For Adam was First Formed...

Masculine worship does not exclude women in the same way that feminine worship excludes men. Women flourish when men take spritual responsibility. Men wither or stay away when women lead in the church. So the church is not a men's club - men, women, children, and babies gather before the Lord together. Masculine worship is not worship for men; it is worship in which men fulfill their responsibilities to others. As a result of masculine leadership, women and children are free to contribute to worship rightly. But they do so because men have taken responsibility. In a Scriptural worship service, both masculine and feminine elements will be present, but the masculine will be dominant, in a position of leadership. When the feminine element leads or dominates, the result is that those who are masculine are encouraged to stay away.

-Douglas Wilson, Future Men [Picture of Gen. Jackson just for effect]

Feminism in the Pews

Most of the people in our churches are feminists and most of the people in our churches are in same-sex marriages right now, they just don't realize it. Because you have people who have marriages in which you do not have male headship; you do not have male protection; and you do not have provision for wives. This isn't a theoretical issue, this is a gospel issue. It's why the Apostle Paul says that a man who does not provide for his family is worse than an infidel.

Russell Moore, Vice President of Southern Seminary

Sanctify them by Your Truth...

"For my own part I tend to find the doctrinal books often more helpful in devotion than the devotional books, and I rather suspect that the same experience may await many others. I believe that many who find that 'nothing happens' when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand."

—C.S. Lewis

The Fellowship of His Suffering

"Brothers and sisters, the sweetest fellowship with your Savior and your treasure that you will ever know is the fellowship of His suffering. It doesn't get sweeter. Everybody who's been there knows this."

-John Piper, Concluding his Together For the Gospel address 2008

Think about it ...

Atheism: a crutch for bleak-minded people.

Book List [what I've been reading these days] ...

YOU ARE WHAT YOUR BRAIN EATS ...

Learning to Love the Liturgy

All his life he had struggled with ceremonial occasions -but he recognized this as a defect in himself, and greatly admired those friends of his who had the gift of ceremony. For there are times and seasons when ceremony is required of us...
He learned to love such ceremony when it was offered to him, even though he was not good at it...

"It delights me that there should be moments in the services of my own church when my priest stands and I kneel," he said. As democracy becomes more and more complete in the outer world and opportunities for reverence are successively removed, the refreshment, the cleansing, and invigorating returns to any quality which the church offers us become more and more necessary.

It is the eternal life that Jesus promises and for which we were made that requires us to play the great game of ceremony. And as he prepared to enter into God's presence, Lewis sought to overcome his awkwardness, and learn to participate in the solemn fun of proceeding from one world to the next.

-Alan Jacobs, The Narnian