Church Leadership Book Reading, Year 2
This past year I continued hosting a monthly book club with the leaders (mostly aimed at elders) of my church, aimed at theological and biblical development, conversation starters for ministry, and growing in a shared, cohesive vision for our church. The year 1 list can be found here. Below are the books we read together this year.
Same-Sex Identity and Pastoral Care
This is a lightly edited manuscript of a training talk I delivered to my presbytery on Saturday, April 27th 2024 on same-sex identity and pastoral care. The audio can be found here. The assumed audience is a mix of pastors and lay elders who have a passing familiarity with the topic. They were provided this reading list in advance. This talk doesn’t nearly hit everything related to this subject (I’ve written a good bit on other aspects of it here) but was aimed at providing a Reformed, Westminsterian framework for ministry to those who are same-sex attracted. As an aside, I am very aware that I mispronounced “concupiscence” in my talk; alas, it is a mistake I slip into all too often!
Introduction
I’d like us to imagine two pastoral situations, that if you haven’t already encountered, you’re likely to. First, a man in your congregation comes to you and says “I believe in the traditional Christian sexual ethic, that sex is reserved for marriage and marriage is the monogamous union of a man and a woman. But I’ve always struggled with same-sex attraction. I don’t indulge that desire in thought or action, but that compulsion or orientation to same-sex attraction has been present with me my entire adult life. Pastor, do I need to repent of that orientation?”
A lot of us are wondering what the big deal with the question is. Half are probably thinking, “He’s not acting on it, so of course he doesn’t need to repent! He’s already given up so much for Jesus, it’s cruel to add new laws on top of him.” The other half are probably thinking “Of course he needs to repent! A same-sex orientation is sinful, and ignoring any remnant of sin is a form of indulging sin!…”
How Do Our Kids Stay Christian?
I have a new article up on Mere Orthodoxy on how kids stay Christian. Much has been made of the great dechurching and how to evangelize people who left Christianity, but the real scandal is the volume of people who we failed to retain. This article is a summary of how I’ve tried to deal with this in our own church, based scripture and the best sociological data. Here’s the start of the article,
How do our kids stay Christian? Some version of this question has animated both scholarly and pastoral discussion over the last several years, especially as the great dechurching marches on unabated. This is not merely an academic question, but one that has kept younger parents anxious as they watch more and more of their peers turn away from the faith.
Of course, it is the Holy Spirit sovereignly acting as he wills that keeps people abiding in Christ. And of course, God who ordains the salvation of his children has also ordained the regular means of bringing about that salvation, specifically the word, sacraments, and prayer. But how should the church approach those gifts in regards to the discipleship of its children? And what steps can the church take to maintain its children’s faithfulness as they grow into adulthood?
Several recent works have provided invaluable insight into this dilemma, the most important of which is Handing Down the Faith: How Parents Pass Their Religion to the Next Generation (2021) by Amy Adamczyk and Christian Smith. Adamczyk and Smith looked at the religious landscape of North America over the last few decades and came to a simple conclusion: the communities that were most effective at handing down their religion were those that prioritized faith in the family home.
That might not sound earth-shattering, but it corroborated decades of sociological research showing that things like Sunday School, youth group, VBS, Christian camps, confirmation, and youth conferences are either minimally consequential to the maintenance of a child’s faith or in some cases actually counterproductive. Sociologists of religion have known for some time that these programs, while they feel nice, are led by earnest people, and have some anecdotal success stories, are ineffective for passing along the Christian faith…
The Arguments For Male Only and For Women’s Ordination
I’ve been discussing with some friends the best arguments for male only ordination and for women’s ordination. I think the best, most common arguments made for the two positions are summarized as follows…
