Planting a new church in East-Central Austin.
Austin, TX
Joined August 2020
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A year ago a skeptic came to our group. They wrestled with faith, their past, and God over months and probably 100 hours of conversations. They came to faith and were baptized recently. Today they asked me to be a pastoral reference for their seminary application.
God is good.
If you are concerned about Christian Nationalism, the relation to Christ and Culture, and Biblical Christianity in Texas let me interest you in supporting a church plant in the heart of the state, a few minutes from the State Capital itself whose vision is to see the gospel come first in conversion through repentance and faith and as a result, come in fullness to every area of life.
Theatxproject.org
Rogan’s basic mistake is the 10 C’s are not merely part of subjective religious expression. The 10 C’s are creational mandates. They include every person not merely those that subscribe to them. Whether they hang up in a classroom or not, every person on earth is responsible to God’s Law.
Need to listen to this whole thing to get MC’s take but FTR this is a significant conversation happening between 2 of Austin’s icons in a studio 5 minutes from our church plant. This is why we planted here.
Matthew McConaughey challenged the argument against putting the Ten Commandments in schools with a question that could reignite America’s biggest religious debate.
Joe Rogan: “I think the Ten Commandments are very interesting. The problem is mandating it in classrooms what about Muslims? What about Buddhists? What about Hindus?”
McConaughey: “Is there any of the Ten Commandments that you or anyone disagrees with? Or is the problem that it can be considered an oppressive authority?”
“If we have the Ten Commandments, could everyone also have time to practice their own faith?”
Good stuff. There is probably a connection between this reasoning and Exodus 4, and why Gershom is so urgently circumcised, not having been since he was born in Midian. As a member of the visible covenant community, Moses' son must receive the sign of the covenant.
This is also, maybe, a connection to the Mosaic Cov ultimately being within the Cov of Grace rather than works since the Mosaic (which is ultimately about blessing in the land) is tied to the sign given to Abraham in Gen. 15. At least this is what Alexander argues in his commentary.
I arrived at Westminster Seminary California a convinced Baptist. I left a paedobaptist. Meredith Kline did it, and he did it on three points I could not answer.
First, the new covenant is broader than the elect. Its visible administration encompasses more than the finally saved. Men can stand within it, receive its signs, sit under its ministry, enjoy its privileges, and yet never embrace Christ in saving faith. That is not an exception. It is the Bible's own picture from Israel to the warnings of Hebrews.
Second, baptism is the sign of the new covenant. The sign belongs to the covenant as God administers it in history. It marks membership in the visible covenant community, not infallible knowledge of election hidden in the decree.
Third, the children of believers belong to that covenant community. The promise runs to believers and their children as it always has. Paul calls them holy (1 Cor. 7:14), not because they are presumed regenerate, but because they belong to the holy people God has set apart in history.
Then Paul presses the point further in Ephesians 6. Writing to a Gentile church, he addresses the children directly:
Honor your father and your mother.
And he gives them the covenant promise attached to the command:
that it may go well with you.
This is remarkable. Paul does not treat the children of the church as outsiders awaiting admission. He takes a covenant command from the Decalogue and administers it directly to them as their command.
Nor does he discard the promise attached to it. Under the Mosaic economy, the promise was expressed in terms of life in the land, a typological inheritance pointing beyond itself. Writing to a predominantly Gentile congregation outside that land, Paul does not abandon the promise. He carries it forward into its eschatological fulfillment. The land type has yielded to the greater inheritance, but the promise still belongs to the covenant children to whom he writes.
A covenant stipulation given through Moses is administered by an apostle to the children of the new covenant church, complete with its promise transformed from type to antitype. Canon to covenant, command to promise, and the line never breaks.
Put those three points together and the Baptist fence cannot stand. I had built it on a single equation: covenant membership equals election. Kline broke the equation.
Once covenant membership was distinguished from election, the rest followed. The sign belongs to the covenant. The children belong to the covenant. Therefore the sign belongs to the children.
I did not change tribes. I learned to see the covenant whole.
#Paedobaptism #Baptism #CovenantTheology #Kline #Ephesians6 #SecondAdam
I've had a number of folks ask how we engage skeptics in ministry. Keller largely wrote the playbook for us, but we have new movements and muscles we have to use and build on after him. Here is an example, unoriginal to me since it is mostly rehashing Robert Bellah, but from my upcoming talk on Galatians 6:
The modern individual is radically atomized and individualistic, and committed to mutual equity and justice. Yet, these are contradictory commitments. In his letter to the Galatians, after laying out the total freedom of the Christian gospel for those “in step with the Spirit” (Galatians 5:16), the Apostle Paul says that living to satisfy oneself runs contrary to true freedom and grace. How so? Because Christian freedom compels one not to libertinism (living according to one's ultimate desires about self) but to mutual concern and service (see Galatians 6:2). The Christian gospel emphasizes both personal and communal responsibility, though modern individualism undermines both since it sacrifices communal concern for the individual. See also Luther on the Freedom of the Christian.
College students came to our plant’s monthly dinner tonight interested in our outreach to skeptics. When I asked them why, they all said because they were raised in Christian homes and they felt they really needed to examine their beliefs and doubts for themselves. You love to see good honest thinking and growing.
We have a street in East Austin that shuts down and thousands of people trick or treat. It is as close to 90’s culture as we get.
Contreras had a good series, but Aaron Ashby was an absolute unit on the mound. Good for the Brewers.
Just read Robert Alter. There is no world that polygamy was viewed positively by the OT authors or audience. It was misery.
No one can explain it but it takes 12 hours to drive across the state of Texas and it also takes 12 hours to drive out of Texas from any starting point. It is the Texas paradox.
Went to a community fall fest with one of our main local ministry partners tonight. Pretty much the whole event was run by college kids from the local Korean PCA… during a UT game… the kids are alright.
Danny Morgan retweeted
Gen Z is the least religious generation we've ever polled.
Today, about 36% of them say that they believe in God without a doubt.
When Gen X was asked that same question when they were they same age as Gen Z now, 57% were certain of God's existence.
Guys, we get to watch two small market, small ball, pitching dominant teams and neither has ever won a WS. Be happy. Baseball is awesome.
1-2 of the skeptics in our orbit are interested in Rome. Nearly all of them talk about or check out bapticostal mega churches.
One of the things you learn in church planting is that people do not need organized church programs. They don't need a perfect church community. They don't even need you to be perfect. But they really do need Jesus Christ, and you are someone (maybe the only person they know) who can bring them to Him. And, that is the greatest work on earth.
Returning home from the Spanish River Church Planting Summit today. Guys, do not sleep on this. I'm bummed it took me this long to get out for it. Been to dozens of church planting conferences over the years. The content at SRC is incredible, and the planters who attend are filled with wisdom from all over the world. 11/10.
@koobxwm talk on global immigration and the growth of Christianity was scholarly and pastoral. It gave me language for the dynamic I've watched in Austin over the past four years but couldn't explain. And @DPCassidyTKC talk on preaching with clarity and charity in your context was also stellar.
So, here is the naivety here. What does a philosophy of ministry look like for a biblical, Christian, and Presbyterian church in LA, Austin, rural Kansas, Suburban Alabama, Laos, Sydney, Hong Kong... It's not one size fits all, and that is what is missing here. There are many ways to be thoroughly biblical, Christian, and Presbyterian. We are aligned yet not monolithic in expression.
Boy... I can name a church plant in Urban Austin if anyone is looking to support that is pretty much only non-Xians let alone reformed familiar folks.
