Vigorous Leisure
One of my favourite Anglican thinkers is C.S. Lewis. His was a mind taken up with great things (and by all accounts frequently detached from less important things: for all his profound devotion to the gift of friendship and his manifest love for his close companion and colleague, J.R.R. Tolkien, Lewis, towards the end of … Read more
God’s Chickin
One of the reasons that I treasure the writings of the French Reformer, John Calvin, is the pastoral heart that shapes his reflections so profoundly. Deeply and personally acquainted with sharp and prolonged suffering of many kinds, Calvin knew that, under the weight and strain of our many cares, the best help for God’s afflicted … Read more
Why Reformed?
The Reformation is important to us at Christ Church. We cherish it, we study it, we identify with it, we seek to live in the light of the Gospel clarity that characterized so much of this historical moment. But what was the Reformation? In short, the Reformation was a succession of surging renewal movements across … Read more
Why Catholic?
At Christ Church we embrace and celebrate the reality that our Church is both Catholic and Reformed. As the Protestant Reformers liked to call themselves, we are reformed Catholics. And of these two words, Catholic, as the Reformation scholar Gordon Rupp once said, is the “more enduring term.” Every week as we meet to worship … Read more
Endless Hallelujahs
In the 42nd Psalm, David, the sweet singer of Israel, pens a song of lament. As he writes the Psalm, he is a hunted man, cut off from God’s house, from the ark, and from all the ordinances of God. And as he wanders in forced exile, David recalls, with painful longing, the joyous experience … Read more
When I am Weak
The great Baptist preacher of Victorian England, C.H. Spurgeon, once confessed to his grandfather that he struggled deeply with his calling as a preacher: “I never have to preach,” he said, “but that I feel terribly sick, literally sick, I mean, so that I might as well be crossing the English Channel.” Spurgeon asked that … Read more
Seek His Presence Continually!
“Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually!” Psalm 105:4 I love to read the English Puritans. They’re not easy to read and they demand much from the reader. But the reward is great, for here one can discover a generation that panted after God, a generation that pursued—with noteworthy devotion—the satisfying goodness … Read more
Flourishing in the Courts of God
It doesn’t take people long to discover that I have a special fondness for the 16th century Protestant Reformer, Martin Luther. A week rarely goes by without one of his many volumes (as Victor Shepherd notes, he wrote something substantial every two weeks for twenty years) finding its way to my desk. Luther encourages my … Read more
Seeing Light
“For with you is the fountain of life; in your light do we see light.” Psalm 36:9 One of the wonders of walking with God is the promise that as we spend time in his presence, reading his Word, seeking him in private prayer, attending public worship, the light we receive from him enables us … Read more
Better than Life
For the Church Father, John Chrysostom (the golden-mouthed preacher of the fourth century), there were some portions of Scripture that should be read every day by the Christian, without fail. One of these was Psalm 63. Here we read in verse 3, “Your steadfast love is better than life.” For Chrysostom, this was a truth … Read more