and the cross-fertilization she shares with the wider church, our brother Wyeth Duncan is meditating on AME liturgy and its indebtedness to the Methodist Episcopal Church which is indebted to the Book of Common Prayer. But what draws his attention this morning is this line of general confession in the communion liturgy: “We do earnestly repent, and are heartily sorry for these our misdoings; the remembrance of them is grievous unto us.”

I remember the first time I heard those words prayed. My heart went, “Yes. I’m grieved by my sin!” The prayer so wonderfully gives wording and vent to the Christian heart drawn in remembrance to its wanderings. And yet, we don’t stop with grieving, for in heaven sits enthroned our Perfect Righteousness. Our grief is turned to joy when our eyes are turned to Christ. In the gospel is the complete forgiveness of sins, but also the imputation of perfect righteousness which consoles us even when the knowledge of forgiveness can’t.

Grieve for your sins today. Then rejoice in Christ’s everlasting righteousness!

Yesterday, February 1st, began African-American history month. The annual celebration of African-American history began at the initiative of esteemed scholar Dr. Carter G. Woodson (1875-1950). Woodson is regarded by many as the father of Black history, and a copious preserver of that historical heritage. He participated in the founding of the Society for the Study of African American Life and History and for years ran an influential publication called The Journal of Negro History.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer takes up the issue of African-American churches fighting for relevance and effectiveness in inner-city contexts. See here for the schedule of articles. The series looks to be promising.

The first article points to the difficulty of traditional African-American churches attracting and reaching young people. The dynamic is an old one, the proposed solutions well-worn. But it’s useful to think through these things again and to discern biblical from unbiblical or merely pragmatic.

A couple of stats from the article:

There is reason to hope young people can be drawn back. In the 2008 Pew Forum Religious Landscape Survey, 71 percent of black adults under 30 said religion is very important in their lives, compared with 45 percent of all respondents under 30.

Pew Research Center surveys of 3,600 black adults in 2008 found only 14 percent of respondents ages 18 to 29 attended church more than once a week, half the percentage of those 50 and older. In contrast, 43 percent of younger respondents went a few times a year or fewer, compared with a quarter of the respondents 50 and older.

Stephen Nichols, an excellent and winsome historian, recently visited a Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Lancaster (named after “Mother Bethel”, the founding church for the first African American denomintation). He took his class and made a few observations over at Ref21. Here’s his last question:

Imagine falling into a coma and waking 30 years later. Imagine shaking off the slumber and asking, “What’s going on with the church?” What do you suppose would be the answers?

While washing up the dishes with my wife the other night, conversation turned again to the U.S. presidential election and the whole Obama-Wright thing. As we discussed Wright’s “performance,” another lesson learned long ago and taught by many long before me came back to mind: be careful how you build a church. Humanly speaking, whatever you do to build the church is what you’ll have to do to keep the church.

A partial transcript of Eric Redmond’s discussion of Jeremiah Wright on the Al Mohler radio show is available here. The radio interview is here.
Read more about Redmond here, and about the church he serves, Hillcrest Baptist Church, and the SBC here. And, here the brother share his views on pastoral ministry here and preach here.

Anthony Carter has quickly and easily become one of my favorite people in the world. All who know him know him by that big smile, graciousness and genorosity, and an immense love for the Lord and His people. I first heard of Tony during a dinner conversation with Ken Jones, Tony Arnold, and another pastor in Washington, D.C. Someone asked, “Have you read Tony Carter’s book, On Being Black and Reformed?” At the time I hadn’t, but my ears shot straight up. I was intrigued. I went out, purchased the book, and devoured it. Tony has great passion for seeing biblical truth proclaimed everywhere, but especially in predominantly African-American churches. He’s a reformer and I pray this interview encourages you.

1. Where are you from originally?
I was born and raised in Michigan, in the small rural and wooded community of Woodland Park. It is approximately an hour due north of Grand Rapids.

2. Were you raised in a Christian home? If so, what was your early church experience like? Tell us how you became a Christian?
I was raised in a nominally Christian home. By that I mean the Bible was there and we went to church every Sunday morning and evening. We were the proverbial church kids. My mother was the clerk of the church and directed the youth programs. So when the church doors were open we were there. However, outside of Sunday, little of Christianity was known or practiced. While my mother was in church every Sunday, I never saw my father in church one day of my life.

3. When and how did you decide to enter pastoral ministry? How long have you been in pastoral ministry?
Going into pastoral ministry really grew out of my growing conviction for the primacy of the church in God’s redemptive plan. Christ loves the church. I believe that those who love Christ should love what He loves. Thus, the pastoral ministry became more and more clear for me as I began falling more and more in love with the church.

4. How long have you been at your current church? Tell us about the church? And how has the labor gone so far?
Southwest Christian Fellowship was formed in 1985. I came to the church in 1991. My wife and I left for seminary in 1996. During my seminary years I served as an associate minister at Kingsway Baptist Church in Orlando FL. In 2001 we returned to Atlanta and began attending Southwest again. While we were in seminary, the church was a faithful supporter of ours. So, when the opportunity came to serve and give back to Southwest, it was a blessing to be able to do so.

5. You’ve accepted the necessary and wonderful role of serving as an associate pastor at Southwest. First of all, let me commend you and give God glory for men like you, who with humility and a servant’s heart are contented to use their giftedness as a co-laborer with faithful men in the gospel. But having said that, how is reform in a local church different from the associate pastor’s perch than it might be in a senior pastor’s position? What things must an associate keep in mind as he labors for reform?

Thank you. I remember reading what Spurgeon once said, “It takes more grace than I can tell to play the second fiddle well.” I don’t play second fiddle as well as I should, but whatever I am able to do, it is because of God’s grace. But to answer your question. Reform from my perch begins with support of the lead pastor. I have always felt that my first responsibility was to encourage the lead pastor in reform and preaching. I have frequently said that I don’t have to be the one preaching, as long as the one who is preaching is really preaching. Secondly, I have sought to discern between biblical truth and personal preferences. Personal preferences are not worth dying for, but biblical convictions are. Make sure that you are standing on biblical convictions and not personal preferences. Also, Robert Benson (senior pastor), as you know, is a most gracious and humble man. He makes it easy to serve with him because he genuinely seeks God’s glory and not his own.

6. How would you counsel other associate pastors who might be laboring alongside a man/men who are not reform minded?
The first thing to understand is that God already gave the church Martin Luther. If He wants another one, He’ll raise him up. Don’t spend your time presuming you are him. Commit yourself to people as much as you are to doctrine. I have found that those who are committed to people often find that those people are more open to being committed to their doctrine. Biblical doctrine is essential. Yet, we must make sure that people are seeing that these doctrines make a difference in our own lives before we can expect people to embrace them for their lives.

7. Have there been particular reform initiatives taken at Southwest? Tell us about those and how they’ve gone.
Indeed, there has been a truly gracious work of God in my life and the life of our church. It has not always been as smooth as we would have liked, but it has been a steady transition of important theological truths and their implications. One of the key elements was just getting the leaders to see that theology is inevitable. It also helps when you have written a book because people tend to know some of what you are thinking before you open your mouth. Nevertheless, we have had the pleasure of teaching through Grudem’s Systematic Theology twice. We took the elders and the deacons through the first class. Then we took our lay leaders and worship team through the next class. It proved to be the impetus for further reform, as we were able to frequently refer back to Grudem and have a common reference point for theological issues.

Also, exposing our worship team to Sovereign Grace Music and Worship Conferences has been great. While their music has a bit of a different taste than ours, it did show our team the need for a sound theological undergirding of our worship event. Reform in our worship has been most pleasing largely because of this exposure.

8. What fruit is the Lord bearing in the people of the church so far?
When you witness a Sunday School class on the Doctrines of Grace that is weekly filled to capacity and the pastors are not teaching nor attending, you know that there is fruit of God’s sovereign grace in the life of the church.

9. You also maintain an active ministry outside the local church. Tell us about those. What are you attempting to accomplish with those efforts? How do you balance efforts inside and outside the church?

Indeed, God has been gracious in giving me a ministry beyond Southwest. Frequently, my travels will take me away from my family and church, and yet like my family, I always take Southwest with me. Our church is very supportive of my ministry and will frequently allow my wife to travel with me by members of our church watching our 5 children for extended periods of time. It also gives me opportunity to expose people to the ministry of Southwest and vise versa. This has been most encouraging. And yet, with that, my itinerate ministry is third. First is my family. Second is my church. And third are conferences, retreats, and pulpit supply (My blog is somewhere down the list). With these efforts, I pray that in some small way I could cause people to see the truth of biblical, historical, experiential reformed theology. It has made such a difference in my life, I know it will make a difference in theirs.
And yet without a doubt, the only way I do what I do is because God has been gracious in giving me a wife who sees herself serving God by serving her husband and family. Robert is frequently reminding me how blessed we are to have wives like we do. I could not agree with him more.

10. As you look out over the African-American church, and the wider evangelical church world, what things encourage you?

I am particularly encouraged by God’s grace in giving us a spiritual uplift for biblical, substantial theology within this present generation. This is of particular excitement to me among African-American Christians. Thanks to brothers like yourself and those involved in the Council of Reforming Churches, God has been gracious in giving us a vision for the future that looks promising from where I stand. My children and grandchildren will have a legacy of Reformed Evangelical truth that is far more diverse than ours. Brother, it does not get any better than that!

I never get tired of reading that moniker!! There is something about powerful, Spurgeonesque, sound preaching in Africa that is just plain exciting! Nice 3-piece suit, too! The Unashamed Workman reviews a sermon from Conrad Mbwewe on 1 John 5:13-15.

And Lance is stealing Tony’s titles and asking some really good questions like:

As we enter the 21st century I’d like to pose some questions for those of us who came from, love and long to see reform in the black church. The first and perhaps most surprising is this: Should we begin to think in terms of a post-black church era? Is this the time to start thinking of re-defining the church apart from dominant ethnic labels? Granted, some of our other brothers and sisters may not be thinking this way, but why not take the lead? While thinking through your answers (and I’d welcome your responses and input) consider this: if we’re to continue having a black church who gets to define ‘blackness’?

Carolyn McCulley shares this quote from G.K. Chesterton passed on to her by a reader named Lindsay : “People talk of the pathos and failure of plain women; but it is a more terrible thing that a beautiful woman may succeed in everything but womanhood.” Wow! Now I’m asking myself… with all the beautiful women around me (my wife, daughters, sisters at the church), am I doing everything I can to help them succeed in womanhood? Have I thought carefully, creatively and long enough about that part of my responsibility as a brother in Christ and a pastor to many women? I’m not beating myself up; just noting that this deserves more thought and action.

GospelDrivenLife is taking a blogging sabbatical… I think. He’s on post #2 of reflections before going on his 1-week sabbatical. In the first post, he discusses how men around him hold him accountable for his blogging. I found this particularly humble, humbling, exposing and helpful:

What they have most helped with is to point out where my 25 years in ministry have tempted me to have “pet peeves” – or, to use biblical language, self-righteous anger. What do I mean by that? I mean that ministry involves conflicting with sin and error in my own heart and the hearts of people I serve. If a particular issue recurs, I am tempted to 1. self-righteousness (to think I am not guilty of such a thing), 2 impatience (as though I change quickly and they do not), 3. anger (I am tired of this issue and want to press for anger or shame motivated change). All of that is about pride and ambition and being angry that people did cooperate with my plans.

Today, we continue our interview series with brother Lance Lewis, pastor of Christ Liberation Fellowship in Philadelphia, PA. I first met Lance through the church’s website a couple years back and later in person at the Miami Pastor’s conference where he delivered an excellent address on reforming worship. Lance is good brother with a great love for the Truth of the Scriptures and for God’s people. I trust you’ll enjoy getting to know Lance; feel free to drop him additional questions in the comment section.
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1. Where are you from originally?

In West Philadelphia born and raised on the playground where I spent most of my days:)

2. Were you raised in a Christian home? If so, what was your early church experience like? Tell us how you became a Christian?

No I wasn’t. While my family wasn’t actively hostile toward the Lord we certainly weren’t a Christian home and never went to church together. My grandmother took me to one of the local Pentecostal churches (COGIC) when I was four or five and later on when I was around 12 I went to another Pentecostal church with an older cousin. I don’t remember much about these experiences. I became a Christian through the witness of a very good friend. He grew up in a Christian home but did not claim to be or live like a believer for the first four years we hung out. Following his conversion he constantly told me and another good friend (Rev. Kevin Smith of Pinelands PCA) about the Lord and invited us to church. We went during one summer revival and after a message on salvation we went to the altar and committed our lives to the Lord. Following that we became members of that local Pentecostal church.

3. When and how did you decide to enter pastoral ministry? How long have you been in pastoral ministry?

I believed I got the call to pastoral ministry during my third year of college. Early in my walk with the Lord I had a strong desire to know and talk about the Scriptures. I was often asked to lead small bible studies in church and in college. During the time of my call I was seeking the Lord for further direction in life. While I was drawn to the prospect of teaching the Scriptures as a full time vocation I didn’t know if that was me or the Lord. I enjoyed studying psychology (my college major) and was looking into possibly becoming a counseling psychologist but felt or sensed (hard to explain) a growing desire to preach and teach the Scriptures to God’s people. One time while in prayer I felt (I cannot tell if it was me or the Lord) a particularly strong call to preach the word. I spoke to my pastor about this and he counseled me to continue seeking the Lord and set me up to preach a trial sermon. (In my tradition those who believed God has called them to the ministry are given the opportunity to preach what’s called a ‘trial sermon’ usually on a Sunday afternoon or weeknight service which gives the pastor and congregation the chance to confirm the call).

In October 1984 I preached my trial sermon from Joshua 1 on the importance of following God’s word and the pastor, my church and of course my mother and aunt agreed that I was called to preach.

I’ve been in full-time vocational ministry for 12 years and served as a full time lead pastor for 5 years.

4. How long have you been at your current church?
I’ve served at Christ Liberation Fellowship since it’s inception in Nov. 2001.

5. Tell us about the church? How did the decision to plant a church out of Tenth come about? And how has the labor gone so far?

CLF actually grew out of my call to preach. I believed that my call was accompanied with a desire to start a church that would feature strong, biblical teaching, sustained community outreach and a warm, informal fellowship. I believe the social/religious context I was in affected these aspects of my call.

By the time God called me I had moved on from the church where I got saved to a larger Pentecostal church in another part of Philadelphia. I grew under the love and care of this church yet believed there were some crucial things missing from its ministry. At the top of the list was sound, systematic biblical teaching from the pulpit. Another was the lack of coordinated and concentrated good works which I believed served to demonstrate the compassion of our Lord and pave the way for beginning relationships in which God’s people could share the gospel. During the late 80′s I studied and embraced Reformed theology. Upon doing so we moved our membership to Tenth Presbyterian Church under the pastorate of Dr. James M. Boice. Though the venue changed my call didn’t. However I now wanted to spread the truths of Reformed theology to those in my community.

I like to describe CLF as a reformed, neighborhood, multi-ethnic church that is committed to making disciples who make a difference in our community, our city and our world. We are a small group of God’s people striving to walk before Him in holiness, delight in His Person, spread the gospel of Jesus Christ and have a great time doing it. My hope and prayer is that CLF will be the start of a church planting/revitalization movement in the greater Philadelphia area that promotes biblically driven church planting.

I want us to focus on having a strong teaching ministry, sustained community outreach and a warm, welcoming fellowship.

6. Why plant a predominantly African-American congregation instead of remaining at Tenth and helping African Americans settle there? Was there a particular neighborhood and/or reform agenda driving the decision to plant?

Good question. There were a number of reasons, but I’ll list just a few. I first approached Tenth with the idea of planting a predominantly African-American church in the early 90′s. My desire wasn’t to perpetuate racial separation but to seek to expand our reform witness into areas of the city where it was absent.

My first thought was that the witness of the gospel may be best spread in a city like Philly with dozens of small to medium sized neighborhood churches, as opposed to large regional center city churches. Philly is a city of neighborhoods and it is my conviction that people in those neighborhoods should have access to a church they don’t have to drive or take public transportation to. This is especially important since I believe that the church should pursue ways to live out our mandate to do good works (Eph. 2:10) which build relationships with community residents who should then be able to attend the church that’s in their neighborhood.

Secondly, having embraced reformed theology I was convinced that African-Americans should be discipled based on what the Scriptures taught about God, man, sin, salvation, Jesus Christ, the church etc. Along with that I thought that it was biblically prudent and correct to present reformed theology and practice in a context that required those I was called to reach to cross as few cultural barriers as possible. I was concerned that remaining at Tenth would have sent the signal to blacks who embraced reformed theology that they could do so only if they were willing to check their culture and heritage at the door.

Third, while I certainly hold to the genuine multi-ethnic reality of the kingdom I believe that in light of our present ethnic context it’s actually better for our white brothers and sisters to join with black believers, submit to black leadership and function as the minority in multi-ethnic settings. It seems too often that we speak of becoming multi-ethnic with the view that blacks should still be the minority in the church. Of course I’d love to have even more ethnicities within CLF. We’re currently around 75% African-American and 25% Anglo-American. Lord willing we’ll gather more and more believers from other groups also.

7. How has the church been received in the community so far, especially given the Reformed and Presbyterian nature of the church? Are you an odd duckling or does it matter much?

In many ways we are the odd man out. My relatives are encouraged by the messages and appreciate the warmth of our folks but make it clear to me that we are not a ‘black church’. For others we certainly aren’t your typical Reformed Presbyterian church. The community has appreciated our attempts to connect with them by reaching out and working for the good of the community however. I’ve come to realize that we will not fit easily in many of the current ethnic church categories. This was especially evident this past Good Friday when I shared the pulpit with several traditional black preachers, as well as one from the prosperity theology culture. My hope is that we’ll become known for being a faithful witness to the gospel of our Lord, delighting in His great salvation, loving each other, our neighbors and our city and impacting the greater black community with reformed theology and practice.

8. What fruit is the Lord bearing in the people of the church so far?

God has graced us to have a congregation that is growing in our love for God, His word and the truths that speak of His salvation in Jesus Christ. I’m beginning to see God change much of what we’ve mistakenly learned about Christianity and orient us to His word. I’m grateful for the attitude of service He’s developing among us and the many 20 somethings that hunger for good teaching and want to pair it with godly living. We’re learning the discipline of patient prayer, growing in hospitality and have become more sensitive to areas such as biblical social justice and foreign missions. God has also grown us to have a desire to apply our theology to the city we live in.

9. What issues occupy the bulk of your prayer life for the church?

SPIRITUAL GROWTH, DEVELOPMENT, MATURITY AND TRANSFORMATION. I’ve come to see that the Christianity myself and many of my folks learned was deficient in that it failed to address real issues related to biblical change and growth. WE NEED THE GOSPEL, not the quasi bargain many of us have been taught is the gospel. Many of us have struggled with the same issues for years honestly believing that our ‘breakthrough’ was just around the corner. My prayer is that we will begin the patient task of leaning on our Lord, studying His word and seeing Him transform our lives.

10. As you look out over the African-American church, the PCA, and the wider evangelical church world, what things encourage you?

mmm… looking at the black church I see more cause for concern than encouragement. Yet, I’m grateful to know that there are some good solid teaching churches in Philly and thank God for their consistent gospel witness. I’m encouraged at their impact on black men in our community and desire to address some of the difficult issues in our city.

I’m more and more encouraged by what God is doing among African-American reformed brothers. I’m about to begin a reformation society with not one but two reformed Pentecostal pastors. I’ve fellowshipped with both and can’t wait for us to work together to bring reform to the churches and communities of Philadelphia. The Council of Reforming Churches is a group I’ve wanted to participate in for a long, long time. I’m so grateful that brothers like yourself, Tony Carter, Michael Leach, Eric Redmond, Louis Love Jr. and others have joined together to see biblical theology impact the black church and African-American community. I’m encouraged by reading blogs like Pure Church, Non Nobis Domine, A Debtor To Mercy and Black Creole Reformer. More and more I marvel at what God is doing in the northeast as we’ve been blessed with a growing number of reformed churches led by black pastors like Gaithersburg Community Church with Tony Arnold, Forest Park Community Church (Balt. MD) with Sam Murrell, New Song Community Church (Balt. MD) with Thurman Williams, City of Hope Church (Columbia MD) with Irwyn Ince, Calvary Bible Church (Philly) with Doug Logan and The Church of God in the Word (Philly) with our brother Eric Wright.

We should all be grateful for churches like Tenth Pres in Philly for how they’ve taken the lead to serve the city and actively participate in planting churches throughout the region. Under the pastorate of our friend Dr. Phil Ryken Tenth continues to be a model for faithful, relevant, biblical ministry to the world and the reformed community. They’ve faithfully supported me for several years and have shown that Anglo churches can indeed plant daughter churches that model them in the essentials of theology and ministry philosophy while allowing diversity in non-essentials.

Regarding the wider evangelical world it does seem we’re experiencing a growing hunger for transforming biblical theology. The CT article on Young, Restless and Reformed, the high attendance at Reformed conferences and the popularity of brothers like John Piper testify to the Lord’s faithful shepherding of His people.

By God’s grace and power we may yet see a true revival for the glory of God, the expansion of Christ’s kingdom and the discipline of the nations.

For Christ, the Church and the Truth
Pastor Lance Lewis