You may be familiar with the common digital refrain: “Pics, or it didn’t happen.” For a long time, we believed that unless there was a digital trail or a lens involved, a claim remained mere hearsay. But now we’ve entered a day where neither pics nor vids convince us that something has taken place.

Lately, I have been reflecting on the kind of evidence that really persuades us. Our confidence in the “visual record” is being dismantled before our eyes by a relentless stream of digital deception. Grainy videos of overseas conflicts that turn out to be repurposed footage from a decade ago. Night-vision clips of “destruction” that are actually high-resolution renders from a video game. The endless, wearying debates over whether a political crowd was digitally “inflated.” The wholesale manufacture of entire events—people who do not exist saying things they never said in places they never were—all generated by a prompt in an A.I. engine.

For a time, we tried to outrun this skepticism by moving the goalposts. When it became easy to doctor a photograph, we told ourselves that video was the final frontier of the “real story.” We assumed that while a still image could be manipulated, the complexity of a moving, speaking person was beyond forgery.

Today, even that retreat has failed. We are now deeply suspicious of video and audio evidence. Whether it is a politician’s controversial statement, a celebrity endorsement, or a feat of physical strength, we immediately look for the seams of CGI or the artifacts of A.I. voice generation. Sociologists now speak of the “Liar’s Dividend,” which is a phenomenon where the very existence of deepfakes allows anyone to claim that genuine evidence is actually a forgery. The result is that video evidence no longer carries the weight it once did; it has become just another shadow in a digital hall of mirrors.

It seems we have come full circle. I believe we are returning to the power of the eyewitness. We once viewed personal testimony as an archaic, “soft” form of evidence, yet we are relearning that the value of testimony is often directly proportional to its cost. It is cheap and easy to edit a digital file; it costs virtually nothing to manufacture a lie in pixels. Consequently, what used to be seen as “hard evidence” now often leaves us skeptical because it requires no skin in the game for the one producing it.

Philosopher C.A.J. Coady and biblical scholar Richard Bauckham remind us that the testimony of others is not a second-rate source of knowledge, but a fundamental one. Bauckham writes:

“Testimony is as basic a form of knowledge as perception, memory, and inference. It has the same kind of epistemic status as our other primary sources of information… If testimony is as basic a means of knowledge… then we must understand our epistemic situation in less exclusively individualistic terms and more in communal or inter-subjective terms” (Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, 475-477).

In other words, we were never meant to be “isolated investigators” who only believe what we can see with our own eyes or record on our own phones. We are designed to live in a community of trust. This is reflected in the 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer, which highlights a pivot toward “Insular Trust.” As trust in global digital platforms collapses, people are pivoting back to the authority of the local, the personal, and the peer. We are finding that we cannot live in a world where everything is a deepfake; we are wired to seek out a “worthy witness.”

Modern skepticism is often described as an acid that eats through even its own container. If you are skeptical of everything, you must eventually become skeptical of your own senses and the very foundations of your logic. Some might think this is just epistemological modesty, but G.K. Chesterton (in his book Orthodoxy) has a criticism of this attitude:

“What we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition and settled upon the organ of conviction, where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. We are on the road to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table.”

C.S. Lewis (in The Abolition of Man) speaks to this tendency not just to be modest, but to be skeptical of everything.

“You cannot go on ‘explaining away’ for ever: you will find now that you have explained explanation itself away. You cannot go on ‘seeing through’ things for ever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it. It is good that the window should be transparent, because the street or garden beyond it is opaque. How if you saw through the garden too? It is no use trying to ‘see through’ first principles. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To ‘see through’ all things is the same as not to see.”

The answer, of course, is not credulity or gullibility. Instead, I would suggest we return to a robust appreciation for more basic means of knowledge, especially including the eyewitness.

None of this means that we should be so naïve as to always believe that every claim is necessarily true. The ancient historian Polybius noted that the historian’s task is “to believe those worthy of belief and to be a good critic of the reports that reach him.” We have always known that people do lie. However, as we see with digital fabrications, lies are usually told when the cost is low or the liar believes they will escape suffering. Is it any wonder that we are now awash in disinformation?

While the value of a video has been cheapened, the price a person is willing to pay for what they have seen remains a definitive metric of truth. Is a claim worth losing one’s job for? One’s family? One’s life?

To be a martus (the Greek word for “witness” from which we get “martyr”) is often to pay a price. This is vital when the event in question is the most important moment in human history. When we examine the New Testament, we find men who were uniquely positioned to know the facts and uniquely pressured to recant them.

Unlike the anonymous user who uploads a deepfake for “clout,” the Apostles represent the ultimate cost of testimony. Church history records that the Apostles paid for their claim that Jesus Christ rose from the dead with their very lives. With the exception of John (who endured exile), they faced execution rather than recant what they had seen and touched.

As Blaise Pascal famously noted in his Pensées:

“I prefer to believe those writers who get their throats cut for what they write.”

Perhaps we are finally returning to an era where we realize that talk and fakery are cheap precisely because they come at no cost to their creator. In a world of digital shadows, we are forced to return to something more substantial. If you find yourself skeptical of the “evidence” you see on your screen, I invite you to reconsider the costly, blood-bought testimony of the Apostles. Their foundation is one that cannot be edited, deleted, or devalued because they were there, and they chose to die rather than deny it.

The post Better Than Video: The Return of the Eyewitness appeared first on Evergreen Presbyterian Church.

The murder of Charlie was, in itself, a horrible evil, full stop. It deprived a family of their husband and father. It deprived the world of an image bearer of God. For those reasons alone it should be sufficient for people to respond with sympathy and sorrow. Human beings bear value, simply by virtue of their being made in the image of God. When someone desires to kill another person, they are essentially desiring to destroy God himself since his emblem is upon this person. Every death in this world is a colossal tragedy, utterly unnatural, and worth an ocean of tears. Even when the wicked are destroyed, we are reminded that our world was created good and it was corrupted. All of the death that we are exposed to on a daily basis is a tragedy and an evidence of the Fall.

Christians are hurting in this moment. If you are a Christian and are reading this, you may appreciate thinking a bit about why this is the case. If you’re not a Christian, perhaps you can at least try to understand why the Christians in your life (if you have any) may be so heartbroken over someone whom you may not have appreciated as much.

#1: The Hearts of Our Neighbors

Robust debate is happening from both the right and the left as to which camp the alleged murderer belonged in. I won’t join that debate here. We cannot know the killer’s heart. But many on the internet are willing to show their hearts to the world. Some are simply telling everyone that they are glad Charlie was killed. Others are saying it was terrible, but they aren’t sad and won’t mourn.

It would appear that some of our neighbors in this nation approve of the murder of this man who has much in common with us as Christians. Even if Christians weren’t in lockstep with Charlie on every issue, they still recognize a brother in Christ. Yet some neighbors seemed to hate Charlie—and by extension all who share his views. This may be an excellent time for us to reflect on these attitudes and why they contribute to the pain Christians are feeling in this moment. We see this hate in two kinds of responses:

The first type of response I’ve seen is one of indifference to Charlie’s death. In Scripture, we see examples of simple indifference to the death and suffering of another. A very blatant example of this was in the death of Jesus. The Gospel writers record that many people were present as witnesses, and while some mocked or approved, others simply passed by without concern. Matthew 27:39 says, “And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads…” These were not officials or executioners, nor were they disciples mourning; they were ordinary bystanders who treated the death of Christ with casual contempt. Their indifference showed itself in ridicule rather than compassion. It was an incredible condemnation of the people that so many would have a heart of indifference.

Another example is the death of the Levite’s concubine in Judges 19. After she was abused and left for dead, the people of Gibeah went about their lives as though nothing tragic had happened. The narrator even highlights the indifference of her master in verse 27: “And her master rose up in the morning, and when he opened the doors of the house and went out to go on his way, behold, there was his concubine lying at the door of the house, with her hands on the threshold.” He shows no grief or concern, only a blunt, “Get up, let us be going.” That cold disregard is a chilling picture of sinful indifference to another’s death. The Levite is desensitized and indifferent, and so are the people of Gibeah. It’s one of the signs of a badly disintegrated culture that they would see a person abused and killed and offer no true human response.

The second type of response I’ve seen is direct approval of Charlie’s murder. The sort of person who is glad it happened, and who celebrates in an affirmative way. For example, Paul, in Acts 7, did not pick up stones to kill Stephen. However, he sat in approval as he watched Stephen’s murder. Later, after Christ awakened him, Paul reflected that he had previously persecuted the church “to the death” (Acts 22:4) and says that “when they were put to death I cast my vote against them” (26:10). He also reflects that he “tried to make them blaspheme, and in raging fury against them I persecuted them even to foreign cities” (Acts 26:11). Paul could argue, “I never laid a hand on anyone,” but in later years he saw his approval and indirect encouragement as complicity and guilt.

Even if the murderer wasn’t a leftist, it does seem that some of those on the far left are willingly taking ownership of this anyway. Some of these people are close to us, and because of this, we hurt as Christians, seeing our neighbors willingly approving of such horrible and dark deeds.

#2 The Ordinariness of Kirk’s Actual Views

Charlie Kirk was someone whom I knew, primarily through 2 minute video clips of his debates with college students. I am not an expert in the man, nor have I listened to every debate or everything he has ever said.

However, I have heard enough to know that Charlie Kirk was basically an ordinary Christian who believed ordinary Christian things. He believed that women should submit to their husbands, and that their husbands should love them as Christ loves the church. Fourth-wave feminists call this misogyny.

He believed that a woman is a woman and a man is a man, and that one cannot become the other. Advocates for confusion call this transphobia.

He believed that homosexual desire does not define a person, and that such desire should be battled against, in Christ, by the spirit’s power. Many today call this homophobia.

He believed that all people everywhere should be judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. Some in the HR department consider that racist.

All of these things are part and parcel of the Christian view of the universe. It is the sort of thing that I preach each Sunday. It is the doctrine that I received from those who came before me. And most importantly, it is part of what the church has always believed, even if it has imperfectly lived those things out.

Part of what hurts Christians in this moment so much is that Charlie wasn’t an extremist. He was a normie like the rest of us. We are somewhat inured to the reality that people attempt to assassinate Presidents and elected officials. But Charlie wasn’t a politician, he was a guy with a microphone. Because he was a normal citizen exercising his right to speak, a big aspect of the hurt in this moment is that—unlike Presidents or congressmen—Charlie felt like one of us. He was an ordinary man with mainstream Christian beliefs—beliefs that the far left abominate because they reject the Christian view of man as made in God’s image, and God’s law that is meant to govern us.

It is just a reality that for every basic, ordinary Christian conviction that exists, there is someone out there who will reject, mock, and moralize against it. And yet it is the very ordinariness of Kirk’s views that makes the response of his enemies so terrifying: they are simply all of our views. They aren’t the views of a fringe group, but are basic Christian values. Because of this, the idea that our neighbors and even family members think these things made Kirk worthy of death (or made his death unremarkable and not worth mourning) are both haunting, terrifying, and deeply upsetting. To think that we are worthless, or disposable in the eyes of some because we hold forth the truth stings to the core.

#3 The Hidden Darkness of Our Neighbors, Exposed

The third type of hurt I want to mention is the hurt that comes from seeing the darkness of our neighbors’ hearts exposed. I saw someone say earlier this week that social media is not good, because it lets people vent the darkest thoughts of their hearts when they in retrospect might look back and say, “I shouldn’t say that.”

We are able to go through life, in many respects, assuming that our neighbors are decent folks and don’t hate us. But this past week, we have seen people say, “I don’t care that a man died.” “I’m glad that this man died.” “This man was unworthy of life.” “I don’t personally approve of his murder, but I’m happy that it happened.” Things like this.

Many of us now find ourselves wondering: “How did our milquetoast, white-bread, otherwise normal neighbors become so homicidal?” “Were they always this hateful?” “Were they always willing to laugh at a dying man?”

This might seem overly dramatic, but I feel like I am not a dramatic person, and I have been unable to shake these thoughts personally all week as I’ve seen people that I know saying things like we see here.

While I do think people need to learn that you can have a horrible inner monologue without sharing it with the world, I can’t unsee what I saw this week. The human heart is unspeakably dark, and sometimes people let you see right into just what an abyss they carry around within their chests.

Sources of Hope

My plan here is really to give voice to some of the hurt that Christians are feeling. In proper Christian fashion, I think it’s important that I offer a few sources of hope so that we aren’t left in utter despair. Let me mention a few reasons for hope.

Scripture Confirms Human Nature

The Bible tells us that people are like this. God is not nearly as caught off guard by the condition of the hearts of our fellow citizens. The Bible does not give us a naïve picture of humanity. From the beginning, Scripture testifies that sin has corrupted every part of our being. Genesis 6:5 declares that “every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually,” and Jeremiah 17:9 teaches that “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick.” Paul echoes this in Romans 3:14–18, describing humanity’s natural state as violent, bitter, and without the fear of God.

In other words, when we see neighbors react with hatred or indifference to the death of another human being, we are not witnessing something foreign to the Bible’s diagnosis of the human condition. Rather, we are seeing confirmation of what God has already said about fallen man: that apart from His grace, the heart tends toward hardness, cruelty, and contempt. There is some comfort in knowing that God already knew about the human heart when moments like this arrive.

Jesus Told us to Expect This

Christians can also find comfort in remembering that Jesus told us beforehand what life in this world would be like. “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you” (John 15:18). “Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you” (1 John 3:13). Far from leaving His disciples unprepared, Jesus taught them to expect mockery, persecution, and reviling (Matthew 5:11–12). When believers encounter hostility to the most ordinary expressions of their faith, we should not conclude that God has lost control or that something unusual is happening. They are walking the same road that Christ Himself walked before them, a road that the prophets also traveled. Knowing this does not take away the sting of hatred, but it does protect us from being shaken when it appears.

Repentance is Possible

Finally, we must remember that the gospel holds out hope even for those who have expressed indifference to murder or who have rejoiced in the death of another. Peter told the crowd who had crucified Christ, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins” (Acts 2:38). Saul of Tarsus, who breathed out “threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord” (Acts 9:1), was confronted by the risen Jesus and transformed into the Apostle Paul. Later, reflecting on his own life, Paul could say: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy… that Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience” (1 Timothy 1:15–16). If Christ’s mercy could reach someone like Paul, then no one—even those who mock or approve of death—is beyond the possibility of repentance and salvation.

Many people kid themselves that they are good people. Probably even those celebrating or indifferent think they are doing so because they are good people. But I am hopeful that for some, hearing themselves celebrate a man’s death aloud may function as a check-engine light showing them just how dark their heart truly is. Perhaps seeing themselves in the mirror or on their phone saying things like “I’m glad he’s dead” will be a wakeup call, that God will use such a dark moment to expose their need for forgiveness.

This truth keeps Christians from despair, even when the world’s response to evil seems unbearably dark.

The Sovereignty of God

Christians also take comfort in the truth that none of this falls outside God’s sovereign rule. We do not get to choose the times in which we live or the condition of the world into which we are born. Yet God has sovereignly placed us here, in this place and this moment. Our existence is not accidental or mistaken; it is the unfolding of His wise and perfect plan. Paul reminds us in Acts 17:26 that God “made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place.” Likewise, Psalm 139:16 declares that all our days were written in His book before one of them came to be. Though we may feel overwhelmed by hostility or indifference around us, we rest in the confidence that God is directing history, and that He has chosen us to live faithfully here and now for His glory.

Christ Has Gone Before Us

Finally, we remember that Christ Himself has already walked this path. He lived in this broken world, endured mockery and hatred, and suffered violence at the hands of sinners. Yet He did not pity Himself or take vengeance into His own hands. Instead, “when he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly” (1 Peter 2:23). Our Savior does not call us to endure anything that He Himself did not endure first. For that reason, while we mourn real evils and grieve over the hatred we see, we do not collapse into self-pity. We follow in the steps of the One who bore the cross and now reigns in glory. His path assures us that suffering has meaning, endurance has purpose, and final vindication belongs not to us, but to Him.

Christians may indeed be distressed in this moment, but Jesus meets us in our distress with real comfort. He does not minimize our grief or tell us we should not feel it, but enters into it Himself, bearing our sorrows and assuring us that He has overcome the world.

The post Why Reactions to Charlie Kirk’s Assassination Hurt Christians So Much appeared first on Evergreen Presbyterian Church.

The Evergreen Session is very glad to announce that we will begin offering another opportunity once a month for us to gather, worship the Lord, and to hear a message from God’s word. I want to take a moment to explain what this is, how often we will have it, and why we are doing it. I’m also going to make clear what the expectations are and are not for the members of Evergreen when it comes to this worship service.

What Will This Entail?

Once a month, on the fourth Sunday of every month, we will have a worship service in the late afternoon from 4:45 to 5:30pm. This will be a simple service that will be early enough to allow families to return home with enough time to be prepared to rest and sleep for school the next day.

We are being very intentional about making this a service that is distinct from the first service. There will be a sermon that is not a repeat of the morning sermon. We will sing a couple of familiar songs that can be sung without accompaniment so that we are not adding extra work to our musicians, and also because there is a beautiful simplicity in singing without instruments at times.

Ordinarily, this sermon on Sunday nights will be preached by Matthew Poole, and will be a great opportunity for you as a church to be ministered to by him as your new (Lord-willing, come October) Associate Pastor. The preaching of God’s word will be the central draw of this evening service, as we are given a new opportunity to hear from God’s word and to worship God by hearing him speak.

When Do We Start This?

This evening worship service is scheduled to begin on October 27^th, at 4:45pm. That particular service will be special for a couple of reasons. Not only will it be our inaugural evening worship service, but it is also planned to be the ordination and installation service for our new Associate Pastor, Matthew Poole.

That particular service on the 27^th may not fit in our ordinary time frame because so much needs to be done in an ordination and installation service. But after that, the services are expected to be 45 minutes long and to be simple enough to always be done with little inconvenience to worshipers.

Why Do This?

Now that you have heard what is involved, we have an important question that must be asked: why do this at all? Why not continue only having weekly worship services each morning? Why create an extra thing for people to come to? Let me mention a number of reasons that have motivated the Session to make this addition to our worship schedule.

Because we believe it will be a blessing. The Psalmist says in Psalm 92:1-2 that “it is good to give thanks to the LORD, to sing praises to your name, O Most High; to declare your steadfast love in the morning, and your faithfulness by night.” The Psalmist says that “it is good.” We want to give people more opportunities to declare God’s faithfulness “by night.”

Because many have been asking for it. We have a number of members and prospective members who have, for years, been privately asking for the Evergreen session to introduce evening worship. Some have grown up in traditions that regularly held evening worship. Some are in the habit of returning to church again in the evenings to once again worship and hear from the Lord.

Because we hunger for the word of God. “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?” (Ps. 42:1-2). I have personally been amazed and overjoyed at how much desire there is among members of Evergreen to know God’s word more deeply, and to be ministered to by it.

Because it gives us an opportunity to end the day well. Speaking from my own previous experience at my former pastorate, we had weekly evening worship. There was something about returning to worship again that transformed the whole of the day. Instead of leaving worship around noon and feeling like perhaps the rest of the day belonged to us, evening worship left us with a distinct sense all day long that the Lord had more to do with us still. Although it was certainly extra effort to return to the church again, it was worth that extra effort, and I look back on the years of evening worship as purely positive with no regrets. I believe this will be our own testimony here as well.

Because it will minister to our souls. Isaiah 55:11 reminds us of the power of God’s word, when God himself says, “For as the rain and snow come down from heaven…so shall my word be that goes out of my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose.” How can we not benefit from hearing again from the Lord in an additional service?

Because it gives your new Associate Pastor an opportunity to minister to you. While Pastor Adam will continue as the regular preacher on Sunday mornings, it would be beneficial for Pastor Matthew to have a chance to open God’s word to the church as well.

Because it allows those doing works of necessity on the Lord’s Day an opportunity to be ministered to. I think this really speaks for itself. We do indeed have those among us who are unable to always make it to morning worship, and for some this evening worship may be an opportunity that is greatly appreciated.

Because worship is restful. As I said above, we had evening worship at my previous pastorate. It was an incredible amount of work for me to write two sermons every week, and to return to preach again each evening. I do think often there were times I might have said, “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.” It added about ten hours of work to each week as a Pastor. If there was anyone for whom two services might be thought of as onerous or difficult it would have been me. And yet, I can joyfully report that it was always worth the effort. I saw people in the evenings I often did not see in the mornings. I had conversations that would not have happened following the morning service. Evening worship had a looser and more laid-back feeling than was the case in the mornings. The preaching was from a different book than we preached from in the mornings, as well. In some ways evening worship felt like a very different experience than morning worship. It may take effort to come, but I feel very confident that participants will find this rhythm and pattern to be restful, and not wearying.

What is Expected of Members?

The Session believes it is important to say that attendance at evening worship is not mandatory. The Evergreen Session is not convinced that it is biblically required for God’s people to worship both morning and evening. We are convinced that it would be a blessing for the participants, but we believe the word of God does not give us the authority to require participation. There are some denominations in which members are expected to be at evening worship. This is not the case with evening worship at Evergreen. The session views this evening worship as a good thing and as another way of blessing those of God’s people who are able to come, and who have a desire to hear from God’s word again at the close of the Lord’s Day.

We also are not introducing this service in order to create new divisions in the church. No one who comes to this evening worship should by any means despise someone who does not come to evening worship. There is no hierarchy in church membership. There will likely be times where even the families of elders will not make it, and in no case will anyone be judged or thought less of because they don’t come to evening worship. We see this service in purely positive terms as a blessing and an opportunity, not as an obligation, a burden, or a chance to perform. When we come to worship, we should do so in humility and need, not in pride.

The post Introducing 4th Sunday Evening Worship at Evergreen appeared first on Evergreen Presbyterian Church.

Until recently, I confess that I did not have a favorite resource I would send people to on the topic of Roman Catholicism – either in helping a Protestant understand what Roman Catholics really believe, or in helping someone who is interested in Rome to hear clear and solid reasons why they should rethink making such a move in the first place.

Recently, however, three books were released that (in my opinion) form the perfect trifecta of resources on this topic. The three books that I now recommend, are entirely complementary to one another:

• Why Do Protestants Convert?  By Brad Littlejohn and Chris Castaldo (https://amzn.to/4cPpg4i) $12 Paperback (Davenant, 2023)
• What it Means to Be Protestant: The Case for an Always-Reforming Church, by Gavin Ortlund (https://amzn.to/3T6sCsT) $20 Paperback (Zondervan, 2024)
• Roman Catholic Theology and Practice: An Evangelical Assessment, by Gregg R. Allison (https://amzn.to/4dHhJGg) $26 Paperback (Crossway, 2014)

Let me offer a sort of “mini-review” of each book where I explain why the particular book is solid and worth reading. I want readers to see why these three books are important, especially for someone who is either considering a move from a Protestant church to Rome, or for someone who simply wants to better understand why it seems like so many are going to Rome, and what it is that Rome actually teaches. One thing that especially ties the first two books together is a conviction that Protestantism is not best represented by the stereotypical flashy modern megachurch. Rather, Protestant history is best represented by the magisterial Reformers and those who follow after them. They are also convinced that the answer to the problems many Protestants are troubled by as they consider a move to Rome are actually found deeper in Reformation history and in the early church, rather than in a move to the Papacy.

I recommend that Why Do Protestants Convert? be the first thing someone read, especially if they find themselves impacted by either their own or someone else’s desire to go to the Roman church. One of the great strengths of Littlejohn and Castaldo’s book, and the reason I recommend reading it first, is that it is short but packed with quick, helpful, pastoral dynamite that might lead the reader to other relevant areas of study. At only about 100 pages, it is not intimidating, and is an easy read. The authors look at nine motivating factors that drive some to Rome, and offer the beginning sketches of an answer to them (I will give an outline of those nine reasons at the end). This book does a great job of charitably appraising motives while showing that those leaving for Rome will not find what they are looking for in the Roman Church.

Secondly, I recommend readers move to Gavin Ortlund’s book What it Means to be Protestant. This is a work of Protestant apologetics, and is largely constructed in a positive way so as to lay out the Protestant position and rationale, contrasting it with the claims of Rome. One reason I appreciate this book so much is that it represents more recent attempts at a “retrieval” perspective on the Reformation. Rather than simply arguing that Rome’s gospel is not in line with Scripture, Ortlund is at pains to produce example after example from the early church fathers showing that it was not the Reformers who were innovators who brought their own ideas into the church. Instead, it was the Roman Catholics whose pronouncements and anathemas often had no basis whatsoever in church history. The final two chapters of the book offer a case study in the innovations of Rome, offering two more in-depth examples: the bodily assumption of Mary, and the veneration of images. Ortlund draws from Church Fathers, but even from Roman Catholic writers to show that neither of these doctrinal positions in Rome had any support whatsoever in the first 500 years of church history. They were entirely unknown, and in fact were contradicted. Often it is believed by some going to Rome that by going to Rome they are embracing the true historical church. In fact, Ortlund persuasively argues that in fact the Protestant tradition in its most robust incarnation represents a true and healthy return to antiquity. This book ends with a fair and helpful appeal to those considering a move from one Christian tradition to another.

Third, I recommend reading Roman Catholic Theology and Practice: An Evangelical Assessment by Gregg Allison. Many of the books written by Protestants walking readers through the theology of Roman Catholicism are quite dated (Roman Catholicism, by Lorraine Boettner, for example), and often do note engage with Rome’s evolved doctrine, Post Vatican II in the ‘60s. Gregg Allison does readers a great service by walking through the theology of Rome based on the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church, and then offering appreciation and critique from a conservative Protestant perspective. This is a great book for someone who knows more about Roman Catholicism by reputation rather than by experience. Of the three, I would say it is the most optional read, especially if time is of the essence. It is good, but is more of an opportunity to go deeper.

Conclusion

Someone considering going to the Roman Catholic church deserves to know what they are really getting into. While reading three books may seem a bit much, I’m appreciative of something that Brad Littlejohn says here by way of challenge:

“Before endangering their soul, damaging their friendships, and tearing apart their church or school community (for let’s face it, that is what happens in many conversions), then, the would-be convert owes it to themselves and to their Protestant friends and mentors to do their homework. And it may turn out that once they do so, they’ll find the answers they were looking for much closer to home than they imagined.”

My hope is twofold: First, that Protestant churches would embrace the best and healthiest version of their true Protestant heritage, which is really a bulwark against many of the motivations that drive so many to Rome. Second, I hope that any Protestant Christian who has seen weaknesses, shallowness, and problems in their own contexts will consider what these books set before them: that rather than finding the answers in Rome, perhaps the true answer is that one ought to move deeper into a more robust and historically rooted Protestantism. After all, the argument of the Reformers was that it was Rome that had embraced novelty and rejected antiquity, and it was the Protestants who were reclaiming it. In reality, it was the Reformers who were more catholic than the Roman Catholics. Hopefully these three books together will be a great help along the way to those who wonder what is right, or who want to help those who are asking questions.

Why Do Protestants Convert? By Brad Littlejohn and Chris Castaldo

This book briefly examines nine motivations that drive many of those who leave Protestant churches to join the Roman Catholic church. The reasons are organized under three headings: psychological reasons, theological reasons, and sociological reasons. The nine reasons that they mention:

Psychological Reasons:

1) Authority Hunger. We live in a very anti-authoritarian age. It is very appealing to some to go to a church that makes such extraordinary claims about its own authority.

Yet the Reformers were very aware that even Rome itself was in denial of the very authority God had placed over it. When they took Roman Catholics to the Scriptures, they were rebuffed by claims to its own authority. While it claimed authority, its authority was “a shortcut rather than the real thing, since it nullifies freedom rather than sustaining it; rather than guiding the soul in pursuit of the good, the hierarchy claims to itself possess the good, so that the laity can simply rest in obedience – learning doctrine if they are so inclined, but trusting implicitly if they prefer” (p. 20).

2) Holiness Deficit Disorder. “It is a plain fact that precious few of our Protestant churches give their worshippers a sense of being in the presence of the holy, a sense of ascending into the very presence of the Almighty and falling before His throne to cry, ‘Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created’ (Rev. 5:11)” (p. 20).

The authors remind us that the Reformers were convinced that the apparent holiness that Rome displayed was a

“painted façade, a simulacrum of the real thing. Rather than revealing the supernatural in the natural, the extraordinary in the ordinary, their transubstantiation could only replace bread and wine with heavenly substances.1 Rather than granting the faithful believer access into the Holy of Holies to feast before the Lord, they left him to gawk from the outer courts while the priestly class interceded on his behalf and brought some morsels of grace out to sustain him on his weary pilgrimage. Thus, rather than inviting the believer to blink dazedly in the blinding light of God’s presence, clothed in the righteousness of Christ, they encouraged him to rest content with a mediated access, dressed up in the hand-me-downs of the saints and apostles” (pg. 22-23).

3) The Inner Ring. Borrowing from C.S. Lewis, the authors point out a natural human desire to belong to a sophisticated, influential respected group. If one is looking for inner rings, “the Roman Catholic Church has more rings within rings than the Ptolemaic model of the cosmos” (p. 27). Many have noted that if one desires to be a conservative in America, it is generally acceptable to be a Roman Catholic, and a bit of an embarrassment to be a Protestant. While acknowledging this yearning, the authors remind us of the sizeable contributions of Protestants to theology, science, and philosophy. For the moment, Roman Catholicism may be the flavor of the hour, but these things do tend to ebb and flow as the tide.

Theological Reasons:

4) The Quest for Certainty. “Beset with intellectual chaos, uncertainty, and choice, converts look to Rome to resolve the struggle, a struggle that some believe is an outworking of the Protestant Reformation…” (pg. 36-37). The hope is that finally the long hope and quest to know the truth for certain will have found its destination in Rome.

And yet has the authority of Rome prevented the sort of chaos that one sees in Protestantism? “The infighting among traditionalist, conservative, and liberal Catholics highlights the sizable dent in Rome’s claim to speak with the living voice of divine authority, revealing that interpretive certainty cannot be realized in the sola magisterium position of Rome any more than in one’s private interpretation” (pg. 31).

5) In Touch with History. Some converts believe that to be Roman Catholic is to be deep in the history of the church. This is a real problem in many mainstream protestant churches where to be new and novel is more exciting and enticing: “The more independent and separatist a church, the deeper the ditch, and conversely, the more attractive will be the Catholic claim to an unbroken and historic church” (pg. 41).

The authors helpfully point out that the argument of the Reformers was that Rome was besought with novel innovations, and had lost its ancient past. “Far from trying to break with tradition, the Reformers were seeking to recover it, a legacy that we must recapture and emulate in our own day.” (43).

6) Tangible Grace. Some are driven to Rome by the “anti-sacramental impulse of many evangelical churches.” The sense is that for Roman Catholics, they have something superior in a physical sacramental system where one can touch and interact with the holy, the enchanted, whereas Protestants merely have a mental and intellectual faith.

I could bewail this myself. I recall a man visiting our church recently, and he said, “I can tell you take the Lord’s Supper seriously here, and that you think there’s more going on than just something in our heads. There’s something spiritual here.” He told me that his broadly evangelical church treated the Lord’s Supper like a reminder snack that anyone could come up and have a taste of during the service if they wanted. There was very little seriousness around the supper or fencing of the table. Sadly, this is true in much of Protestantism, but as our own PCA church testifies, it isn’t intrinsic to Protestantism, and it certainly isn’t necessary to go to Rome (or to resort to the doctrine of transubstantiation) to find the place where heaven and earth meet each week.

Sociological Reasons:

7) Tired of Division. Many people yearn for church unity, and think they will find it in Rome. Yet Rome’s “unity” is an organizational unity, yet from the Protestant perspective, our unity is meant to be deep and substantial, not merely organizational: “Scripture calls Christians to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (p. 54).

The claim of the Reformers was that the Roman Church had actually themselves damaged the unity of the Spirit that had existed in the church by rejecting and departing from the rules, authorities, and standards that God had given his church from ancient times in the Scriptures. It was Rome who pronounced anathemas on the Protestants. The authors also spend a great deal of time highlighting the substantive unity that exists among Protestants. In contrast, they remind the readers of “Rome’s policy nowadays of turning a blind eye to heretics or sectarians within her own ranks” (p. 56).

8) Tired of Shallowness. The authors address the complaint that Protestant churches are often entirely intellectual exercises, and the ministry of the church doesn’t reach down to the soul, to the deep and emotional core. The argument is made that Protestant churches have stripped the world of beauty and enchantment and merely left it as an intellectual place to be studied or known. Because of this, the Roman Catholics have Flannery O’Connor and Graham Greene, but Protestants seemingly have nobody of that caliber. The argument is that this is because of something anemic in Protestantism.

Yet the authors are very insistent that the Reformed doctrine of the Lord’s Supper demonstrates the exact opposite. Rather than a merely intellectual exercise, Calvin and the Reformers (Zwinglians excepted) believed that in the Lord’s Supper, God’s people really fed upon Christ. Because of this, the Reformed churches set forth an enchanted and supernatural view of the world that may not be appreciated by many. Besides, they remind us, Protestants have a rich history of artists in their ranks, including Handel, Bach, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Shakespeare, Spenser, Milton, Melville, Donner, Herbert, Coleridge, Eliot, and C.S. Lewis only to name a few. “The fact that we lack such artistic and cultural giants today says something about the educational failures of late modern American Protestantism, to be sure, but not, we can suggest, anything fundamental to Reformational faith” (pg. 63).

9) Tired of Irrelevance. “Young evangelicals are painfully aware of being a cultural laughingstock for their pro-life protests and anti-gay-marriage wedding cake showdowns, for their apparently unshakeable allegiance to the hypocritical shenanigans of the Republican party and their prudishness in a culture of shamelessness” (p. 51). While some of those who cannot handle being on the cultural downslope abandon biblical ethical values altogether, others bolt for Rome where elite culture seems to look with less disdain. For some the move is less from embarrassment than from a sense of respect for the achievements of Roman Catholic scholars, theologians, publications, and institutions.

The authors remind readers that these advances for Roman Catholics are not due to “shortcomings inherent to Protestantism.” Not only does Protestantism have a truly rich heritage of intellectual thought and achievement, but there is an explanation for why the institutions and respectability of Rome have thrived, while those of Protestants have not. Protestants lost many of their institutions due to the rise of liberalism and failed to respond to their exile by “creating the kind of institutions that could foster a robust and relevant public witness” (p. 54). On the other hand, during its years in the cultural “wilderness” in the United States (up through the 1980s), Roman Catholics invested their “sheer global scale, wealth, and organization” to build effective and lasting institutions, and much of that labor has paid off, to be sure. The authors agree the Protestants have much work to do on this point, but the answer is found in our own Protestant heritage, not in abandoning it altogether.

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When I first visited Evergreen in the summer of 2020, the entire country was on lockdown. I remember boarding the plane to come to Portland. Those were the days of mandatory masking and social distancing. I preached for multiple services, one of them full of bright smiling faces, and one service full of reluctantly masked faces. I remember preaching to these masked faces and wondering, “What are they thinking?” “Are they even responding to this?” “I think this sermon is flopping hard.” It turns out, it’s just really hard to read emotions when all you can see are eyes!

Early months at Evergreen were an incredible blessing. When we got here, we managed to lure some people back by having worship outdoors. People were so starved for friendship that there was an almost rabid need to be together and to rejoice. Never was a friendlier church ever found on planet earth – I was convinced – than Evergreen. Even today, people remark at what an open, inviting, and kindhearted church Evergreen is for visitors. While I think this was always a part of Evergreen’s DNA, something about coming out of the pandemic just made ours an even happier, friendlier, and more grateful congregation.

Attendance was challenging in 2020. Numbers hovered around 80 at times, and much of the next year was spent coaxing people into returning to in-person worship once again. Many were forced out of their comfort zones, and often they thanked the session (at least eventually) for encouraging them to return. Attendance has continued to climb steadily for the past four years, and we can be grateful that not only have our members shared the gospel with friends and neighbors, but that others in the community looking for a place to worship have, on the Lord’s initiative, made Evergreen their church home.

This increase in attendance often led to Sundays where the sanctuary was overwhelmingly full. After worship, there were times when just trying to get a cup of coffee nearly required riot gear. We had Sundays where attendance could be as high as 173 one Easter Sunday. This led the session to make the decision in January of 2024 to move to two services. The purpose of this move was to ensure there would be room for visitors when they visited the church. While the move to two services has had aspects of convenience, there is no doubt that nearly all of us have missed having the full room with all of our friends worshiping alongside of us. Even as the two service format is painful and challenging for us, it will help to remember that they exist for evangelistic reasons: we should all be inviting people to worship as we share the gospel with them, and the new format helps ensure that there is room for those who come. The change to two services is not for our sake, but for the sake of the growth of the gospel in the Beaverton area, and for our own personal growth in evangelistic practices. The best way to make sure that sacrifice is not squandered is for us to actively be sharing Jesus with others and reminding them that Evergreen is ready to be their church home.

Not only have attendance and service format changed since 2020, but we also have had changes in staff. Matthew Poole has been our Christian Education Director for nearly three years, and his family have been an integral part of the Evergreen community. We have a search committee that should be making a recommendation in the next month about possibly recommending Matthew to be our new Associate Pastor. Not only that, but beginning in only a few days, Erik Haralson will begin work as our Youth Director, and as our Property Caretaker. One thing that has not changed is Teri Beskow’s tireless and skillful work as the church secretary. When I first arrived, our bulletins were printed on a tri-fold piece of paper that kept blowing away during our outdoor worship services. She is practically a book publisher now, designing, printing, folding, and stapling our worship orders every week. I am incredibly grateful for her, and the mere thought of her ever retiring makes me wake up in a cold sweat at night.

Not all growth is numerical, of course. In fact, the most important growth in God’s people really cannot be measured in numbers. The ministry of God’s church isn’t like a factory that churns out widgets which you can count. Instead, the work of the church is about personal growth in Christ and discipleship – something that is really only seen in peoples’ lives. The Lord has also been raising up new deacons, he brought us a new elder, and I believe that even now, he is preparing the hearts and lives of future church officers in his own time. The Lord is trustworthy and works in his own time, for which we are grateful.

One of the greatest things about being a Pastor is that people give you this incredible privilege of entering into their most intimate moments, and sharing their lives with you. This means seeing heartaches up close (and there have been plenty of those, of course). But it also means I have had a front row seat to so many families and individuals who have experienced real spiritual growth at Evergreen, and especially for the way God has used this church to grow their own knowledge of God’s word and appreciation of the Savior, Jesus Christ. Family worship is being practiced where it wasn’t before. Church members have told me about evangelism opportunities they have taken, and we have even seen people darken the door of this church who otherwise would not have. Think about the spiritual growth and change that it takes to move people like that! Seeing these sorts of fruits brings gratification to my own work, and it reminds me that the Lord is at work.

In our preaching ministry we have spent a sustained amount of time in the gospel of Matthew. Believe it or not, I have been preaching through Matthew since April of 2021, which means that for over three years we have been with Jesus Sunday after Sunday reading about his teaching, his life, his substitutionary death and his resurrection. We should complete this series on Matthew in October of this year. At that point, I am eager for us to dive into the book of Daniel as we learn about what we should expect life to be like for us as God’s people who are not living in a place that is their permanent home.

Eventually after finishing Daniel (probably in February of 2025), I am excited for us to take a deep dive into the book of Romans, which was known as the fount of the Reformation and the impetus for Luther’s own rediscovery of the gospel of Christ. I have spent much of my life reflecting on Romans. It was the book that God used to convert me as a teenager. All of my Christian life I have lived with a steadily growing eagerness to preach this book. That is to say, there is so much in terms of preaching for us to be eager to embrace as 2025 approaches.

The most exciting thing to me is that while all the members of Christ’s church are used to accomplish these things, at the end of the day, it is God who is at work among us. What a comfort to know that we are all (as John Owen put it) poor under-rowers in the ship that is Christ’s church. The fact that God is willing to use any of us to accomplish his purposes is such an incredible gift. I’ve had four years of serving you now, and it feels like they’ve flown by so quickly. My family and I are praying for many many more.

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The Zoom Book Club will be reading The Bruised Reed by Richard Sibbes. The Bruised Reed is a classic work of Puritan theology, first published in 1630. It is a devotional work that focuses on the comfort and assurance of salvation found in Jesus Christ.

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The Evergreen session met on November 1^st and had an extensive discussion and time of prayer. One of the great needs and passions that has been growing in the hearts of the session members has been a desire for each of us as elders, and all of us as church members to be people who are personally more readily and eagerly sharing the gospel. We want to be more eager and encouraging about creating a culture at this church of all its members engaging in personal evangelism.

During one part of our meeting, it occurred to one elder that the children’s catechism that his son had just learned might present us with just what we were looking for to articulate the great need for evangelism at Evergreen. And so on the spot he called up his 9 year old son and asked him this question: “What does it mean to pray, ‘Thy Kingdom come’?” Here is the answer we heard from a nine year old child on speakerphone: “We are asking God to bring more and more people to hear, believe and obey his gospel.”

The session was immediately convinced that this was to be Evergreen’s theme for 2024: “Thy Kingdom Come: That More People Would Hear, Believe, and Obey His Gospel.”

A Church Inviting People to Come

What will this look like to be a church that lives out this theme “Thy Kingdom Come” in action? It will look like a church that is pro-active about doing evangelism. Historically there have been two kinds of evangelism methods that most Christians in America are used to. One of those is cold-call evangelism. This is the sort of thing you may have tried in the past, or you may have been subjected to in the past, where you knock on someone’s door and invite them to church.

Another kind of evangelism is “Program-centered” or “event-centered” evangelism where we put on an event at the church and hope that it will draw people to come in.

We as a session have discussed this and think that both of these methods are not the approaches that we will be encouraging for our church. This doesn’t mean that nobody was ever converted by a knock at the door or by coming to an event at a church, but it is to say that in our own day and age, neither of these are well received or welcome by those outside of the church. At least in the time and place where we live, there was never a time in all of human history when people were less excited to have a stranger knocking on their door.

And at least one issue with event evangelism is that it often drains the time and resources of a church, makes a church feel like it is doing a lot, does an excellent job of drawing those Christians who are already part of the church, and by and large they do very little for bringing in those who are not already convinced.

This does not mean that nobody was ever converted by these means in all of human history. But this at least means that we as a church will not be focusing on them in 2024.

The type of evangelism we will be encouraging in the coming year is what Tony Merida calls “Network Evangelism.” Rodney Stark, in his history of the early church points out that this was how the gospel spread early on in church history.

“Social networks are the basic mechanism through which conversion takes place… Most conversions are not produced by professional missionaries conveying a new message, but by rank-and-file members who share their faith with their friends and relatives… The principle that conversions spread through social networks is quite consistent with the fact that the earliest followers of Jesus shared many family ties and long-standing associations… Although the very first Christian converts in the West may have been by full-time missionaries, the conversion process soon became self-sustaining as new converts accepted the obligation to spread their faith and did so by missionizing their immediate circle of intimates.”

Churches grew as members personally shared Jesus with their neighbors. When the church in Jerusalem was scattered, those who went out shared the word where they went, according to Acts 8 and 11.

This approach of Network Evangelism recognizes that each of us has a network of relationships.

• Some of those relationships are familial.
• Some of them are geographic – people who live in your neighborhood.
• Some of them are vocational – people at your workplace.
• Some of them are recreational – people you hang out with.
• And some of these relationships are commercial – people who see you at stores and shops – your barber, your hairdresser, the guy who sells you records and comic books and so on.

We all have relationships. A network of relationships. And yet for some of us, we need to be encouraged to develop more relationships.

Others of us have tons of relationships, but we’re bashful about sharing the gospel or inviting the people we know to church. In that case, we need to be encouraged to share the gospel with the people we already know. Others of us think we don’t have many relationships and need to realize we know more people than we thought. We think this prodding is precisely what members and officers of Evergreen need.

And so in the coming year, we as a session will be working to develop a culture of evangelism here at Evergreen where we will be preaching, praying, conversing, and sharing with each other about the need to share Christ with the people in our lives who are not already walking with him. To do that, we’ll be giving out resources (much like we did with family worship in 2023), we’ll be teaching, preaching, and speaking in such a way that we want to see the whole cultural attitude here at Evergreen shift.

Instead of having an inward-facing self-protective posture, we think it is more obedient to the great commission for every member of Evergreen to be nudged, reminded, equipped, and encouraged to be praying for the people we know, inviting them, serving them, giving them resources, and yes sharing the good news of Christ with them.

We know from current statistics and from the history of the early church especially that the vast majority of people who start coming to church come because someone they know invited them. In fact, 51% of dechurched evangelicals said they would be willing to return to church if they had a friend who went to that church, or if they were at least invited back by someone they know (The Great Dechurching, Davis, p. 28)

And so our plan in the coming year is to tear down those excuses we might give, to push back on the reasons we might be holding back on sharing Christ, and to see our church culture shift into a different attitude where every member (no matter their age) is surrounded by an atmosphere of expectation that they will always have two to four people in mind, where we are praying for them, sharing literature with them, and bringing them to church.

This is not a program, it is not some kind of scheduled event, but it is meant to be a whole cultural attitude shift here among us. Now, let’s say some of you love the idea of going door to door. You can still do that, especially if you have a gift for that. But what we’re not doing, as a church, is creating a program or prescribing how we’re going to live these things out.

Instead, some of you may decide you want to evangelize one way, and someone might evangelize another way. The point is, there are a diverse number of ways these things can be done, each in keeping with our various gifts.

Our hope as a session is that the church itself is emanating this commitment to evangelism and love of the Gospel. We are committed to equipping you as the saints for the work of ministry (Eph. 4:12), at which point each of us are going out and seeing ourselves as “sent ones” wherever we find ourselves.

What I hope in the coming year is that God, through the ministry of the word in this church, will convict and convince all of us that this is our calling… that God will convince you that this way of living is worth it, and to see more and more people come to know Jesus because all of us are opening our lives, opening our homes, and opening our church to inviting others in.

In practice, this means we, as a church, need to be ready for visitors. It means we should expect Visitors. It also means that just because someone is here we don’t assume that they are already Christians. One small change in the way we talk could be this: instead of asking a visitor, “When did you first become a Christian?” we can ask a question like, “Are you a Christian?” Something like that communicates to them that if they’re here and aren’t a Christian yet, that’s okay. It tells them that we expect them.

I want to talk a moment about motivations; listen to this verse. In Philemon 6 Paul prays “that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ.”

In other words, Paul is saying that when we share our faith, it grows our own hearts and sanctifies us even more. Our faith is not yet mature, and our knowledge of God in Christ is not full until we share Jesus with others. It’s not just for the good of others that we share the gospel. But it’s also good for us. By sharing our faith, we will know Christ better and better. That’s not just me being a cheerleader: that’s God himself through Paul telling you that it’s the case.

Expect more from me and from the session in the coming year on this topic of Network Evangelism.

And so as the year moves along, we will talk more and more about what this looks like. But this is a drum we plan on beating in 2024. But this leads to a new and important question: if we believe God will be faithful and answer the preaching of his word, how can we be ready when more people come to Evergreen?

A Church That Needs More Room

The session here now keeps a close and accurate roll of the church. And as of today we have approximately 180 members on the rolls here at Evergreen. Our attendance here varies each week from 130 some weeks all the way up to 165 at times like Easter. But at 150 attendance, we are already facilities constrained. Even today, we had 150 in worship, and this room felt quite tight. When I say “facilities constrained” I mean that people feel like the room is too full for them and their families, and especially too full for more visitors.

Here’s the thing: by God’s grace, we have continued to add families, and have a steady stream of visitors, many of whom are even now in the process of becoming members. We are also not really losing families except for a few who happen move out of the area.

All it would take is a slight bump in membership and attendance over the course of a few Sundays for Evergreen to be too full for us to feel good about inviting more people. Now, I doubt that any of us would say, “I won’t invite someone to church because my church feels so full.”

I think many of us would agree that current seating is already incredibly tight, even when not pushing against capacity. That’s awesome. We love it. We sing that hymn that says, “We long to see Thy churches full/That all the chosen race/May with one voice and heart and soul/Sing Thy redeeming grace.” And if we mean it, then all of us are excited to see this church full.

This presents us with a sweet and wonderful challenge that we have to address. A tightly packed room sends an unintended and unspoken message to visitors. And that message is, “we have enough already.” And so the session’s plan for 2024 is twofold: encourage evangelism in conjunction with making more room.

A Church With Room For Those Who Come

How will we make more room? We will begin having two identical worship services each Sunday starting next month, on January 7^th, 2024.

Every Sunday we will have an early Service 9:00-10:15.

There will then be a 15 minute break, after which adult and children Sunday School will be held from 10:30-11:10.

Now, this is very important: for the adults we will use the last 10 minutes of Sunday School to cover church announcements and as a reminder to everyone present to pick up after themselves, pick up their cups from the Lord’s Supper, and to prepare for the second group that will be coming in shortly after.

After Sunday School we will have about ten minutes to visit, to mill about, to finish drinking our coffee, and then for those from the first service to move out of the sanctuary so that the second Service can begin at 11:30, and then end at 12:45pm.

So 9:00, 10:30, and 11:30 will be our new Sunday pattern.

One of the most noticeable things you might see is that the services themselves will – by design – be shorter by 15 minutes. No more announcements during the service; we will sing one fewer song; and we will be condensing our catechism reading as well. Our desire as a session is for the sermons to stay the same length, and for the elders not to feel like they have to rush through the service when they are leading. By removing some items from our worship order we think we will be able to make room for two services and Sunday School on Sundays.

Now, there is something in this that will be missed. And that is the time to talk after the first service. There just won’t be as much time for visiting if Sunday School and another service is rolling up on us.

If I can be really frank, for many people, the personal connection and time to visit after church is a prime feature of Evergreen. Sometimes people stick around as long as an hour after worship most Sundays. If your favorite thing about Evergreen is taking our time after worship, visiting extensively, and just being around each other to visit after church, then coming to the first service then Sunday School is going to drive you crazy. Because there won’t be enough time between church and Sunday School, and you’ll probably be a little annoyed.

For our extroverts, I feel confident that coming to Sunday School and then the second service is going to be the right pattern for you and your family. Because after the first service, we’re going to have to be efficient and usher people out. And if that feels like a problem, it’s a surefire sign that you belong at the second service. Because after the second service, there will be no rush and we can all take as much time as we want after worship.

What does that mean for our Monthly Fellowship Meal that we currently have after church? That’s going to be moved to an evening time at 4:45pm on the second Sunday of each month. This meal will have an even more important function than it had before: The fellowship meal gets the folks from both services together to share a meal and catch up. It’s a reminder that we are still the same church, even if our worship services take place during two separate times.

Remember: why would we go to all of this trouble? Some of you may think this is wonderful. Some of you may not feel so good about it. What’s our motivator? Again: it’s because with this change we will now have two services that offer room to invite others and it allows for Evergreen’s future growth. We will not wait for the growth, we will make room for the growth.

This is the important message I want you to hear: that when you invite friends and family, we will have room for them. As we evangelize we will be able to receive the ones we are sharing the gospel with, but we can’t do this without splitting to two services.

Additional Questions:

Q: We have grown accustomed to having snacks and coffee after church but before Sunday School. Will that continue?

A: Snacks after church have been a help to motivating and encouraging families to stay for Sunday School. However, with shorter services that are closer together and the need to keep the sanctuary clean for the second services, we will only be offering drink refreshments just prior to the Sunday School time.

Q: What are the long-term plans for Evergreen with regard to the number of services? Should we expect that there will always be two services at Evergreen?

A: Everything we say here assumes that the Lord brings growth – something that we would never presume upon the Lord for. However, it’s always important to know what we believe a faithful response to the Lord’s bringing growth ought to be.

Evergreen was originally established as a church that was intended to produce other church plants in the Oregon area. Evergreen has planted numerous times before, and we don’t want to abandon that long-term vision. However, we think Evergreen needs to have higher membership than it did in the past by the time it planted. In the long-term we want to still be a church that plants other churches. This means that if we grew to a certain size, planted, and found our membership to be low enough we would be open to contracting to one service. Without a larger building, however, the goal would be to have enough members in the future that we could once again plant. This would imply returning to two services again. The session is realistic that this church, if we’re faithful to plant in the future (once we reach a certain size threshold) would again need go back to two services if we found ourselves facilities constrained. There is no way (short of expanding our current building) to avoid two services if we are faithful and God continues to bring growth.

Q: What will the Sunday pattern be during the times when Sunday School isn’t taking place? If we don’t have Sunday School during the summer will service times change?

A: During the times of the year when Sunday School isn’t happening (usually during winter and summer breaks), we will stick to this set pattern (9:00am and 11:30am worship services). The space between services will just be longer. We think it is very important that we not deviate from the set worship service times, and that people learn that worship at Evergreen will predictably and consistently be at 9:00 and 11:30, no matter what is happening with Sunday School.

Q: What exactly are the ways that congregants can serve at Evergreen?

A: While some areas need more volunteers at different times than others, it’s good for congregants to know the overall ways that they can serve the body of Christ. Here are some of the various ways that Evergreen members can serve:

• Female Nursery Volunteers
• Greeters
• Audio Technicians
• Coffee Prep
• Evening Fellowship Meal Set-up
• Property Cleanup/Maintenance
• Tenebrae/Lessons and Carols Choir
• Musicians
• Sunday School Teachers

If you are interested in serving in any of these ways, contact the Evergreen deacons at epc_deacons@evergreenpca.com.

The post Moving to Two Services: Why, When, and How? appeared first on Evergreen Presbyterian Church.

In particular, I want to prepare you as a congregation here at Evergreen for a few aesthetic changes that you will begin to notice over the coming months. Before I do that, however, please bear with me as I lay out a few important principles that will help us as we think about church buildings and aesthetics.

While Christians can (and do) worship in any location, and in any situation, we also know that God took a special interest in how his temple was decorated, and what it said about himself and humanity’s purpose and destiny. In particular, he intended to communicate something about the purpose of worship to those who entered the space. We ought to take an important lesson from the Old Testament: God believed that architecture communicates something about itself because it is intentionally designed for a certain purpose. Whether people understand it or not, decorations and architecture speak to the heart in a way that is powerful but also nearly always unstated. I’d like to address possible misconceptions that some people have about church buildings.

For starters, we should remember that a church is not a building, it is a people assembled by God. Christians in New England avoided this confusion by calling the building where they worshiped in a “meetinghouse.” We may not call our building a meetinghouse, but we should at least learn the lesson of this practice.

Second, it’s also worth noting that for the Reformers, church buildings are not considered “sacred spaces” as though there could be something sacramental about a building. Simply being in a building that is used for worship does not in itself bless someone. Instead, the Reformers understood that while one might set aside a meeting space for purposes of worship, it was not the building itself that was holy, nor was it the presence of the pulpit, the table, or even various other decorations that had some sort of intrinsic power to make a place “holy.” Instead, the Reformers understood that it was the Word of God proclaimed, the sacraments set forth, and the worship of God according to His word that was rightly seen as holy. God’s people are considered holy. But a physical location itself was not seen as holy simply by virtue of its usage or decoration.

Third, as a consequence of this conviction, Reformed church buildings and sanctuaries tended to historically be characterized by a plainness and an intentional simplicity – especially in comparison to those spaces created by Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, which were normally crowded with images and statues, and which demanded the attention of those in attendance. The Reformed tended to keep the decor in their church buildings simple and free from clutter or distraction. The goal was to direct the attention of those in the service away from the room or building itself and toward the preaching of the word. Thus in Reformed churches the pulpit was moved to the center, the table for the Lord’s Supper was moved to the side, and the baptismal font was usually placed somewhere useful but not dominant in the architecture.

Because of the nature of the church meeting place, the Reformers organized and decorated around the purpose of the room. The meeting place wasn’t constructed, designed, or decorated to become, itself, an object of curiosity or admiration. The goal of the room in itself was not beauty, but worship. Instead, the buildings were planned in such a way as to allow light into the building, to allow as many people as possible to participate, and to have the word and sacraments observed. These were the priorities of the Reformed. What this meant is that the worship space was seen as beautiful if and when it was oriented around an understood purpose and stripped of contrary distractions. In the case of God’s people, they are meant to worship and to witness. We worship the unseen God, and we bear witness about Christ to the watching world through the proclamation of His word. This means that the physical worship space ought not to draw our attention to it, but instead to the Creator who has assembled us together. David Gobel suggests this means that “a Reformed church architecture should be, at the outset, supportive of and subordinate to Christian worship.”

This doesn’t mean, however, that churches ought to be dreary, run-down, or unattractive. Nor does it mean that the Reformers have been fairly treated in the past, as though they opposed beauty simply because they put the usage of a space at the center of its aesthetic. A simple space is only lacking in beauty if simplicity is not or cannot be beautiful. There is an argument to be made that cluttered, image-filled, or stage-like modern spaces are themselves gauche, distracting, or demanding of an attention all their own. A Reformed approach to worship spaces, then, means that while a space should be simple and conducive to the dignity and joy of the worship of the living God, the space itself should never demand reverence and undue attention toward itself.

We should remember that the church has two roles: worship and witness. The meeting place for worship itself testifies to what it is for. Every building bears some kind of witness to its own purpose. Churches are no different, and so ought to – if possible – not only point to the Creator whom the church worships in this space, but also to the care and competence with which the Church itself operates. To put it plainly, a run down church building indicates something that may not be true of the Church. A run down building or property communicates without words that a congregation is careless, distracted, or interested in other matters than caring for its place of worship. These may be unfair, but they are a reality and mean that we fail in our public witness when we let a property unnecessarily decline. A cared for property doesn’t only bless the immediate community that uses a building, but also is a blessing to those who live near it, even if they are not immediately using the building. For these reasons, we ought to remember that caring for our building and beautifying it are worthwhile expenses and worth the effort.

With some of these things in mind, the deacons of our church assembled a committee of individuals in our congregation with gifting towards architecture and design, tasked with redesigning and rethinking the aesthetics of our church building. In our own case, we as a congregation are not in a position to altogether design a new building; instead, we have a building that God has already given us, which previous generations purchased and labored hard to build onto, and which gives us pre-existing boundaries within which any current design ideas must be constrained. We honor those generations in our church for the building which they have gifted to us by tending and caring for it. This doesn’t require that it be preserved in a permanent stasis. Instead, it can be kept and yet aesthetically updated. I believe this is what our design committee has done. The design committee has described their recommendations to the deacons as more of a “refresh” than a fundamental change.

While some projects will be done over time and progressively, in the short term the sanctuary and foyer are both being painted a much lighter shade and the banners on the walls, on the table, and on the pulpit are being removed. Congregants will likely be most struck by the simplicity of the cross, and the unadorned wooden pulpit and table.

Eventually the sconces and lighting will likely be replaced and updated. Plans are also being made with regard to the exterior of the building. In particular weather damaged stucco is being repaired, and the exterior (including the ramp behind the building) will itself be painted. Currently the exterior is a creamy off-white color. The new color will be lighter, and the trim will be a light grey. The matte green doors will be painted black.

The goal here is a simplified and dignified public worship space that is intended to focus those present on the invisible God, on his Word, and on his worship. The hope is that a lighter aesthetic will brighten the space in which we meet, and that the simpler aesthetic will direct those present to focus on God and His Word.

It is my own hope that we as a congregation will welcome these changes which the deacons have initiated, planned, and approved. I am also grateful to God and hopeful that these will be changes which are in keeping our church’s mission of worship and witness to God and the Gospel of his Son.

The post Beautifying Our Church Building for the Glory of God appeared first on Evergreen Presbyterian Church.

As the official magazine of the denomination of the Presbyterian Church in America, of which I am a teaching elder, I am concerned with the discernment you used in printing the recent article from David Cassidy titled “Prayer and Work in the Face of Violence” in which he called gun violence “the leading cause of death among children in this nation” (source: https://byfaithonline.com/prayer-and-work-in-the-face-of-violence/). This is incorrect information and is misleading. Gun violence is absolutely not the leading cause of death of children in the United States, and it’s not even close.

According to Pew Research, the number of gun deaths among those under 18 rose an alarming amount from 2,281 in 2020 to 2590 in 2021 (source: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/06/gun-deaths-among-us-kids-rose-50-percent-in-two-years/). However, that number is radically dwarfed by the number of abortions that took place in 2020 alone. According to the CDC, there were over 600,000 children dead in this nation because of abortion. According to the Guttmacher Institute that number was over 900,000.  (source: https://www.kff.org/womens-health-policy/report/key-facts-on-abortion-in-the-united-states/).

Why is this relevant? Because Cassidy’s article says that guns are the leading cause of death among children in the United States when nearly a million were murdered in 2020 with no guns involved. Cassidy’s statement is simply wrong, and he should know that if he believes (along with our denomination) that unborn children are children too. We believe that these murdered children are, in fact, children and human persons. And yet the numbers quoted by Cassidy omit these lost little ones. To include Cassidy’s statement with no correction (as of May 9, 2023), is irresponsible and dishonest. It is a serious lapse of wisdom on the part of the ByFaith editorial team to run it or not to push back on it before publishing.

600,000 children (at least) are dead in the United States because women are willfully murdering them. I realize that including that information steals some of the outrage and rhetorical force from Cassidy’s article.

Rhetorical force aside, we are to be people of truth. Our denomination ought to be characterized by truth, so far as we are able to ascertain it, and by humility where we cannot. This especially should be the case with our denominational magazine, which the PCA funds, and which the denomination is supposed to have oversight of.

None of this means that gun violence is not a problem. But it is disturbing, not only that David Cassidy would make such a blatantly factual error, but that the editors either did not notice, or were negligent to make the correction.

Beyond the factual inaccuracy that depersonalizes the unborn, I am also concerned that our denominational magazine would use its platform for a piece where the overall tone seems to be a repetition of so much of the bitter invective that we hear in the aftermath of horrible crimes, where Christians are sneered at because they believe in the power of prayer and because they promise to lift up the hurting before God. “Save your prayers and actually do something” sneers the cultured despiser in the comments section. It is sad to see our denominational magazine becoming just another opportunity for Christians to be derided in the face of seemingly (humanly) unstoppable evil.

Cassidy is right about at least one thing: we do need to work. We have the tools, but they are not political. Ultimately gun violence is something that is a spiritual issue that goes to the level of the heart. This means that God’s people aren’t helpless in the face of human evil and violence.  The area of the heart is the real problem here, and it is our specialty. Jesus says that “out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder…” (Matt. 15:19). In a nation with more guns than citizens, Christians do their best work in preventing gun violence by focusing on the work of hearts: evangelizing their neighbors, giving hope to people who might otherwise be tempted to harm their neighbors, and by faithfully living in this fallen world as Christ’s Church. This is something that Christ’s Church is uniquely equipped for, and which politicians are miserable at doing. Christians have the hope. We have the tools. God has given them to us, and he’s told us how to use them.

The result of that work looks like the growth of the kingdom, the spread of the gospel, and the changing of hearts. If the Apostle Paul’s murdering heart can be changed, then why would we not do the work Jesus has given his church to do so that more hearts can be softened from hearts of stone into hearts of flesh?

What the church cannot do is speak as Christ’s church from God’s word on the specific legislative answers that Cassidy winks towards but does not elucidate. This vagueness of what he is calling for is strange. The piece at once seems to fault the church for knowing the limits of its calling, but seems itself to be afraid of the very same thing it chides praying Christians for: pulling back from areas of culture and politics that are beyond its Scripturally bound purview.

I am concerned about this article, I have congregants who are concerned, and I ask that you either retract your article with an apology, or at the least your editors include a rejoinder and an editorial note indicating the initial misstatement by Brother Cassidy. I would suggest that the editors think carefully before running such editorials in the future. As our denominational magazine if you have something to say, it should be said responsibly. Thank you.

Yours in Christ,

Pastor Adam Parker

Evergreen Presbyterian Church

Beaverton, OR

The post An Open Letter to the Editors of ByFaith appeared first on Evergreen Presbyterian Church.