Riverwood Presbyterian Church

Politics

“Tell the Christians to come home”

by Clay Staggs

I noted last week the return of the cross to the St. John’s Church in Baghdad, and Michael Yon’s dramatic picture. Today Yon has another post, which I recommend that everyone read in full. There are some more great pictures.

The first services have been held in the church since it was closed. Strikingly, the church was filled with Muslims. They want very much for their Christian neighbors who fled to come home. So, to demonstrate that it’s OK to do so, they went to mass. The pictures are remarkable.

Here’s one, followed by Yon’s description:

Today, Muslims mostly filled the front pews of St John’s. Muslims who want their Christian friends and neighbors to come home. The Christians who might see these photos likely will recognize their friends here. The Muslims in this neighborhood worry that other people will take the homes of their Christian neighbors, and that the Christians will never come back. And so they came to St John’s today in force, and they showed their faces, and they said, “Come back to Iraq. Come home.” They wanted the cameras to catch it. They wanted to spread the word: Come home. Muslims keep telling me to get it on the news. “Tell the Christians to come home to their country Iraq.”

Yon says he hasn’t seen a gunfight in months. He’s in Baghdad. Remember the civil war going on there, what, six months ago? The local al Qaeda goons would have killed any muslim for walking into a church then. What an astonishing turnaround - doggone near a miracle, if you ask me.

Two thoughts come to mind, one political, the other not. Has anyone seen mainstream press coverage of anything so remarkable? Ought not this to be front page news? This is a military and strategic turnaround (assuming it holds) of the most dramatic kind. But, I am convinced that those running the mainstream media outlets are so hostile to the concept of victory in Iraq (and especially to a resurgence of any semblance of Christianity there) that they couldn’t bear to publicize this remarkable event.

As a Christian, though, I cannot help but be moved by this. God works in ways so mysterious and yet wonderful. I would have thought that Iraq (Baghdad, even) would be one of the most hostile places on earth for believers. I would certainly never have dreamed that muslims there would be filling a church to essentially beg their Christian neighbors who fled persecution to return. But, God always preserves for himself a remnant, doesn’t he? And in the most unlikely of places and at the most unexpected times. It’s not the way I or any other human would go about building a kingdom. But it’s just beautiful, and amazing to watch unfold.

Church and Worship

An Unpopular Appeal for the Big Three

by Tim Lien

Jimmy Hopper sent me this NYT article on “praise rock.” It’s an article about larger churches spending time building a musical culture adapted specifically to the various generations reflected in their church.

You can read it here.

A quotation from the article:

“When you start a church,” said Tom Mercer, 52, the senior pastor, “you don’t decide who you’re going to reach and then pick a music style. You pick a music style, and that determines who’s going to come.”

Obvious critiques abound. If contextualization comes first, you become a slave to it. Now, I’m all for contextualization, but a church must be faithful to the historic Church’s greatest concerns: Word, prayer, and sacraments—first and foremost. Then other concerns will/should flow from this emphasis. To an extent Mr. Mercer was correct: the music style does determine who will come. And, those who come will also determine the very substance of the church. People and their beliefs matter. Churches are not abstract entities.

However, the very same critique can be leveled at those within the PCA who have emphasized another necessary component: Mercy-Ministries. If a church becomes dominated by a practical exercise of good, it often times will compromise the very things it should be emphasizing over and above everything else—so that the “mercy” can be maintained, groomed, and expanded. Mercy-ministries (or any other ministry) that do not flow from The Big Three (Word, sacraments, prayer) will not have longevity past the energized few who began them. I talk with many twenty-something Reformed people who want to choose a church based on the mercy-programs that are emanating from the church. And there are also pastors who want to “plant-an-urban-integrated-church-that-likes-mercy.” Well, ok, but how will that be fed? By the Word or by cool mercy mercy techniques. And this (in principal) is just as faulty as choosing a church for its music or building a church around its music.

Church and Worship

From the Mud Room to the Library

by Blake Johnson

In an upcoming Salt and Light article, I will be addressing the issue of how we as Reformed and Presbyterian Christians should interact with the wider Christian world. Reformed Christians in America have an upleasant history infighting and sectarianism (see Machen’s Warrior Children). In my view, whatever one thinks about the Federal Vision in all its particulars, a consistent and positive thrust of the movement has been the willingness to interact with those outside the relatively small Reformed world, and even smaller world of the Presbyterian Church in America. Presbyterian minister Doug Wilson made these instructive comments recently:

When C.S. Lewis wrote of mere Christianity, he used the image of the hallways of a great house. He emphasized that it was in the rooms that one slept, took one’s meals, visited with family and friends, and so on. All the action took place in the rooms — and that is where my Reformed identity resides. That’s where I keep my books, and my slippers, and my laptop. But it is possible (and desirable) to go out into the hallway from time to time and fellowship with the other residents of this great house. I can do that without forgetting where my bed is, and without trying to get all the Christians to sleep in the hallways. When a particular tradition becomes in-grown it is easy to think that “this room” is the only room where anything worthwhile is going on. One of points of FV catholicity is that we don’t think this is true — God is doing wonderful things in other parts of the house. This has been taken (and ought not to have been taken) as us expressing a desire to move out of our Reformed library with its fat books and burnished leather chairs, and tobacco, and Drambuie on the rocks, and carpet you could lose a shoe in. So don’t get me wrong. I like it here and have no intention of moving out — although I still reserve the right to get chased out. But I can still be grateful for those Campus Crusade guys staffing the mud room, getting new people into the house, and making it possible for them to eventually make their way to the library.

The context may be found here. Healthy ecumenism is not coming together to feel good about coming together. Healthy ecumenism is coming together around the truth of the gospel that has been believed by all Christians everywhere at all times.

Like Wilson, I like our room. When my friends in the room lock the door, however, and tell me I can’t take a stroll down the hall to borrow a book from another room, or perhaps borrow an insight from another room, I think we are dealing with an incredibly historical naivety and ridiculous insularity. Let’s continue to decorate the room and invite others in, but for the love of all that’s good, let’s keep the door open.

Church and Worship

The Concert

by Jimmy Hopper

There was a very significant musical event in Tuscaloosa Sunday night when the Music Department of Riverwood presented the Fall Concert under the overall direction of our Director of Music, Jeff Miller. It is now 48 hours later and when I think of the beauty, emotion and delight of the music, I am again filled with wonder and thoughts of worship.

There were four parts to the concert. Our Children’s Choir had obviously spent much time and practice and were wonderful (and cute as always.) The Riverwood Korean Worship Choir had three pieces that they did with their usual competence, beauty and obvious joy in the Lord. And it was a joy for the audience to hear Jesus Loves Me in Korean and understand in a new way how the message of Christ has reached all peoples and languages.

Then we had our supremely talented instrumentalists: Linda Graham on piano, Nancy Hopper on violin, Sarah Vander Wal on cello, and Bill Hopper on oboe. They played alone and as accompaniment to several choir pieces. They are spectactularly talented. There is nothing better in Tuscaloosa.

Finally we had our wonderful adult choir bring us a worship service in song; from the Call to Worship to the Benediction. Our choir is unpaid and all that they do is to worship and glorify God. I’m no expert but I do enjoy music and have heard many concerts. They are good; very, very good.

I could say something about every piece because it was all concert-hall quality but I’ll just mention two things. The Riverwood Trio, Linda, Nancy, and Sarah played a new composition by Gwyneth Walker, A Vision of Hills, based on the Irish hymn, Be Thou My Vision. Jeff said that it had never been performed before in Tuscaloosa. It will never be performed better. It’s simply not possible for it to be performed better than these ladies played and you have to hear it to understand how beautiful the piece is.

The other one I want to mention was the beautiful and haunting spiritual, He Never Said a Mumbalin’ Word sung by the Adult Choir. Someone who had suffered composing music about the suffering of our Lord. If you were there and heard it, I doubt that you will ever forget it. In fact, I’m going to have to talk Jeff into doing it on a Sunday morning sometime, maybe around Easter.

By this post, I want to personally thank everyone who participated for an unforgettable evening. Jeff Miller does an absolutely wondrous job and the Music Department adds so very much to Riverwood worship. If you missed it, you really missed something special. The next concert will be on December 16 and will be A Service of Lessons and Carols. Take the advice of a guy whose been around a little bit and be there. You won’t be sorry and you’ll never miss another one.

Church and Worship

Last Sunday at Riverwood

by Jimmy Hopper

What a great, great day of worship last Sunday was at Riverwood! Pastor Lien’s sermon has been on my mind literally since he finished. He brought us yet again to the mighty Gospel of God, this time cutting through the cant of self glorifying religiousity to see it again. I had taught a series entitled “Jesus and the Pharisees” and actually taught a lesson on this passage (Matthew 15:1-20) and never made the connection that Tim did about how totally this “super-Spirituality” permeates our life today and how cleverly it subverts true spirituality. His points about how super-spirituality is used to hide evil, and how the Lord told His disciples (and us) never to follow leaders who are immersed in this; that they are blind and will lead you into a pit, are really stunning. And then the charge: “The realization of personal evil is the preeminent requirement to understanding that we need the mercy of God.”

How very often I’ve hidden behind “super” spirituality. Again I say, “I’ve done that. I’ve done even worse.” It is always “back to the Gospel.” If you weren’t at the service, go here to hear the sermon and here to view the sermon notes.

After worship, we returned in the evening to hear our own Sarah Doss Yarborugh speak of her summer internship in an inter-city ministry in Memphis, TN. in what is the fourth poorest zip code in America. She spoke wonderfully of how much she, a college student from an affluent family, had learned from serving the Lord there. Sarah’s testimony was so unaffected, so sweet, so personal, that it moved and inspired everyone.

Then we heard Chuck and Michelle Tarter speak of their wonderful Gospel Friendships Outreach ministry in Ireland. They spoke of the concept of their ministry and of their personal experiences in bringing the Gospel to the people there as well as their personal coming to and walk with God. It was a great, inspiring time and it certainly caused me to consider the power of God throughout the world given, as it always has been, through His grace and through His servants.

We are so blessed here.