Blog - Page 157 of 318 - John H Armstrong

My Vision for Your Church Is Too Small, Part Three

By John Armstrong|2010-04-17T04:00:00-05:00April 17th, 2010|Categories: ACT 3, Missional-Ecumenism|

In this book I seek to make a compelling argument that Christian divisions are never desirable. I further argue that all Christians should work in every way they prayerfully can for relational unity with all other Christians. Isn’t this a preposterous dream? How can it possibly happen in our divided and polarized world?

This dream is only preposterous if you lack the faith to believe that Christ can so work in his people that his prayer in John 17 is answered in his way and time. Because I have always believed in reformation and revival, and because I believe that this prayer for unity is in accord with God’s revealed will, I have no doubt what God can do. I just do not know when or how he will do it.

I am sure, in terms of biblical eschatology, that all his people will be visibly one when he returns. In the precise moment that we see the glorified Jesus we will be one church visibly. But could it be that God intends […]

My Vision for Your Church Is Too Small, Part Two

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:19:03-05:00April 16th, 2010|Categories: ACT 3, Missional-Ecumenism|

Over the latter years of the 1990s people discovered that I was rethinking this issue of Catholics, evangelicals and Christian unity. My name began to show up on blogs, in books and in various media outlets where I was criticized as Exhibit A of the real dangers of this whole ECT process.

So, the first reason for writing this book was to explain my own story. I wanted to write a narrative that showed how I had come to embrace catholicity and the oneness of the whole church. I wanted my people to hear from me what I had experienced and how. The book is the true story of my journey and if someone wishes to oppose me that is fine. If they oppose me in the wrong spirit, or without civility, then I leave to my readers to discern this as they will. I expect reviewers to praise and criticize the book.

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My Vision for Your Church Is Too Small, Part One

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:19:04-05:00April 15th, 2010|Categories: ACT 3, Missional-Ecumenism|

On March 22 we launched my new book Your Church Is Too Small. I presented a ten minute introduction to an evening discussion about the book. My comments, had I used them all, would have taken about twenty minutes, so I cut them short and altered them while I was speaking. Since that evening I decided to post the entire lecture online as a series of shorter blogs. What follows is the opening remarks from that evening:

I want to begin this evening by thanking everyone who has made this event possible. I want to extend a very special thanks to my three brothers who will respond to my book tonight and help us begin a discussion. Notice I said “Begin.” I sincerely mean this. When you read my book you will readily see just how deeply I mean this and how I am inviting you, all of you, into the reality of our unity and catholicity in Christ as Lord. I humbly ask you to hear what I have to say, not […]

A Curious Mind and Fidelity to the Scripture

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:19:04-05:00April 14th, 2010|Categories: Personal, The Christian Minister/Ministry|

A dear friend recently referred to a theological maverick, who has held a number of varying positions and divergent views over the course of the last forty years, and wrote of him, “He is a prime example of the lures of theological curiosity: his curious mind too often takes precedence over Biblical fidelity.” I copied down that sentence for a reason. I need it to remind me that having a curious mind is a very good thing but using it to undermine fidelity to the Scripture is never a good thing.

Some will accuse me of doing exactly what this statement says. One notable Christian writer even uses the words of Jude 3 to say I am one who has, in effect, departed from the faith. My response to this charge might not matter to some who agree with him but it does to me and to those who really know me. Ultimately even my judgment does not matter since I will stand before God who will judge me, not human tribunals or popular authors. I know that I […]

St. Basil the Great on Living in the Presence of God, Part Two

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:19:04-05:00April 13th, 2010|Categories: Church Tradition, Patristics, Spirituality|

St. Basil urges us to live in God’s presence by seeking solitude. “Solitude provides us with the greatest help toward the achievement, quieting our passions, and giving leisure to our reason to uproot them completely from the soul.”

I find this one of the most difficult aspects of my modern life. Everything around me screams against solitude and unless I intentionally plan for it then it will never happen. I am not sure this is a modern problem, though modern "conveniences" (creature comforts) make it much more difficult in one sense.

To live in God’s presence we must learn to nourish our souls with “divine thoughts.” We do this best when we begin the day with prayer and song he says. We also do this by reading the Bible. “Meditation on the divinely inspired Scriptures is also a most important means for the discovery of duty. The Scriptures not only propose to us counsels for the conduct […]

St. Basil the Great on Living in the Presence of God, Part One

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:19:04-05:00April 12th, 2010|Categories: Church Tradition, Spirituality|

St. Basil was one of the greatest doctors of the church. He was born in Caesarea of Cappadocia around 330 A.D. One of ten children his maternal grandmother died a martyr. He was reared by his father and maternal grandmother thus he was nurtured in Christian piety as a young boy, demonstrating that the home is still a proper nursery for living faith. He went to Constantinople to study rhetoric and philosophy, and then to Athens. In Athens he became the companion of St. Gregory of Nazianzen. He returned to Caesarea in 356 A.D. to teach but soon gave this up to serve God and the church. He later retired to the desert to seek God. In 358 A.D. he wrote two Rules with his friend St. Gregory of Nazianzen. These Rules had a decisive impact upon the monastic movement in the East. In 364 A.D. he was ordained a priest and in 370 A.D. he succeeded Eusebius as Bishop of Caesarea.

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A Paradigm for Understanding Our Present Divided Condition

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:19:04-05:00April 11th, 2010|Categories: Church History, Missional-Ecumenism|

A few weeks ago, at the book launch evening for my new book, Your Church Is Too Small, Father Wilbur David Ellsworth, who happens to also be one of my dearest friends and is an Eastern Orthodox priest, was asked to respond to my book as part of a panel that we assembled for that evening at the Billy Graham Center. (We are going to be putting the video of this presentation on our book web site as soon as possible.) Father Ellsworth was one of three who responded to my book and then shared in the dialogue and Q & A time that followed.

There were several highlights for me that evening. One was when Father Ellsworth sought to describe our present condition in the Christian family in the twenty-first century. Looking back over the two most tragic divisions in Christian history, that of 1054 when the East and West formally broke apart and then that of 1517, when the Protestant Reformers raised their voices against various problems that led to their eventual excommunication by the Roman Catholic […]

An Early Update on Your Church Is Too Small

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:19:04-05:00April 10th, 2010|Categories: ACT 3, Missional-Ecumenism|

I hope every reader of my daily blog will check out our new book web site at www.yourchurchistoosmall.com. You can also sign up on the fan page at Facebook as well. The book has already gone to a second printing in less than seven days after its release. Early sales have thus been very, very good. This is encouraging news and reflects, I sincerely pray, a hunger for unity and mission among a growing number of church leaders, both pastors and non-pastors. Remember, if you want to order a copy the best price is still through Amazon. The best way to order it through Amazon is by going to www.yourchurchistoosmall.com and ordering it there. When you do this ACT 3 gets about 5% of the sale price added to our mission. News about the book is posted regularly at this new site and content is being added along the way. Amazon has also had a significant number of reviews already posted on the book. Some of these are quite rich and detailed if you want to see more about the book’s content […]

Why Independent Voters Will Still Decide the Outcome

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:19:04-05:00April 9th, 2010|Categories: America and Americanism, Politics|

American politics is full contact sport for many. This has especially been true since the death of John F. Kennedy and the Vietnam War era. We had LBJ, Watergate, Carter’s failed presidency, Iran-Contra, “no new taxes,” the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky impeachment episode, the war in Iraq on grounds that were not really there and now the health care debate. In every case, at least since JFK’s death, we have moved, so it seems, further and further toward bitter, acrimonious partisanship.

What particularly fascinates me, since I am at times a political junkie, is that the fastest growing political category is not Democrat or Republican. It is independent. The tea party movement reflects this as do libertarian rumblings, left and right. And if this president continues his course of action in Iran and Afghanistan he is likely to hear from the left pretty powerfully in coming days.

Independents appear to be neither far right nor far left. Sometimes commentators refer to America as a center-right country. I think that is true except for the 18-35 […]

A Way of Looking at My Concern for Unity Among Christians

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:19:04-05:00April 8th, 2010|Categories: Justification and the New Perspective, Reformed Christianity, Roman Catholicism, The Church, Unity of the Church|

A friend wrote an email to me recently that expressed his continued thinking about the practical implications of my call to church unity. He wrote: “As it relates to doctrine, I thought about my concern for growth of character. I think that those in the Protestant camp struggled so much about the issue of good works. As I develop experience working with kids and parenting, I have come more and more to the realization of the importance of character formation.”

That is a profoundly helpful insight. So many evangelicals have forgotten that salvation is not about affirming a few solas but rather about trusting Christ in such a way that character formation becomes basic, even instinctive. My friend went on to write:

“Some Protestants focus so much on proclaiming that we are justified by the appropriation of Christ's death on the cross through faith that they are reactive against any suggestion that we need to mature in our character (sanctification). But the Scriptures seem to point to the importance of the fruit of the spirit. My point […]