Petersen on large churches

Eugene Peterson shares in his book, "The Pastor: A Memoir" (p.133), a letter he wrote to someone who abandoned a study group he was in for a pastorate in a large congregation (the quote is only a portion of the letter):

"I certainly understand the appeal and feel it frequently myself. But I am also suspicious of the appeal and believe that gratifying it is destructive both to the gospel and the pastoral vocation. It is the kind of thing America specializes in, and one of the consequences is that American religion and the pastoral vocation are in a shabby state.

It is also the kind of thing for which we have abundant documentation through twenty centuries now, of debilitating both congregation ad pastor. In general terms, it is the devil’s temptation to Jesus to throw himself from the pinnacle of the temple. Every time the church’s leaders depersonalize even a little, the worshipping/loving community, the gospel is weakened. And size is the great depersonalizer. Kierkegaard’s criticism is still cogent: “the more people, the less truth.”

The only way the Christian life is brought to maturity is through intimacy, renunciation, and personal deepening. And the pastor is in a key position to nurture such maturity. It is true that these things can take place in the context of large congregations, but only by strenuously going against the grain. Largeness is an impediment, not a help."
I took this from Graham Hill's Facebook - thanks, Graham.

Comfort zone

What if my comfort zone is simply the sphere of my gifting? Does God still want me out of it?

Costly grace

'Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our church. We are fighting today for costly grace.' Bonhoeffer wrote this in 1937, yet we seem to have learned very little.

'Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system. It means forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth . . . Cheap grace means justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. . . . Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a [person] must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son' from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship