent to him, saying, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.”  But when Jesus heard it he said, “This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.  So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

He lets Lazarus die, because he loves them.  How can this be love?

The main way that God loves us is not by making much of us or by sparing us trouble, but by making much of himself.  Love does whatever it has to do to provide the beloved with the deepest and longest satisfaction.  God is the one being in the universe for whom self-exaltation is the most loving thing.

We’re not into indoctrinating.  We don’t merely do contextualization but create categories.  All of life should be God-centered.  A good litmus test of whether or not you are God centered is whether or not you can exalt in the God centeredness of God.

From Demian Farnworth via Abraham Piper at Desiring God Blog

1. Read it repeatedly.
   Did you know you can memorize Scripture during your morning devotion? Instead of zipping through your reading for the day, pause and camp on one verse for a long time. You won’t regret it.
2. Pay attention.
   Sounds obvious, but often ignored. Simply forcing yourself to be aware of what you are reading can help you internalize the words. Repetition will make the mind wander. What you have to do is bring it back. 
3. Visualize what you are reading.
   Take Psalm 1:1 for example. “Blessed is the man who does not walk with the wicked nor stand in the way of the sinner nor sit in the seat of the mocker.” Your first tasks is to see the three actions here: walking, standing and sitting. If you can see the three main actions, then you can start to memorize the surrounding words. 
4. Create anchor words.
   In the above example, your anchor words are “walking,” “standing” and “seating.” In Colossians 1:15, my anchor words are image, invisible and firstborn. Whenever I get lost while reciting a passage I look for my anchor words to orient myself. 
5. Recognize patterns.
   In Psalm 1:1, after the first line, the next three sentences follow this pattern: a verb, a noun and a modifier. Think of each of these as a bucket you drop the appropriate word into. 
6. Start with the easy.  
   Now, some passages are easier to remember than others. Psalm 1, easy. A page from Romans, hard. On your first effort at memorizing large chunks of Scriptures, don’t tackle Romans. Build some confidence first by memorizing Psalm 1 or the Sermon on the Mount. 
7. Stagger.
   Sorry, not like you were drunk. What I mean is memorize an easy passage then a hard passage then an easy. Give your brain a break. This way you’ll avoid burnout.  
8. Build memorable associations.  
   If you want to remember difficult section of scripture like Romans 1:18-20, it helps to imagine God hovering like a brooding mountain over the world to represent all three verses.  This is a robust picture hard to forget. 
9. Anchor memorable associations in chapters.
   These rich word pictures can also help you when you’re trying to memorize entire chapters of the Bible. They orient you on a larger scale.   
10. Cheat a little.
    Once you’ve absorbed a hunk of Scripture, don’t be afraid to keep a sheet of paper nearby with keywords or section headings to help you out when you need a reminder. 
11. Narrate.
    Sometimes it helps to describe in your own words what you are trying to memorize. This will also help you build memorable associations, spot keywords and develop anchor words.  
12. Stick to a ritual.
    I find it easier to memorize Scripture in my car–I have a long commute–and before I sleep. Especially early on in the process of memorizing, I can’t remember my passage as easily anywhere else except these places. So, until I gain more confidence, I stick to this ritual.
13. Sing it.
    Try opera. Or a musical. The point is to be dramatic. As if you were in a play. [This is my favorite trick, by the way.]
14. Try mnemonic devices.
    Many of us learned ROY G BIV to remember the colors of the rainbow. Make up your own device to memorize anchor words or more. In Psalm 1:1, your device would be WSS, or walk, stand and sit.
15. Enlist your body.
    If mnemonic devices aren’t your cup of tea, use body parts. Classic example of this is Ephesians 6:10-18, the armor of God. Waist, chest, feet, forearm and head complete the armor and can help you navigate through this lengthy passage.
16. Repeat the alphabet.
    Say you just can’t remember that big word in 1 John 2:2. Run through your ABCs. When you get to P, it should trigger the word escaping you: propitiation. 
17. Type it.
    One way to memorize something like John 1:1-3 is to type it into your computer. Not once. Not twice. But ten times. Maybe more. Your call.
18. Hear it.
    After you’ve typed it, next, read it aloud and record it. Then listen to the recording several times. 

From the Desiring God Blog

Some of you may have little or no experience with what I mean by preaching. I think it will help you listen to my messages if I say a word about it.

What I mean by preaching is expository exultation.

Preaching Is Expository

Expository means that preaching aims to exposit, or explain and apply, the meaning of the Bible. The reason for this is that the Bible is God’s word, inspired, infallible, profitable—all 66 books of it.

The preacher’s job is to minimize his own opinions and deliver the truth of God. Every sermon should explain the Bible and then apply it to people’s lives.

The preacher should do that in a way that enables you to see that the points he is making actually come from the Bible. If you can’t see that they come from the Bible, your faith will end up resting on a man and not on God’s word.

The aim of this exposition is to help you eat and digest biblical truth that will

• make your spiritual bones more like steel,
• double the capacity of your spiritual lungs,
• make the eyes of your heart dazzled with the brightness of the glory of God,
• and awaken the capacity of your soul for kinds of spiritual enjoyment you didn’t even know existed.

Preaching Is Exultation

Preaching is also exultation. This means that the preacher does not just explain what’s in the Bible, and the people do not simply try understand what he explains. Rather, the preacher and the people exult over what is in the Bible as it is being explained and applied.

Preaching does not come after worship in the order of the service. Preaching is worship. The preacher worships—exults—over the word, trying his best to draw you into a worshipful response by the power of the Holy Spirit.

My job is not simply to see truth and show it to you. (The devil could do that for his own devious reasons.) My job is to see the glory of the truth and to savor it and exult over it as I explain it to you and apply it for you. That’s one of the differences between a sermon and a lecture.

Preaching Isn’t Church, but It Serves the Church

Preaching is not the totality of the church. And if all you have is preaching, you don’t have the church. A church is a body of people who minister to each other.

One of the purposes of preaching is to equip us for that and inspire us to love each other better.

But God has created the church so that she flourishes through preaching. That’s why Paul gave young pastor Timothy one of the most serious, exalted charges in all the Bible in 2 Timothy 4:1-2:

I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word.

What to Expect from My Preaching and Why

If you’re used to a twenty-minute, immediately practical, relaxed talk, you won’t find that from what I’ve just described.

• I preach twice that long;
• I do not aim to be immediately practical but eternally helpful;
• and I am not relaxed.

I standing vigilantly on the precipice of eternity speaking to people who this week could go over the edge whether they are ready to or not. I will be called to account for what I said there.

That’s what I mean by preaching.

Presented by David Michael, Pastor for Parenting and Family Discipleship at Bethlehem Baptist Church, at the 2009 Children Desiring God conference as posted by Jared Kennedy at SojournKids.com, the blog of the children’s ministry at Sojourn Community Church in Louisville, KY.

Bethlehem Baptist statistics:

Our congregation is 30% male and 60% female.  Our nursery has 18% male workers.  Our kindergarten—2nd grade group has 34% male workers.  By 5th grade, our classes are approximately 50/50.  43% of our teachers are male.  23% of our team leaders are male.  This is more of an administrative role, and men seem to be less detail oriented.  Of our male staff, 19% are single, 69% are married, and 57% have children of their own.

Why mobilize men?

1. Because men need to obey the Word as much as women do.
2. Because our sons and daughters need the benefit of seeing biblical masculinity up close.
   Our boys are missing the incentives that they once had to rise up and be like men.
   Our boys are missing training. Our men do not fully understand what it means to be a biblical man and pass this on to their children.
   Our boys are missing a biblical vision of true masculinity. “As young men, sometimes all we need is a picture of what we could become”—Eric Ludy
   Effective ministry to children and youth is effective ministry to men.
3. Because our children need to understand that Christian affection is for men as well as women.
   This is why we encourage our men to bring their children into our adult services… so that they will see men embracing God with affection.  Young boys need to see that they can do this.  Young girls need to desire men who engage with God.
4. Men are called to be spiritual leaders in the home and in the church. 
   Boys and girls need to witness men leading in the home and in the church.  Men who are effective in the home will be effective in our Sunday Schools.  Men who learn to be effective in the Sunday Schools will be encouraged and equipped to lead in their homes.

Why are men reluctant?

1. Stereotypes
   Over time, the cultural assumption has been that men are not equipped for early childhood work and ministry.
2. Lack of Confidence
    Men feel spiritually incompetent to teach their children, much less lead others’ children.  Men feel less confident in their faith, and they feel less able to teach the next generation.
3. Dominant Female Presence in the Leadership of the Ministry
4. Time
5. Trust
   Administrators see a legal liability with men, and there is higher parental concern that their children will be abused.  Men feel this to some degree.
6. Low Status
   This doesn’t seem like leadership.

How do we mobilize men?

1. Pray
   Secure the aid of Omnipotence.  “Your business is to train mortals for earth, and immortal beings for God, heaven and eternity…  By believing prayer, secure the aid of Omnipotence”—John Angell James.  Isaiah 31:1; Psalm 116:2
2. Call men to pursue a great challenge.
   “Many men respond to big hairy audacious goals.  I don’t know what that would be, but many men like a good challenge.”—Bethlehem Baptist volunteers
3. Call men to pursue a great cause
   Join us to raise a generation of boys that will act like men and not a generation that will be wimps and barbarians.  Call them to be strong and courageous Ephesians 6 men.  Men and boys will respond when we call them to take up their cross.
4. Impress on men their unique qualifications
   Men have something to give that women cannot, namely their manhood.  See John Angel James’ Addresses to Young Men.
5. Invite them
6. Invest in male leadership
   Bethlehem invested in a pastoral position.
   “Men need other men to inspire them, motivate them, and hold them accountable.  There are just some issues that only a group of good men can defeat.  Just like there are some things you don’t do alone in life such as swim in the ocean or climb a mountain, men should not go through life alone either.  Men need other men.”—Rich Johnson
7. Feed them! 
   Both physically (have donuts) and satisfy their hunger to learn and to benefit from ministry, that is, satisfy their Godly desires.

“This might seem like a strange ‘encouragement’, but I would tell them that it is HARD.  This takes time, effort, and energy.  You WILL become a stronger believer through this.  Your faith WILL grow.”  “I love that I benefit as much as the kids.  If you want to learn something, teach it.”—Bethlehem volunteers

From Puritan pastor David Clarkson, as referenced by Tim Keller during the 2009 Gospel Coalition National Converence via Tony Reinke’s blog

In the detailed sermon, Clarkson labels 13 manifestations of “soul idolatry.” He argues that secret and inner idolatry is equally sinful as physical and open idolatry. Clarkson writes, “He that serves his [inner] lusts is as incapable of heaven as he that serves and worships idols of wood or stone” and later writes, “there are thirteen acts of soul worship; and to give any one of them to anything besides the God of heaven is plain idolatry, and those idolaters that so give it.”

But Clarkson is quick to remind believers of the soul idolatry that remains in us. “Those natures that are most sanctified on earth are still a seminary of sin; there is in them the roots, the seeds of atheism, blasphemy, murder, adultery, apostasy, and idolatry.”

He then presents a list of 13 “soul idols”:

1. Esteem. That which we most highly value we make our God. For estimation is an act of soul worship.
2. Mindfulness. That which we are most mindful of we make our God. To be most remembered, to be most minded, is an act of worship which is proper to God, and which he requires as due to himself alone.
3. Intention. That which we most intend we make our god; for to be most intended is an act of worship due only to the true God; for he being the chief good must be the last end.
4. Resolution. What we are most resolved for we worship as God.
5. Love. That which we must love we worship as our God; for love is an act of soul-worship.
6. Trust. That which we most trust we make our god; for confidence and dependence is an act of worship which the Lord calls for as due only to himself.
7. Fear. That which we most fear we worship as our god; for fear is an act of worship.
8. Hope. That which we make our hope we worship as God; for hope is an act of worship.
9. Desire. That which we most desire we worship as our god; for that which is chiefly desired, is the chief good in his account who so desires it; and what he counts his chief good, that he makes his god.
10. Delight. That which we most delight and rejoice in, that we worship as God; for transcendent delight is an act of worship due only to God; and this affection, in its height and elevation, is called glorying.
11. Zeal. That for which we are more zealous we worship as god; for such a zeal is an act of worship due only to God ; therefore it is idolatrous to be more zealous for our own things than for the things of God; to be eager in our own cause, and careless in the cause of God; to be more vehement for our own credit, interests, advantages, than for the truths, ways, honour of God; to be fervent in spirit, in following our own business, promoting our designs, but lukewarm and indifferent in the service of God; to count it intolerable for ourselves to be reproached, slandered, reviled, but manifest no indignation when God is dishonoured, his name, worship, profaned; his truths, ways, people, reviled.
12. Gratitude. That to which we are most grateful, that we worship as God; for gratitude is an act of worship.
13. When our care and industry is more for other things than for God. We cannot serve God and mammon, God and our lusts too, because this service of ourselves, of the world, takes up that care, that industry, those endeavours, which the Lord must have of necessity, if we will serve him as God; and when these are laid out upon the world and our lusts, we serve them as the Lord ought to be served, and so make them our gods.