Luke 6:46

While having coffee at the cafe in the local United Methodist church, at the sanctuary entrance they have a large display (with expensive-looking video and music, etc) to solicit for various questions about who they think God is, questions about the faith, etc, with a bunch of verses listed on sheets of paper with space provided so that you can "sketch or write you(sic) answer on this page." What's amusing about these questions is that one of the verses is Luke 6:46:
“Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?"

For a United Methodist church, with its generally wonky theology, I thought that this is quite ironic that they would choose this particular Luke text as a question.

(Strangely, the wireless internet connection wasn't working today at the UM church cafe, but this wasn't a big deal since I wanted to work on some C# coding with a book that I've been studying, plus I packed along my MP3 player to listen to a Mark Dever 9Marks interview, so all is well. I think the UM staff is on to me and shut it off just for my sake... :)

Also ironically is that in this interview I'm listening to with David Wells they've been discussing the state of the culture and how America is what could be considered predominantly "spiritual" and how this puts the Christian message in a much different context - closer to the Nchurch as it was in the context of Acts. That "spiritual" direction describes a lot of how it feels walking through in this UM church - spiritual flavoring but no high-view of scripture, no Scripturally-sound doctrine, etc.

They do have a nice cafe though with half-decent coffee.  Just would have been nice had the WiFi been working...

Why We Don’t Evangelize - Mark Dever

Why We Don’t Evangelize

Nine Marks Church Search

Mark Dever's Nine Marks site offers a comprehensive church search directory, with the caveat that the churches listed are self-selected through affirming both the 9Marks mission statement and the T4G Affirmations & Denials, having been minimally screened by 9Marks staff.  The directory is fairly comprehensive, and I'm glad to see Oak Ridge Reformed Baptist listed as well.  A handy reference if you need to relocate and are looking for a like-minded church.

9 Marks of a Healthy Church

Just finished reading "9 Marks of a Healthy Church" by Mark Dever, which was one of the lending books offered at our church's last family camp that I had a chance to check out. I was curious to read this from some various things I've heard about the book, in addition to my familiarity with the 9Marks website and some of Mark Dever's MP3 resources that I've downloaded from that site. I've appreciated his teaching and interview series, so it was great to actually read this book (which I worked into various lunchbreak reading times at work...)

9 Marks presents an excellent systematic breakdown of nine core principles that ideally should be foundational to a genuine church of Jesus Christ. Right off the bat the first mark is expositional preaching, and to me that's so refreshing to see this addressed foremost. During my time church-hopping it was such a drain to find church after church presenting topical teaching with very little Scripture actually used. Dever's emphasis on the exposition of scripture is so refreshing, and how I'd personally love to see this book fall into the hands of so many churches throughout the Woodlands area...

Further marks include sections devoted to the Gospel, evangelism, church discipline - all sections an excellent reference manual of key elements that the church should not be without. Even from my own lazyman lay perspective I was really convicted that not only are these fundamental elements that must be a Biblical church, but the emphasis becomes to examine the church that we are a part of to see if the church work is adhering to these principles (which, praise the Lord, the church I'm currently a member of is... in fact, I wouldn't have had this book to read (see Mark 8... erm, the ninth mark of 'Nine Marks', not Mark chapter 8.... :)