Comments on: New Calvinism Breathing Life into a Tired Church

By: John

John — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:46:09 +0000

Do you have any dates for those quarterlies yet? Whose co-ordinating, JD?

By: Stephen Murray

Stephen Murray — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 20:30:13 +0000

Hi Jake and Rod thanks for reading and commenting.

Rod – just to encourage you further we held an Acts 29 conference here in Cape Town in February with over 100 pastors and churc leaders attending. At the end of this month we begin church planter quaterlies here in Cape Town and there are plans afoot to start similar quarterlies in Johannesburg and Durban. So the momentum is building here.

By: Rod McWilliams

Rod McWilliams — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 20:16:09 +0000

Stephen,

I’m like Jake. Been reading your blog for many months without jumping in. Your comments resonate with me completely. In fact, I was having this very conversation with a brother yesterday.

One of the observations I have made regarding Acts29 is how diverse they are. The coalitions they’ve entered into with Crowded House, Desiring God, Redeemer NYC, etc. suggests to me that something is afoot.

And it is particularly exciting when I consider my homeland. Australia has been a Christian wasteland for years. Acts29 just hosted 900 young men in Seattle seeking potential church planters. My country [and yours as well] were well represented. My hope is that a groundswell will continue in both our countries. May the Rainbow Nation and the Great Southern Land become fertile soil for the spread of gospel churches.

your brother Rod
[notice how I didn't mention the cricket. Dang it just did, sorry!]

By: Jake Belder

Jake Belder — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 13:29:01 +0000

Stephen, first I should say hello…I’ve been following your blog for a bit, but have not yet commented.

I appreciate your thoughts here. I don’t like the prophesy about new movements (so many people did that with Emergent, and now it’s faded way to the background). But I think you may be right that there is some really big potential here for the future of the church in this movement.

Needless to say, especially with TIME magazine covering this to an extent, and the media coverage of Mars Hill and Acts 29 lately, there’s been a lot of reaction all across the blogging world about all of this. I can appreciate the critiques of some from much more conservative, Reformed circles who say, “Hold on a second, this isn’t quite a Reformed or Calvinist movement.” That may be true, but the fact that there are big chunks of the church leaning towards a more Reformed expression is, for me anyway coming out of that tradition, very exciting. Yeah, I mean, if there were Acts 29 churches all over the place, I’d be really happy. That would be a good thing.

Time will tell. Thanks again for your thoughts on this. Peace.

By: Donna

Donna — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 11:00:26 +0000

Growing up in a reformed church, I knew the 5 points of Calvinism as a toddler, and hated them as an adolescent. The crowd I grew up in believed these big truths about God, but were not moved to love by them. Somehow, the neo-reformers have made the truths of the reformation accessible to me, for which I am so grateful.