The similar phrase 'Worldly Christianity' is one used by Bonhoeffer. It's J Gresham Machen that I want to line up most closely with. See his Christianity and culture here. Having done commentaries on Proverbs (Heavenly Wisdom) and Song of Songs (Heavenly Love), a matching title for Ecclesiastes would be Heavenly Worldliness. For my stance on worldliness, see 3 posts here.

Lord's Day February 26 2017


These are interesting days in Childs Hill, with a continuing stream of new people and several of them staying. We were over fifty in the morning and a decent number at night. I made it seven or eight Iranians this last Sunday. I have heard of other churches experiencing such a phenomenon. One problem is that only two of these are very competent in English. We are having weekly English conversation classes to try and help. Not sure what to do next. and Nigerians still dominate but with Filipinos and West Indians well represented. I hesitate to categorise in that way but I'm trying to give some idea of the multi-ethnic make up of the congregations these days. It was nice to see an Indian lady back from India, although she had been ill most of the time she was there.
Our seminary friends read the Scriptures for us. Next week they will preach.
Despite the encouragements there were still one or two missing. I was sorry not to see our Dutch friend in the evening but a Brazilian man turned up. He had just moved from an AoG to a Presbyterian church back home in Sao Paulo and had various good books on his phone including Cinco pontos by John Piper. Encouraging. He had tried a URC church in the morning misled by the word reformed. Sadly, he only plans to be around for three weeks.
Another encouragement was someone asking me about baptism.
Also encouraging was the presence of seven children under 10. I am going through the children's catechism at the moment.
The preaching was on the second part of Acts 1 and Matthew 12:43-45. 

1 comment:

Ferris Lindsay said...

Sounds great Gary. You might look at some of my Saturday Facebook posts over the last month for our English classes.