PCXIAN has left a new comment on your post "Invocabit - The First Sunday in Lent":
Greg,
In your sermon today under paragraph “Defeating Pietism,” subparagraph “Hate What Pietism Loves” you list that one should hate home study among a list of others. Studying the Word of God at home is so anti-Lutheran and anti-Confessional. How can anyone possibly study, much less comprehend, what God says without a pastor present?
Isn’t it unfortunate that so many Lutherans, Catholics, and others haven’t opened their Bible since Uncle Henry and Aunt Mary gave them one with their name and the date of their confirmation on the cover? Why should they? They go to church every week faithfully, perhaps even attend Sunday Bible class (they hand out Bibles there), and sometimes even read “Meditations." The Sunday Lessons are also printed out for them in the bulletin each week because it’s so difficult to lug that big book with them to church.
Daily studying God’s Word, like the Bereans, who “received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true” is something we should do each day as well, shouldn’t we?
So I take your comment about home Bible study as it was given…with tongue-in-cheek.
P. C. Christian
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GJ - I can be faulted for not providing enough information in one post, but many other posts supplement what I have said about Pietism.
The sermon itself says that the two main characteristics of Pietism are:
1. Replacing doctrinal purity with ecumenism - in the name of love.
2. Supplanting the Means of Grace with the lay-led, ecumenical cell group.
I constantly urge people to study the Word and the Confessions. Some have said they discovered or re-discovered the Confessions by reading this blog. For that I am truly happy and quite satisfied.
The cell group concept has destroyed more churches than the Chicago Fire. If someone wants to find an unfaithful Lutheran staff, just search the website for the material about "small group Bible studies."
At St. Paul, German Village, when Mike Nitz and atheist Schumann were there, they began a lay-led Bible study group with husband and wife leaders. Next the husband disappeared. After that, when someone questioned a women teaching men, the self-ordained woman pastor said, "I am in charge of this group!" That was about 20 years ago.
6 comments:
Greg,
Let me give you my impression of what you call “cells” for whatever its worth. “Cells” or “growth groups,” at least in my experience, are not “Pietism.”
I am familiar with a very large congregation in which over 80% of the weekend adult attendance attend a layman-led small group during the week. The focus on this small group (usually 14-16 people) is to further form a commitment to God and His Word and to foster Christian relationships, which is especially hard to do in such a large congregation. Most small groups meet during the next week to discuss the pastor’s Sunday sermon, although there are other small groups that focus on other topics such as parenting, marriage enhancement, and Christian basics for new believers. Additionally, these small groups can be divided into a variety of categories (age, single or married, children’s ages, men/women, military, etc) to fit a particular person’s desires or needs.
Those small groups that focus on the pastor’s sermon have a basic sermon outline to follow and blanks to fill in. Additionally, there is the homework that must be completed prior to the small group’s meeting. One reent week there were 36 supporting scriptural passages to look up and 18 questions to complete that related to this week’s teaching (Luke 2 and 3). It took me a little over an hour to complete the homework.
These small groups meet for approximately two hours each week. Although each group can have a different format the normal routine is: 20 minutes of fellowship usually with dessert/coffee/tea/soda; 10-15 minutes of hymn singing; 70 minutes discussing the sermon (or other subject) and the homework, and 10-20 minutes of praying together and for each other, which I find to be very comforting.
The laymen leaders are hand-picked to lead these groups and from what I have seen are very well versed in the Bible. Additionally, the church provides leader guides to assist the laymen with leading the discussion. There is also a pastor who serves as the small group program coordinator so if a lay leader needs additional assistance with a particular lesson. I am always amazed at the depth of Biblical knowledge that group members have and I have learned much from them.
Another aspect of small groups is the Christian fellowship that it provides. Our group is a mixture of long-time Christians and newer Christians. Each of us has had a variety of life experiences, good and bad. It’s a rewarding and benefical experience to help others and be helped by others, especially with sound Christian advice and encouragement. My wife and I have become good friends with our small group and we often get together at other times to socialize by going out for dinner, to a ball game, to concerts, and other events. Additionally, each semester our group completes a community service project which is a good way for Christians to be seen in the much larger general society. No its not a “good works” type of thing!
From my vantage point, I see small group programs as an invaluable asset to a congregation to further study God’s Word and then to put His Word into action. There are a variety of resources available, some better than others, to assist congregations in starting these programs.
Finally, with the outline filled in and the homework assigned, one will never again walk out of church on a Sunday morning and 30 minutes later say to oneself, “What was the pastor’s sermon all about?”
P. C. Christian
"And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching." (Hebrews 10:24-25)
Dream on. No wonder you hide behind a pseudonym on the Intrepid site too.
Du hast ein anderes Geist, Herr Zwingli.
The more I have been around lay led Bible study, the more I believe the study should be led by called and ordained preachers of the Word. Even a vicar would qualify since he is called and has a much higher degree of education so that he can keep classes on course. So many times I have seen non-called, non-ordained men lead and they just are not equipped. The discussion skews and you hear conjecture and opinion and 'what it means to them'. If the text doesn't say something, then why must we feel the need to add to it? Especially when the text is plain or the study notes (if you have a good study Bible...which everyone should have) explain a seemingly hard passage. Private study should be on-going in the home everyday if possible. That is why Luther wrote the catechisms. But formal...and even the informal (which in a sense are formal)gatherings should be pastor led. That is what Sunday's are for...worship and study of God's Word by those who are qualified. Spend the rest of your week being salt and light to your neighbors, friends, acquaintances and co-workers.
Greg,
"No wonder you hide behind a pseudonym on the Intrepid site too."
Sorry, Greg, but that is my name. Many of my relatives, friends, and acquaintances call me PC.
If studying God's Word;
studying God's Word with others;
making new Christian friends;
receiving and giving Christian advice and encouragement;
socializing with Christian friends;
helping others less fortunate than ourselves;
and remembering the pastor’s sermon 30 minutes after leaving church is Pietism;
then perhaps, you are the one who is dreaming.
Paul C. Christian
PC states, "The focus on this small group (usually 14-16 people) is to further form a commitment to God and His Word"
The new age emergent church says that small groups are to hold the members accountable. PC states they form a commitment to God. This basic tenet of small groups shows how Law based, and pietistic, the entire process is. It is not the Holy Spirit working through the Means of Grace both visible and invisible which works and strengthens faith and through which the Holy Spirit works the good that people do to the glory of God. The good that people in small groups do is driven by accountability to the group and the constant challenge by the group to do better, be better.
Small groups that PC promotes are also the petri dish of the dialectic process that is running rampant in the Lutheran churches. The advent of the consensus process when making decision in Lutheran Churches is a product of their use of the dialectic, Hegelian, activities they willingly engage in. It's a Satanic practice and has no place in any church much less the world.
http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/04/3-purpose.htm
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