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Dear Church Family, In the corporate worship of the church, the pastoral prayer (called “the long prayer” in some traditions) has fallen on hard times. If there are any prayers publicly offered in worship services today, they are often limited to opening and closing prayers for the service and the sermon. Thus, whether intentional or not, prayer can come to be seen as a merely perfunctory transitional element in the worship service. Yet, the prayers of God’s people, along w

Dear Church Family, One of the elements of worship that is often overlooked, or perhaps taken for granted, is the giving and receiving of offerings for the support of the gospel ministry of the church. Some people see the giving of offerings as a sort of due which one gives because they are a member of the ‘club.’ While this may be the historic practice in some churches (thinking of giving to the church as a sort of ‘due’), that is not the case in the Scripture. We do not g

Dear Church Family, For many people, singing is one of the most affective parts of worship. By its very nature, music affects our emotions unlike many other things. When the people of God sing together, they join in one voice giving expression to both the content and the affections of their faith in a unique way. Perhaps this is why, for many, when they think about worship they think only about singing and music. The Uniqueness of Singing Indeed, singing is a unique ele

Dear Church Family, In the last several pastoral reflections, we have been examining the various parts of our corporate worship service. After discussing some of the foundational principles of worship and what it means to prepare for worship, last time we looked at the salutation and response (these previous reflections are available online at the blog linked above). This week, we come to the call to worship and the invocation. As we saw in our examination of the salutati

Dear Church Family, In the first installment of this series on corporate worship, we examined some basic principles that inform worship in the Christian church. And, last time, we discussed some of the important aspects of preparing for worship – things that would help God’s people in preparing to enter His presence as a church body. This week, we will begin addressing some of the individual elements of the corporate worship service in the order in which we typically employ

Dear Church Family, In last week’s email, I addressed some general principles of corporate worship. This week, I would like to provide some helpful recommendations in preparing for worship. At the beginning of our corporate worship service, we have a time designated in the order of worship as “Silent Preparation for Worship;” however, there are things that we ought to do during the week before we even arrive at church on Sunday morning in preparation for worship. Worship

Dear Church Family, This week, I am beginning a series of reflections on the corporate worship of the church. My aim will be to first enumerate and define a number of the foundational principles concerning the public worship of God. Then, in the subsequent weeks, I will speak to the meaning and purpose of each of the various elements of worship. In all of this, I will seek to emphasize the Biblical and Reformed concepts, with a particular eye to their application in our loc

Dear Church Family, In the adult Sunday school class, we are in the midst of the final lesson of the “Church Membership 101” series. Having examined and discussed the five vows of membership, we are briefly discussing two additional topics of predestination and paedobaptism (the practice of baptizing infants). These lessons are introductory and, therefore, not exhaustive. Here, I thought it might be helpful to simply offer a very brief exegetical explanation of the doctr

Dear Church Family, In our sermon this past Sunday from Ephesians 2:8-10, “Gratitude: Walking in Good Works,” we noted that the Apostle Paul speaks of “works” (or deeds) in two very different ways. In verses 8-9, he declares that we are saved by grace through faith, “not as a result of works.” Then, in verse 10, he also declares that we are created in Christ Jesus “for good works,” which God has prepared beforehand so that we should walk in them. So, the question is: how ca

Dear Church Family, In the past two weeks, I shared the first two of three in a series of articles written by Carl Trueman regarding the importance and benefits of confessionalism. In the first article, “ I Confess (Part I) ” Trueman argued that confessions stabilize and regulate the public teaching of the church. The emphasis of that article was to say that disciplined confessionalism regulates and informs the preaching and teaching of her officers. In the second article,

Dear Church Family, Last week, I shared with you the first of three in a series of articles written by Carl Trueman regarding the importance and benefits of confessionalism, “ I Confess (Part I) .” In that first article, Trueman argued that confessions stabilize and regulate the public teaching of the church. The emphasis of that article was to say that disciplined confessionalism regulates and informs the preaching and teaching of her officers. Confessions and Christian

Dear Church Family, Last week, I referenced and quoted from Carl Trueman’s article, “Why Christians Need Confessions.” If you haven’t yet read that article, I commend it to you again. I believe that confessions and catechisms are useful – essential, even – to better understanding the teaching of Scripture, for discipling believers in the faith, and for growing in the wisdom of the Lord. I recognize that the “essential” nature of confessions and catechisms might require s

On the final day of my Army Reserve duty at Fort Hood, TX last week, I had to complete some paperwork and administrative duties before I could depart. Once finished, I decided to make my rounds and check in on some of the other soldiers in my unit.

Dear Church Family, In the sermon this past Sunday, I related how a friend of mine was killed in Iraq in 2003. In seeking to illustrate how Jesus is a “wonder of a counselor,” I also quoted from the conclusion of a book written by his fiancé more than ten years after his death. By way of recommending that book, Letters to Ernie by Michelle Blanco (published in 2016), I want to share a little of the background. When I first read Michelle’s book, I began to read and could

Dear Church Family, This past Sunday evening at the PWPC Christmas party, we enjoyed much wonderful food, conversation and fellowship, songs from the children of the church, and the corporate singing of some Christmas hymns. My wife and I also want to thank you for the surprise Christmas present and card which was given to us at the party. We are very grateful to the Lord for guiding our steps to the home that we have found here at Park Woods. May the Lord continue to bless

Dear Church Family, The overarching theme of our current sermon series is the glorious blessings and promises which are foretold in Isaiah and realized in the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ in Isaiah 9:1-7). This coming Sunday, we will be looking at how Isaiah describes the coming of the Messiah as being akin to the battle of Midian (Isaiah 9:4-5): 4 For You shall break the yoke of their burden and the staff on their shoulders, The rod of their oppressor, as at the batt

Dear Church Family, In our current short sermon series in Isaiah, From Gloomy to Glorious, we’ve reached the halfway mark. So, I thought this might be a good time to summarize where we’ve been so far as we prepare to transition from Isaiah’s gloomy prophecies to his glorious promises of the coming Messiah. The Gloomy Prophecies In the first half of our sermon series, we found that Isaiah’s ministry, at least initially, was a gloomy one. While holding out hope for those

Dear Church Family, In our continuing Sunday school lessons on church membership, this past Sunday we began our lesson on the third vow of church membership: “Do you now resolve and promise, in humble reliance upon the grace of the Holy Spirit, that you will endeavor to live as becomes the followers of Christ?” A promise to endeavor to live as becomes the followers of Christ entails the believer’s pursuit of holiness and growth in sanctification. And so, we considered the

Dear Church Family, In the most recent adult Sunday school class, we surveyed some of historical Christological heresies, ways in which people have sought to understand the teaching of Scripture regarding the second Person of the Trinity. Yet, in the end, their conclusions were determined by the greater church to be heretical, or at least unorthodox. Theological Triage During our discussion, in an effort to answer questions regarding the importance of doctrines that s

Dear Church Family, In the adult Sunday school class this past Sunday, we devoted the time to answering two questions that had arisen the previous week. 1. In WCF 8.3, what does “harmless” mean? First, we sought to answer the question regarding the definition of the word “harmless” in a particular portion of the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) that we had studied. The Lord Jesus, in His incarnation, is described as being “holy, harmless, undefiled, and full of gra