Blog - Page 78 of 318 - John H Armstrong

Jesus Is the Message, Period

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:16:10-05:00September 20th, 2012|Categories: Christ/Christology, Jesus|

I am convinced about one thing that really matters: Jesus is everything!

Jesus is mankind’s best and only hope. He is the Savior of the world and the salvation of all who long and search. Our most enjoyable and wonderful task is to “make him known.” We can do that in many ways but the goal is always to share him, not our plans, programs and theology. (Yes, I understand, good theology matters deeply since the person of Jesus pushes us to think and do good and health-producing theology about his life and person!) This is why Fr. Joseph Girzone, author of the best-selling Joshua book series, continues to inspire me deeply and remains a trusted and much-beloved friend in my life. Fr. Joe gets this! Jesus is his life and message. In Joe’s recent monthly email he wrote the following timely and provocative thoughts:

Lately, various Christian denominations have been embarking on new evangelization programs to promote the Christian message. However, it is very disturbing that the approaches being promoted by all of these groups whose material I have read, are concerned about theological correctness and […]

A Pastor's Personal Vision for a Missional Church

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:16:10-05:00September 19th, 2012|Categories: Missional Church, The Church|

I write a great deal about “missional church.” One of my close friends, Pastor Stan Wiedeman, serves a congregation in the metro-Chicago area. He has been in this ministry for 13 years. Stan recently wrote a vision-casting document to his elders asking them to consider the future of their ministry more carefully. He sent me a copy to read, seeking my counsel. I liked this short statement so much that I asked him if I could share it on this blog once the elders had been given time to process the content. I believe this is a “model” paper in terms of showing how a pastor can provide real vision to a church. Whether or not a church accepts such a vision will always depend upon the leadership structure and how ready they are to lead their church into a very different future. I commend this paper as an excellent vision statement. I hope this might be helpful to some of you who are wrestling with what a missional church should really look like.

Background

Our church has […]

Reading the Bible: From the Apostles to Us

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:16:10-05:00September 18th, 2012|Categories: Biblical Theology, Hermeneutics, Scripture|

Each Monday, for the last eight years, I have published an e-article called the ACT 3 Weekly. Many readers of this blog do not even know these articles are published and I’ve discovered that readers here have never been to our ACT 3 site to sign up for these mailings. Presently we are rebuilding the ACT 3 website and reworking our entire online presence. Until everything is synchronized I am going to post this ACT 3 Weekly here on the blog site so readers can discover the most important weekly writing that I do. I hope more of you will discover this resource by this post. This present post is in a series on understanding the Bible. Back issues are available at ACT 3.

In this short series about learning how to read the Bible we have considered that Jesus is the reason for the entire biblical story. The Bible is principally about him, not science, history or even religion. This is not to deny that at times these subjects are touched upon, at least in non-technical ways. I say this to underscore the myriad […]

Complete Trust and Commercial Assurances

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:16:10-05:00September 17th, 2012|Categories: Business, Liturgy, Personal|

In the worship of this past Lord’s Day the divine liturgy that I shared in led us to confess that there were times when we failed to think of God’s call upon our lives properly. Because of these times we could not live an “impossible dream” because we saw this call as “an unwelcome interruption.” I was struck by how powerful this simple confession was to me. The line which followed said, “Faithful God, the apostle Paul emphasizes Abraham’s complete trust and faith in your promises and how he grew ever stronger in faith, fully convinced of your ability to fulfill what has been promised.”

Then this affirmation was followed by an application and confession which genuinely struck me as soul-searching in a profound way:

We find it hard to hear your promises above the commercial assurance of transformation–promises tempting us to trust the newest and trendiest product to realize our dreams. For all the times when we do not place our hope and trust in you alone, forgive us, O God.

I thought about this confession over the last 24 hours. I believe that it is […]

A Church Where Political Parties Do Not Matter?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:16:11-05:00September 14th, 2012|Categories: Politics, The Church|

Is it possible, in the foreseeable future, that the Christian church in America might move away from partisanship, power-seeking and politics? I am not holding my breath but young Christians, particularly those in their 20s and 30s, give me great hope that the church I’ve known since the 1970s is going to change in the coming decades.

I recently found Jonathan Merritt’s book, A Faith of Our Own: Following Jesus Beyond the Culture Wars, in my public library on the new book shelf. I began reading it that same day and found his vision of the future corresponded with my own in many profound, yet truly simple, ways. Jonathan Merritt, the son of a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, grew up in the culture wars but has deliberately moved away from these endless battles. He is now a faith and culture writer who has contributed to a number of mainstream publications and serves as a teacher at Cross Pointe Church in Duluth, Georgia (suburban Atlanta). His well-known dad, James Merritt, is the pastor of Cross […]

The Gospel in Seven Words

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:16:11-05:00September 13th, 2012|Categories: Gospel/Good News|

A recent cover story in The Christian Century featured an engaging contribution, offered by several well-known writers, that attempted to “put the gospel in seven words.” You can read executive editor David Heim’s article, and the various blogposts connected with this story, online. Heim rightly says that summarizing the Christian message can have practical benefits. Business consultants often call on leaders to have an “elevator speech.” I have believed this exercise and approach is important for many years. I admit, however, that I am not very good at it. Some years ago I was challenged to summarize the vision of ACT 3 in seven words. We came up with the following: “Equipping Christian leaders for unity in Christ’s mission.” Once we got that down on paper, and intentionally and carefully worked it over and over, these seven words helped me explain what I do and why I do it.

But what about the gospel itself? When asked to summarize the gospel most of us cannot do it. We try various words and ideas and then often […]

My Journey (5): Growing Up as a Christian Pilgrim

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:16:11-05:00September 11th, 2012|Categories: Books, Discipleship, Faith, Personal, Spirituality|

On my seventh birthday, March 1, 1956, my mom and dad gave me my first Bible, at least one that was really and truly my own. (I’m sure I must have had previous Bibles but none were kept as mine!) In this birthday Bible they wrote on the presentation page: “John H. Armstrong: Our Little Pilgrim.” They also wrote: “Born Again” (February 10, 1956). Had my parents not written down this date I am not sure if I would remember the precise date all these years later. But what stands out to me, especially as I hold this same Bible in my hands more than fifty-six years later, is this reference made by my mom to me being “Our Little Pilgrim.” As I previously noted, this was undoubtedly a reference to the Protestant bestseller, Pilgrim’s Progress, written by John Bunyan.

The full title of this classic religious book is: The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come. The author used an allegorical story of a single pilgrim to tell how a follower […]

My Journey (4): First Communion

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:16:11-05:00September 7th, 2012|Categories: Discipleship, Personal, Sacraments, Spirituality, The Church|

I will always remember several things about the church building that I worshiped in while I was growing up in Lebanon at First Baptist Church. First, I remember that the sanctuary seemed so large to me as a child when it was actually a medium-sized church. (Baptists called this place we gathered in the auditorium, so far as I remember. I was always put off by that terminology. As I got older I became more sure as to why I found this term off-putting.) Second, I remember the Sunday, in my teen years, when our sanctuary was destroyed by fire early one Sunday morning. The fire began in an old furnace system under the choir loft. Thankfully the fire began before anyone had arrived that Lord’s Day. We worshiped in the parking lot that day. I’ll never forget it as long as I live! Third, I remember counting the lights (and tiles) in the ceiling when I was a child. I also remember trying to figure out what the few images in the building meant, what […]

My Journey (3): Childhood Faith and Encountering the Living God

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:16:11-05:00September 6th, 2012|Categories: Discipleship, Lordship of Christ, Personal, Spirituality|

Growing up in a small-town, Southern Baptist, cultural background meant that coming to Christ was a prescribed formula that I knew about for as long as I can recall. The pattern was rooted in a Pauline type conversion experience. You realized that you were a sinner, you knew that you needed to be saved, you prayed and asked Jesus to save you and then you went forward at the end of a Sunday service during a “hymn of invitation” to publicly confess this inward transformation. My journey followed this path with one major difference, a difference that I shall always be grateful for as I look back on these early years of my life.

Before I elaborate let me be clear about this one important point. Coming to Christ in faith can follow many different patterns and paths. The end is to know Christ. The way we can come is not prescribed in the Bible, at least in so far as I can tell. Some children come to faith without ever knowing a time or place where they realized they were in darkness and needed to consciously […]

My Journey (2): Asking Questions About My Purpose

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:16:11-05:00September 5th, 2012|Categories: Discipleship, Lordship of Christ, Personal, Spirituality|

I began, on August 30, an account of my life’s journey that I promised to continue. I will try to write these particular blogs as I have opportunity. I cannot produce a new entry each day but I will attempt to faithfully tell my story over time. I would like to slowly develop this story because I need to ponder the mercies of God deeply at this stage of my life. I hope that through such intentional pondering, and writing, several things will happen:

I will personally see the mercies of God afresh and marvel at God’s tender mercies and love day-by-day. I live by his grace and thus by this story of faith, hope and love.
I desire to share my story with readers who are interested, especially my friends who love me and pray for me faithfully. Many who read these words have shared in parts of my story and many who are reading them now will share more in my story if God grants me longer life. Our lives are interconnected in a remarkable way and with age you generally see these connections more clearly.
I […]