Blog - Page 150 of 318 - John H Armstrong

Out of the Mouths of Children: “Billy Graham’s Fruit Salad”

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:38-05:00June 26th, 2010|Categories: Humor, Personal|

When we (John and me) were serving in our first pastorate, in a suburban church-planting experience southwest of Chicago, we were often invited out to dinner to our parishioners’ homes. One of our all time favorite recipes was collected from one of those dinners. It was called: “Billie Carlson’s Fruit Salad.” (Billie Carlson was, of course, the parishioner’s name!) I haven’t made it in probably 25 years, but I got out the old recipe, shopped for the ingredients, and served it to our granddaughters recently. They loved it just as much as we did ages ago! So “Billie Carlson’s Fruit Salad” became a part of our family once again. But soon it would get a new name.

A few days later my eight year-old granddaughter Abbie came into my kitchen and asked, “Grandma, do you have any more of “Billy Graham’s Fruit Salad”? Ya gotta love it!

Take What You Find Useful and Leave the Rest

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:39-05:00June 25th, 2010|Categories: ACT 3, Books, Personal|

Several months ago a reader of this blog wrote me a gracious email encouraging me in my work and mission. He added that he had read C. S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity again and as a result of this reading he had come to realize that the posture Lewis was teaching from was one that he rarely saw these days.

My friend further noted that as he read Lewis he realized the numerous times he acknowledged that his own explanation might be inadequate, thus it might not help everyone who read his work. Lewis openly stated that people should not be bothered by either of these problems because it is the reality of the thing that he wrote about that really mattered much more than the clarity of human understanding.

My friend suggests, rightly I believe, that C. S. Lewis always seemed willing to do what many people seem unable to handle psychologically.

Admit his personal limitations.
Humbly put forth his best explanations and understandings in […]

What Does the Millennial Generation Have to Give to the Church?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:49-05:00June 24th, 2010|Categories: American Evangelicalism, Culture, Emergent Church, Feminism & Women, Homosexuality, Missional Church, The Church, Weblogs|

Rachel Held Evans is a young woman with an unusual talent to express the Christian faith in ways that relate to her own generation with power and clarity. I discovered her blog last August in the midst of the conflict over the Lutheran Church (ELCA) adopting a sympathetic position on same-sex practice. She was particularly chagrined by the reaction of some conservative Christians, linking the lightning strike on a Lutheran Church in Minneapolis where part of the church-wide assembly was held with evidence that this was God’s judgment. She was asking the kind of questions that I feel too few Christians are willing to ask. I began to read her work and became even more interested after we “met” via the Internet. (I found our Rachel was also an Alabama Crimson Tide football fan so that made things even better!)

Rachel recently finished her first book, Evolving in Monkey Town (Zondervan), will be out in only a matter of a few days. […]

Christian Community Development is a Kingdom Priority

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:49-05:00June 23rd, 2010|Categories: Economy/Economics, Ethics, Missional Church, Politics, Race and Racism, The Church|

Christians in America have far too little interest in economic and community development. We have generally argued that our mission is spiritual and the saving of communities is not our concern. I personally cared next to nothing about community development until I got to know my good friend John Perkins (photo left). An evening with John in my home, some years back, was memorable and life transforming. But even before I got to know John as a friend, and visited his work in Jackson, Mississippi, I was touched by the story of Wayne Gordon (photo right), a Wheaton College peer who launched a major effort for community development in Lawndale, a West Side neighborhood in Chicago known for poverty and violence. John Perkins and Wayne Gordon are my heroes, my role models, in showing me how the gospel is relevant […]

Growing the Church in the Power of the Holy Spirit

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:49-05:00June 22nd, 2010|Categories: Books, Renewal, The Church|

Below the surface, unseen to most who attend the church on the typical Sunday, lies the fundamental question: How can leaders and churches be enabled to discern and obediently cooperate with the guidance and the power of the Holy Spirit? The kingdom of God is an active expression of the reign of Christ on earth. That reign is presently revealed in weakness and power. This is the paradoxical nature of the present expression of Christ’s kingdom. His kingdom comes, on earth as it is in heaven, when individuals and churches seek and submit to the will and purpose of the Triune God. This requires the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit, the silent person in the Trinity that we rarely talk about or seek.

How do leaders and churches seek the empowering of the Holy Spirit? Is there a necessary precondition for discerning and cooperating with the will of the Spirit? Should […]

What Is the Role of Tradition in Church Unity?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:49-05:00June 21st, 2010|Categories: ACT 3, American Evangelicalism, Church Tradition, Missional-Ecumenism, Unity of the Church|

I grew up in a background that had little or no regard for Christian Tradition so it seems more than a little odd that the name of my mission, ACT 3, stands for Advancing the Christian Tradition in the Third Millennium. More than one person has asked, “Why on earth do you want to advance tradition?” Their assumption is that tradition is unhealthy, even opposed to the Bible. It was when I began to understand that “tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living” (Jaroslav Pelikan) that I saw how important tradition really was for a living, healthy Christian faith.

Jesus did not oppose tradition. He opposed “vain human tradition.” The two are not the same. I believe the confusion created by the typical American reaction against Christian Tradition is not only unhealthy but it promotes a kind of faith that will be inherently disconnected from the renewal that we desperately need in the church in 2010. This is why I devoted so much to this subject in my book: […]

More Words of Love from Mount Athos

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:51-05:00June 20th, 2010|Categories: Love, Spirituality|

The last several weeks I have shared insights from my recent reading in the book, Wisdom From Mount Athos: The Writings of Staretz Silouan 1866–1938. Staretz Silouan was an Orthodox monk who lived on the mountain in Greece that is most often associated with monasticism in the Eastern Church, at least outside of Russia. The term Staretz means “Elder” and is a title given to the Orthodox monks of a particular spiritual development. Silouan was a Russian peasant whose only formal education consisted of two winters at a village school. It was on Mount Athos that he received his education through a tradition that reaches back to the beginnings of Orthodox monasticism. His wisdom, according to many of the Orthodox, is akin to that of the more famous Desert Fathers.

This compilation includes material on subjects such as the knowledge of God, the soul’s yearning for God, the likeness of the Lord in his children, prayer, humility, peace and […]

Read the Label Before You Apply

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:51-05:00June 19th, 2010|Categories: Personal|

We’ve had a humbling experience recently. It involves our lawn! John has always taken pride in our lawn. He meticulously mows, weed-whips, and spot sprays the few stray weeds that pop up here and there. For years our lawn has resembled the beauty of a golf course—until now!

I accompanied John to our local Ace Hardware store to buy weed killer and a pumper-spray gizmo to apply it. We looked over and discussed all of the options—you know, like concentrate or ready mixed—stuff like that. Well, we purchased our supplies and John happily measured the weed killer concentrate, mixed it with the right amount of water, filled up the pumper spray, and went after those weeds!

Day after day our lawn looked worse and worse! Disgusted with the weed killer, John took a picture of the lawn to show to the workers at Ace Hardware and ask for a refund for the weed killer. I […]

An Act of God or a Coincidence?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:51-05:00June 18th, 2010|Categories: Divine Providence, Homosexuality|

Last August, during the now famous Lutheran (ELCA) church-wide assembly in Minneapolis, lightning struck the steeple on a downtown Lutheran church where part of the meeting was being conducted. Since the ELCA voted to accept same-sex marriages at this meeting, a decision which created a storm of response pro and con, the news media covered this event rather intensely. As is typical of these types of events people were lined up on both sides like political parties set to win a debate. Some saw God’s smile in the events that unfolded while others saw a divine frown. Condemnations were forthcoming from all sides, especially from some evangelicals who relished the providence of this particular steeple being struck by lightning. They openly said that this somehow displayed God’s obvious displeasure. At the time I wondered (again) at this odd and all-too-frequent attempt to explain what we cannot, and should not, explain.

Was the lightning an act of God? Well, yes I think so myself. In fact, even insurance policies still use this kind of language about such events. But the question here is really simple: “Do […]

Do High School Graduation Ceremonies in Church Buildings Violate the Separation of Church and State?

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:18:51-05:00June 17th, 2010|Categories: Current Affairs|

The separation of church and state continues to dog our political conversation and public reactions on a daily basis. Sometimes there are real issues involved that Christians are far too slow to recognize. The reverse is true when radical separation seems to be the goal. Some would like to remove all traces of religion from all elements of public life, period. This perspective surfaced again during recent high school graduation ceremonies both in Connecticut and in suburban Chicago. On Memorial Day U. S. District Court Judge Janet Hall ruled that two Connecticut schools could not hold commencement ceremonies in a church because "it was an unconstitutional endorsement of religion." These ceremonies were to be held on June 23 and 24 at the First Cathedral in Bloomfield because of space and price. The suit was brought to the court by two students and three parents.

Numerous schools are not able to conduct their graduation ceremonies on school property because […]