ORIDNARY
One of the foundational beliefs that drives evangelicalism today is that: everything has changed and so we must change. There are shelves filled with books whose titles either start with: A New Kind of … or end with … for a New Age. We live in a different era, certainly, with differing complexities and challenges, but not everything is different. Sin has not changed. The gospel has not changed. God has not changed. In light of this, I want to challenge the notion that the church must change in order to be effective.
Specifically, I want to visit an old church concept that is actually the key of us today: Ordinary Means of Grace.
The ordinary means of grace are the tools that God has given us to accomplish the mission He has called us to. It flows out of the belief that God equips those He calls, and that He does it using means. It is not up to figure things out as we go (and to spend all of our time on the things that He intentionally left undefined); instead, our part is to know and conform our lives to the clear truths of Scripture. Rather than constantly searching for the next thing or trying in vain to find something more, God promises to meet us in specific ways to bless us as we live out this Christian life.
THE WORD // God’s GRACE through Revelation
PRAYER // God’s GRACE through Conversation
THE SACRAMENTS // God’s GRACE through Participation