Around The Web-September 7, 2018

Sinners Need to Be Justified by Tom Nettles

IRBSTS Presidential Inauguration by Gatlin Bredeson

Lectures on Covenant Theology from Reformed Baptist Seminary

David McLemore on Church Planting in Church Saturated Areas from For The Church

John Onwuchekwa on One Big Reason the Church Doesn't Pray

10 Things You Should Know about the Puritans by Sam Storms

Straight From the Word: Inward Sin by Joshua Sommer

Al Mohler on Andy Stanley: Is Christianity “Unhitched” from the Old Testament? from the Center for Public Theology

Just Thinking Podcast: ‘Aretha Franklin Eulogy’

Around The Web-January 26, 2018

P & R Staff Favorites from WTS Books

The Cost of Being a Christian by Aaron Armstrong

Grant Castleberry – Biblical Gender Roles and the Authority of Scripture from Equipping Your In Grace

A Biblical Theology of the City of God by T. Desmond Alexander

Video Series: God's Word Alone: The Authority of Scripture

Pastors' Talk: On Discipling

How Ray Ortlund Became Foster Father to a Generation of Church Planters by Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra

Perplexing Passages: Do Exodus 1 and Joshua 2 Permit Christians to Lie? by Sam Storms

What Do You Do When Your 6 Year Old Tells You They Want to Trust Jesus? by John Divito

H.B. Charles, Jr. on the importance of preaching the gospel in the local church

Around The Web-January 24, 2018

Ministering to the Sexually Broken by Rosaria Butterfield

The Transforming Power of the Gospel from Renewing Your Mind

Tony Merida and Michael Bird discuss ‘Gospelizing,’ ‘Gracism,’ and Church Planting

The Secret Small Churches Know Best Stephen Witmer

Youth-Driven Culture by Stephen Nichols

7 Things You Should Know About the Lord’s Day by David Schrock

Lord, Help My Stupidity by J.A. Medders

Jen Wilkin, Sam Allberry and Jason Cook on how parents should teach their kids about sexuality in the 21st century

Around The Web-January 12, 2018

Ligonier Ministries unveils a new website: Ask Ligonier

Why Theocracy Is Terrible by Russell Moore

Planting a Church Is Lonely by John Starke

John Owen on the Holy Spirit

If There Is A God, Why Are There Atheists? from Renewing Your Mind

When Spurgeon was Invited to Preach at Barnum & Bailey Circus by Garrett Kell

Daily Delighting in the Treasure of the Word by Dave Jenkins

John Piper: Trust Your Bible-Not Your Experience

Around The Web-December 22, 2017

The “Jefferson Bible” and a Founder’s Deism by Thomas Kidd

Pastor, Don’t Get Cute this Christmas

Church Planters Are Farmers, Not Rock Stars by Tony Merida

Remembering R.C. Sproul from Pastors' Talk

R.C. Sproul Reads ‘The Calvinist’

Christmas Mercies and New Year Hope: Paul Tripp on the Power of Grace

Can Evangelicalism Survive Donald Trump and Roy Moore? by Tim Keller

Hershael York answers the question: Should Christians Celebrate Christmas?

Around The Web-November 24, 2017

Church Members Must Keep an Eye on Their Elders by Erik Raymond

Blessed Even in the Worst by Nancy Guthrie

Church Planting Green Light from Doctrine and Devotion

Benjamin Keach on Justification by Tom Nettles

Knowing God by Fred Malone

What Role Do Good Works Play in Salvation? by R.C. Sproul

Vlog: What’s a Reader’s Bible All About? by Tim Challies

Jared C Wilson has a new book coming out in January. This video is the trailer for it.

Normally, I reserve a music video for Mondays, but considering this song is titled, "The Day After Thanksgiving," I think we can make an exception. This song is performed by Brandon Heath.

Around The Web-August 30, 2017

Fernando Ortega Gives Us Jesus by Trevin Wax

7 Terms You Need to Know to Understand the Houston Flood by Joe Carter

3 Reasons Why You Should Stop Saying “All Sin Is the Same” by Josh Buice

The Man in Romans 7 by Fred Malone

Matt Carter and Aaron Ivey– Steal Away Home: Charles Spurgeon and Thomas Johnson, Unlikely Friends on the Passage to Freedom from Equipping You In Grace

Doctrine and Devotion on Heaven

Do We Trust the Bible to Tell Us Truthfully What God Commands? by Albert Mohler


Thabiti Anyabwile on why your church is not exempt from the work of church planting.

Podcast Wednesday: Sola Scriptura, Billy Graham Rule, The Button, and more

Why Sola Scriptura Matters from Russell Moore

The Billy Graham Rule from Doctrine and Devotion

Tony Merida speaks with Joe Thorn about the planting of his church and other topics on the Acts 29 Podcast

Equipping You In Grace presents Kristen Wetherell and Sarah Walton– Hope When It Hurts – Biblical Reflections to Help You Grasp God’s Purpose in Your Suffering

Vern Poythress on Interpreting Scripture with Nancy Guthrie

The Bible Answer Man is No Longer Biblical? from When We Understand The Text

If the Bible Is So Clear, Why Are There So Many Different Interpretations? with Kevin DeYoung

Comic fans, you will love this one as the guys over at Gotham Central discuss The Button: Part 1 from Batman #21

Podcast Wednesday: Christology, Church Planting, New Covenant Theology, and more

The Regular Reformed Guys speak with Richard Barcellos about the Covenant of Works, the Garden of Eden, and New Covenant Theology

Doctrine and Devotion on church planting

Politics and Video Games from the Reformed Gamers

Popcorn Theology on The Book of Eli

Dr. David Sills– Hearts, Heads, and Hands: A Manual for Teaching Others to Teach Others from Equipping You in Grace

Calvinist Batman and Stephen Wellum speak on Christology

Pastor, Provider, Protector with Chris Schinbein from the Rugged Marriage

A new podcast from 9 Marks began this week called "Pastors' Talk." Their first episode focuses on Gospel Growth Beyond Your Church.

New Life: Churches Planting Churches

This video from the Sojourn Network features three churches that were planted and have the desire to plant other churches. This video features Nick Nye, Daniel Montgomery, and Garrison Greene.

Around The Web-April 29, 2016

The Regular Reformed Guys speak to Kerry Gillard about race and the church

Dave Jenkins speaks with Ed Welch about his book, Side By Side, which I highly recommend

What I Learned The First Two Years of Church Planting by Jason Davis

Scott Sauls shares his thoughts on the Rise and Fall of Pastors

Daniel Darling wants you to get caught up on church history

Are You Tempted to Toss the Bible? by Aaron Armstrong

Calvinist Batman speaks with Heath Lambert about the Theology of Biblical Counseling

How the Lord’s Supper Makes a Local Church by Bobby Jamieson

Seeing Christ in All of Scripture and other books are on sale right now.

Daily quotes from Spurgeon and books for Mother's Day on sale as well.

Reformed Theological Seminary has a video they release called Wisdom Wednesday where they address theological issues. This past week feature Derek Thomas and Ligon Duncan answering two questions: what is hell and what is Heaven.



Next Friday, Captain America: Civil War comes out in the theatres. There have already been some great reviews. I think this might be the best Marvel film ever. One reason this movie is getting a lot of buzz is Spider-man. Yes, the web-slinger makes his debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. These two videos are TV spots from the movie that came out earlier this week (it will say in 10 days) which shows a little more Spidey.

Around The Web-February 19, 2016

Westminster Bookstore has a sale going on with books by John Murray

South Dakota Senate Passes Bill to Prohibit Transgender Students from Using Bathroom Based on Gender Identity

The Regular Reformed guys talk with Tom Ascol about the rise of Calvinism in the SBC

Calvinist Batman talks with Kevin Vanhoozer about Sola Scriptura

Why is Gospel-Centered Youth Ministry Important?

3 Perks of Bivocational Church Planting by Joshua Hedger

Martin Luther's Death and Legacy by Stephen Nichols

9 Marks answers questions regarding Non-Members Serving in Church, A Prospective Elder Who Doesn’t Regularly Attend, The Problem with Contemporary Christian Music, and How Younger Members Can Serve Older Ones

Gotham Central reacts the final Batman v Superman trailer

I love movie scores. I have a lot of favorites. The score to "The Lord of the Rings" movies are part of that list. This video shows how the score helps elevate the story.

Should I Plant or Revitalize a Church?

Recommended Reading:

Change, Plant, or Stay: Which is Best? by Phil Newton

Church Planter by Darrin Patrick

Church Planting Is For Wimps by Mike McKinley

Center Church by Tim Keller

Replant by Darrin Patrick and Mark DeVine

Book Review: Gaining By Losing by J.D. Greear

In America, people are leaving the church. Some are doing it for the wrong reasons. Those reasons include the new pastor is not like the old one. The music is too loud. They don't have a "fun" youth ministry. Others leave the church because they have lost their faith in Christianity. They have seen organized religion in all of it's ugliness and want nothing to do with it.

Yet there are some leaving the church for the right reasons. Wait a minute, there is a right reason to leave a church? Other than leaving a church because of bad theology, which is a legitimate reason to walk out of a church, there is good reason people are leaving a church. The reason: they are planting new ones. In J.D. Greear's latest book, Gaining By Losing, he states that in order for the church to grow, the church must send their people out for missions.

Greear says there are good reasons why the church must focus on sending people out in the mission field no matter where it is. First, the increasingly post-Christian society where people will not walk into a church no matter how cool it may look. Second, Greear said, "Multiplication beats out addition, every time." Third, God's presence with those who send. Finally, Jesus promised greatness in a church that sends people. This may sound almost a prosperity gospelish but I can tell you it does not. We see in scripture how the early church continued to grow in spite of opposition.

The majority of the book deals with what Greear calls "plumb lines," which are directional markers for how his church, The Summit Church, builds their ministry in where they want to go in fulfilling the Great Commission. A few of those "plumb lines" include, swimming in the gospel, how to transform your audience into an army, your church doesn't need a missions pastor, and never giving up. One "plumb line" that caught my attention was about the church not needing a missions pastor. I must confess this one took me by surprise because a missions pastor was responsible to help the church be on mission and organizing mission trips and outreach opportunities. What Greear stresses is that every pastor is a missions pastor. Every pastor should be the one who get the church fired up for missions, not just one guy the church hires to do all of that.

All in all, this is a great book for everyone in the church to read. I think many Christians will see that the church was not just meant to bring people to Jesus but also send them out, which is not the case of many churches these days. This will be also an encouragement to churches to send people out in missions. I know for our church, we have lost people over the years who have gone to plant church whether here in the United States or in another country. This is Greear's best book since the one he wrote on the gospel.

Thanks Zondervan for letting me review this book.

Around The Web-May 15, 2015

The Real But Overstated Decline of American Christianity by Ross Douthat

Daniel Darling reviews Scott Sauls' book, Jesus Outside The Lines

Aaron Armstrong shares 5 highlights from TGP15

WTS Books is having a overstock sale

Keep Preaching The Gospel, Doofus by J.A. Medders

Why Plant A New Church In The Bible Belt? by Jeff Lawrence

In Praise of Fat Pastors by Jared C Wilson

Update on Church Plant-February 19, 2015

It has been a while since I have given an update on the church plant and there has been a lot that has happened. First, I want to thank everyone who has prayed for us during this time as we plan and seek the Lord in what He has for us.

This past Sunday, we began our Sunday Bible study at All Saints Anglican Church. We are studying the doctrine of Scripture. We were originally going to do the Order of Salvation from Romans 8:29-30, but we felt we needed to do more of intro to the Christian faith. This study will take about six weeks (Lord Willing) then we will go into about a 12 week study into the doctrines of God, man, and the church. We are hoping within the next few months to no longer call this a Bible study gathering, but a church gathering.

During our Bible study, we have incorporated worship, prayer, and Bible reading so when we launch the church, everyone will know what to except. We are working on more efforts to get the word out especially to the community surrounding All Saints. We are also currently working on a website. One of the reasons is studies have shown that young adults will mostly likely attend a church with a website. Nothing is up at this but we are now on Twitter, which you can follow us @wfprodigalstx.

I am currently working on a blog to update everyone on our ministry. Hopefully we will have it up as soon as possible. This may be a temporary blog until our website it up. Please continue to pray for us as we gather to grow in the grace of the Lord Jesus. We are praying the gospel will flourish in this great city of ours.

Finally, one thing we are incorporating into our study is a song of the month. We have picked this modern version of Rock of Ages. Here is a lyric video to the song which is sung by Sandra McCracken.

Update On Church Plant-December 16, 2014

As some of you are aware, in late October we started a Bible study based on Tim Keller's classic, The Prodigal God at Jason's Deli. We met on Monday evenings with an average of about 15 per week. We also had a mixture of ages with the youngest being 13 and the oldest being around 70.

We had lots of great discussions on the gospel as well as what we thought was true Christianity which what we were really saying was American Christianity. Our study ended by having a feast at All Saints Anglican Church which does not meet on Sunday evenings so they have graciously let us use their building. We talking about what we learned from the study which you can hear many tell they did not know how much the Father loved them till they did the study with us.

We addressed the need for community. Everyone in the group said they longed to be in Christ-centered community where they do the work of Christ and preach the whole council of God which is what I have been sensing since day one of our study. Everyone agreed that we need to do another study which I am happy to announce that we are in January. We are still discussing what we will address. We have thought about going through Romans or Galatians. We have even talked about teaching on the doctrine of Grace.

We do not have a set date yet to begin the new study but will announce it as soon as possible. We have also decided to meet once again at All Saints on Sunday evenings. Why there? One of the challenges while doing the study at Jason's Deli was child care. Even though we had one family open their home and we had two fully reliable teenagers watching kids, many could not attend the study. The church has facilities where we can use for child care. Basically the church has granted us access throughout the entire building with the exception of their worship center.

This is not our launch for the church plant. A few church planters I have talked with said one of the best things you can do is work slowly before launching. We are doing that. Our launch team started from two has grown to five. We are meeting weekly to discuss theology and vision for the church. We have a timeline that puts us to launch as a church (Lord willing) in the month of March.

We still have a lot of work ahead of us. Thank you for praying. I ask you continue to do as we seek to plant a church that honors Christ in a city that knows religion but not the gospel.

Dangers in Church Planting

Ever since I responded to the leadership of the Holy Spirit to join in planting a gospel-centered in Wichita Falls, I have been reading a lot of material on church planting and church leadership. It has all been very encouraging while at the same time, there is also some danger in church planting. Tim Chester has written a post on the five dangers of church planting that all church planters must avoid:

1. Planting a replica church

This church plant is a clone of your sending church or your own previous experience. This tends to be what happens if you don’t think much about the culture and values of the new church. You default to your past experience. This, of course, may not be an altogether bad thing. But it is a missed opportunity. Church planting is an opportunity to rethink church, creating patterns of church life that are more faithful to Scripture and more relevant to the culture. The other danger is that you try to be a large church with a small church planting team instead of seizing the advantages of being a small church.

What’s good about this: You’re a fool if you disregard 2,000 years of church history. So we need learn for Christian tradition and appreciate the Spirit’s work through the church in the past.

Constructive principle: Be creative.

2. Planting a reactionary church

This, in some ways, is the opposite of a replica church. This is what happens when people have had a bad experience of church. Church planting for some people is a way of running away for church rather than resolving issues or reconciling broken relationships. For other people the church plant is defined primarily in terms of what it’s not. People know exactly what they don’t want church to be like. But without a positive vision, the resulting church tends to have a negative culture or a culture that’s suspicious of other churches or which feels superior to them.

What’s good about this: We don’t want to repeat the mistakes of the past and church planting is a opportunity to create something fresh – as long as you have a positive, biblical vision for what you want to be.

Constructive principle: Be positive.

3. Planting a romantic church

Remember all those conversations over a drink on a Sunday evening as you dreamed with your friends of your ideal church? Perhaps you dreamed of meeting in a coffee shop with some mellow jazz music in the background while you discussed faith with your friends over a latte. Perhaps you dreamed of rocking out the Christian classics you grew up with. Perhaps you dreamed of hour-long sermons rich with theology. And now your church plant is a chance to create this church of which you and your friends always dreamed. The problem is that, while you might create a church ideally suited to you, the chances are it will not be missional. Your personal set of favourite features won’t necessarily create an ideal context to invite unbelievers (which also means it won’t be an ideal church for Christians either for healthy Christian living must be missional).

What’s good about this: Church planters are often idealists driven by a vision of what could be. This will help you push towards creating a church that continually attempts to be more biblical and more relevant.

Constructive principle: Be missional.

4. Planting a restorationist church

This church plant is an attempt accurately to recreate what the church was like in the first century, to restore apostolic Christianity. Churches like this tend to spend a lot of time trying to identify precisely the patterns of New Testament practice. Of course it’s vital to be biblical. But replicating apostolic norms can be a futile exercise, not least because there seems to have been quite of bit of diversity within the New Testament. And that diversity existed because the apostolic churches were adapting to their contexts, both to the people within the church and the people they were trying to reach. The real danger with the restorationist mind-set is that you become inward-looking.

You end up having long debates over how exactly the New Testament churches celebrated the Lord’s Supper rather than throwing yourself into evangelism. You become like the people described in 1 Timothy 1 who are more interested in winning converts from within the church than winning converts to Christ.

What’s good about this: We do need to be biblical. One of the joys of church planting is the opportunity to rethink the way we do church to ensure it is faithful to Scripture and relevant to the culture.

Constructive principle: Be contextual.

5. Planting a reductionist church

In some ways this is the opposite of a restorationist church. Here the desire is to plant a church which is ‘incarnational’ or ‘missional’ or ‘contextualized’ (or whatever is your favoured buzz word). But you understand these terms to mean creating a church which closely resembles the surrounding culture. This concern can too easily lead to attempts to minimize the differences and therefore to minimize the confrontation the gospel brings. True contextualization includes identifying what repentance means in a culture. So it’s not about reducing the challenge of the gospel, but understanding the culture well enough so that we heighten or focus the challenge of the gospel. The danger facing such churches is that they reduce the gospel and assimilate to the wider culture. In the end they have nothing to offer. If we’re so like the culture that the differences are marginal, why should the culture bother with us? We will have nothing to add to what they already believe. Beside which, it’s a fool’s errand: we will never be as a ‘cool’ at MTV! What will be attractive to a lost world is the gospel we proclaim and the distinctive community life it creates (remembering that ‘distinctive’ is another word for ‘holy’).

What’s good about this: The desire to be contextual is good. We should try to minimise anything off-putting that is part of our church culture, but not part of the gospel.

Constructive principle: Be biblical.


Books by Tim Chester

1 Samuel for You

Titus for You

Everyday Church with Steve Timmis

Total Church with Steve Timmis

You Can Change

Delighting in the Trinity

Good News to the Poor

A Meal with Jesus

Update on Church Plant-October 14, 2014

It has been a while since I gave the latest update for the church plant that I am apart of in Wichita Falls. Things are coming together as we speak with a few things that we are still working through. We still do not have a launch date for the church just yet but we do have an upcoming Bible study that I am very excited about.

Starting this Monday, we are having a study based on Tim Keller's The Prodigal God. We are having this study in the conference room at our local Jason's Deli in their conference room. One of the reasons we are having the study there is that it is in a central location for everyone attending can come. Another reason is the place we originally planned for fell through. By God's grace, the manager at Jason's Deli has graciously allowed us to use their conference room which is located at the back of the restaurant.

Here is a promo of that study:



As far as a church name, we have several ideas such as Sojourn, Redemption, Veritas, and even Pilgrim, which is unique because I do not recall any church with the name Pilgrim. We do have one hotel in the area that is going to give us a cheap rate for us to use their facilities when we launch plus it is next to a park so there is opportunity for children to play and possibly a church wide picnic following the service.

Things are moving along great. Excited for the study and what God is going to do. All of us believe God is about some great gospel work in Wichita Falls. I am humbled that He has allowed me to be part of it. I love the men I am working with to get this new ministry going. Continue to pray for us.

Update on Church Relauching - September 4, 2014

A couple of weeks ago, I shared that was joining in relauching a church plant in Wichita Falls. I hope to give you as many updates as I can to let you know how the process is going. This is the first of many posts where I will share what is going on.

Last night was the first meeting I had with one of the pastor of Truth Bible Church. We talked about what are expecting and what are ministry structure is going to be. We did not put everything on paper but shoot ideas out like there have been in our minds for quite some time.

In addition to sharing our ideas, some recent developments have happened in the last couple of weeks. First, two older gentlemen are interested in joining in the relaunch which is a great thing because we do want our church to be multigenerational church. They are starting a Bible study in a couple of weeks that will hopefully get people interested in joining a gospel-centered church. Second, on September 17, there will be a meeting with members of the church, who are still active, to announce that Truth will be disbanding until we relaunch. We have not set a relaunch date yet.Third, it looks like we will have a building once (Lord willing) we get set to relaunch the church as an affordable price. Finally, I mentioned our church's name will be Truth Bible Church, however, we feel there may be either a name change or a slight alternation in the name. We are not sure at this time.

That is all I can give at this time. I am asking for prayer as we continue to make plans and discernment on when we need to relaunch the church. Hopefully, I will continue to give you many more updates if the Lord allows. Pray for our wives. Pray for our children. Thanks in advance.