What We Believe: Getting familiar with the EFCA Statement of Faith

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Brookside is a member of a larger denomination, the Evangelical Free Church of America (EFCA).  As part of this denomination, we stack hands with other EFCA churches on our “Statement of Faith” – a paper which briefly summarizes our beliefs about the following biblical and theological categories:

  • God
  • The Bible
  • The Human Condition
  • Jesus Christ
  • The Work of Christ
  • The Holy Spirit
  • The Church
  • Christian Living
  • Christ’s Return
  • Response and Eternal Destiny

This summer, we’ll be doing a “mini-series” on the blog where we include what the EFCA Statement of Faith says about each of these individual categories along with a few additional thoughts: These “additional thoughts” may include reflections, questions, defining of terms, recommendations for further study, applications, ways a particular point confronts American culture, things to keep in mind as we read a particular point, and more.  (Perhaps instead of “additional thoughts” we’ll call them “random musings” related to the theological point…)

If there are further ways I can be approaching this series that you’d find particularly helpful, give me a holler and we can add your request to the “additional thoughts” pool and try to incorporate it that way.

The purpose of this mini-series will be to get you a bit more familiar with the EFCA Statement of Faith, to foster theological thought within certain categories, and to connect what we believe with everyday life.

(To see the full EFCA Statement of Faith and get a preview of what’s coming, click here.)

Keep watch for the next post coming in a day or two: Getting Familiar with the EFCA Statement of Faith – What We Believe About God.

Worth-a-Watch: John Piper interviews Rick Warren

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Earlier today I took some time to listen to/watch an interview between John Piper and Rick Warren.  I appreciated so many things about this interview: the chance to see two well-known pastors interact and seem to enjoy each other’s company, the theological clarity, and more.

These two men represent two “evangelical subcultures” that, when stereotyped, are often pitted against each other.  But this interview is conducted (by design) in a way that is respectful, seeking-to-learn-and-listen, and clarifying.  And this is what I appreciate most about this interview, and why I’d encourage you to take 90 minutes of time over this long Memorial Day weekend (or whenever you run across this) and follow the link below and give it a-listen or a-watch.  May we see more of this respectful dialogue, while at the same time pursuing and clarifying truth, in the future.

Click here to be taken to John Piper’s interview of Rick Warren.

Ask Anything: “What is the biblical doctrine of election?”

Posted on by TimDoubleU
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A few weeks ago after a church service in which the sermon referenced Ephesians 1, I was asked the following question (this is a paraphrase): “How are we to understand the biblical doctrine of election?”  (Most simply stated, the New Testament doctrine of election states that God has specially chosen certain people to salvation.) This is a great question, because “the question behind the question” so often deals with other important issues, such as God’s character (“Is an electing God fair?”) and motivation for evangelism (“Why should I share the Gospel if the individual may not be one of the elect?”).

I lobbed out an answer and had some good discussion with the individual who asked the question in our church lobby, but later that week I was reading through Ephesians 1 in my own time with God and journaled some additional thoughts related to this question.  These journaled thoughts, with some additional editing, have morphed into this blog:

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Purpose in Prayer (Somethin’ ’bout the Sermon, May 22, 2011)

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On Sunday as we continued our “Facetime” series on prayer, Pastor Steve mentioned a book that has been formative in his own thinking on prayer and that he recommended to all of us.  Here’s the book: A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities from Paul and His Prayers by D.A. Carson.

The idea of the book is this: A great place to learn about prayer is from the prayers of the Bible.  D.A. Carson focuses specifically on the prayers of Paul, and most of the book is expositions of many of the prayers of Paul we find in the New Testament.

To further whet your appetite and convince you that this book is worth-a-read, below you’ll find the table of contents of the book (so you can see what’s covered), and a few things I underlined in the introductory chapter (so you can get a taste of the actual writing).

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Priorities in Prayer: Some Reinforcing Advice from Martin Luther (Somethin’ ’bout the Sermon, May 15, 2011)

Posted on by TimDoubleU
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On Sunday Brookside began a new Sunday morning series called “Face Time,” in which we’re looking closely, over the course of four weeks, at the spiritual discipline (and privilege) of prayer.  In his first sermon of this series, “Priorities in Prayer,” Pastor Steve called our attention to the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:9-13 and drew out certain priorities from this prayer in Scripture that should shape the priorities we bring to our own prayer life.

(To listen to the full sermon, click here to be redirected to Brookside’s “messages” page, then scroll down to the May 15, 2011 sermon.)

Pastor Steve highlighted the ongoing value of the Lord’s Prayer towards the end of this sermon by saying this: “If you haven’t prayed a single prayer in your life, you can’t go wrong praying this one prayer [i.e., the Lord's Prayer] every day…”  And my guess is that Pastor Steve would also agree that, even for those of us who have been praying for years but at times struggle with the practice of prayer, this same advice stands and could be restated this way: “You can’t go wrong praying the Lord’s Prayer whenever you need some fresh life breathed into this habit.”

The great reformer Martin Luther took a similar stance.  In his booklet “A Simple Way to Pray” Luther writes that there were times when he found himself to be “cool and joyless in prayer, because of other tasks or thoughts (for the flesh and devil always impede and obstruct prayer).”  In these times, one of the ways Luther reinvigorated his prayer life was by repeating the Lord’s Prayer word for word.

With these suggestions commending the continued use of the Lord’s Prayer for our own prayers, here are two simple ways to consider using this prayer in Matthew 6:9-13 to (re)invigorate your prayer life:

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Orientation: Book Recommendations by Category

Posted on by TimDoubleU
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As part of the fresh facelift on our blog, be sure and notice that we’ve added a “Recommend” tab along the top bar of the page – this will direct you to a page where you can access dozens and dozens (and dozens) of books we recommend, organized topically.  Because we’ve chosen to include a large number of books categorized under certain headings, we’re using this post to serve as a sort of orientation to this “Recommend” page and its categorization; our hope is that once you’ve read through the material included here you’ll be set up to navigate our “recommend” tab comfortably.

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Equipping Ourselves to Die

Posted on by TimDoubleU
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Over the last few months, end-of-life issues have repeatedly come up for me in a marked way.  First, this “end-of-life” theme has surfaced in some of the reading I’ve been doing lately.  In Christianity Today, for example, two issues since the start of 2011 have dealt with issues related to this end-of-life topic, each one coming from a very different angle.  The cover story for the Jan 2011 issue introduced us to developments in biology and technology that are extending life and slowing the process of aging, so on the one hand the “disappearance of death” in America may seem to be gaining momentum.  But on the other hand, the Apr 2011 column by Carolyn Arends was subtitled “Why we should remember that we will die,” and in the article she reminds us of the medieval practice where monks would greet each other with the phrase “Remember you will die.”  In a tongue-in-cheek exercise I combined the (given) titles of the two articles and provided my own subtitle: “Chasing Methuselah, Going Down Singing: No matter how long we live, we need to remember that we will die.”

A second, and much more somber, way end-of-life issues have come up lately is because of my role as LIFEcare pastor, where I play a “first contact” sort of role for those in our church who are hospitalized and/or sick.  Even in this role where it is common to encounter various levels of suffering, a few cases have recently surfaced where – barring intervention from God in any way He may choose to act – people are facing the end of their lives, and the timeline is much shorter than anyone guessed.

The combination of these things has led me to think more deeply than usual about how best to think about, and prepare for death – both for myself and helping others “die well” also.  Certainly, there are many practical things that need be done (getting a will written, etc.), but below I’ve included several things (this isn’t an exhaustive list) that will help equip any believer in Jesus Christ to die well, no matter how long we live.

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