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The World We Made: Coming soon...

UPDATE: There’s been lots of interest in this podcast, with about 2000 listens from 30 countries and counting! If you haven’t subscribed yet, we’ve added a few links to make it easier for those of you who aren’t on iTunes, which is most of you. (Welcome non-Apple fanboys.) Don't miss an episode. Scroll down and subscribe now.

"These are the confessions of American Christians recovering from American Christianity. This is the world we made."

Warhorn Media is pleased to announce a new podcast hosted by Jake Mentzel and Nathan Alberson and featuring Tim Bayly. The World We Made is designed to help ordinary American Christians think through the difficult issues we face in our culture today. Season 1 is about homosexuality.

Over the course of the first season, we talk with Tim about how we went from having anti-sodomy laws in all 50 states (just 50 years ago) to where we are today. What are the changes Tim has seen in his lifetime? What exactly do they mean? What part did the culture play and what part did the church play? How are regular Bible-believing Christians supposed to respond? What has Tim learned as a pastor to help equip us for the challenge of ministering to men and women tempted by homosexuality?

These are the questions we'll be unpacking over the course of eight 20-minute episodes. We'll start out slow and easy, and things will pick up steam as we get closer and closer to the end. You won't want to miss it, so check out the trailer (above), and go ahead and subscribe now in iTunes or Android (or wherever you listen to your podcasts—Google Play Music, Stitcher, TuneInRSS feed) so you're ready when the first episode drops (July 17). 

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Daddy Tried audiobook now available...

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Warhorn Media is pleased to announce that Tim Bayly's Daddy Tried is now available as an audiobook. If you haven't had a chance to read it for yourself, swing over to Audible.com or Amazon.com, download a copy, and have Tim read it for you.

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We're also pleased to offer a free download of the Chapter 1 audio to Baylyblog readers.

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Clearnote Conference next week: it's not too late...

Not Ashamed: Ministry in a post-Obergefell world

Wednesday, February 15 at 6 PM to Friday, February 17 at 1:30 PM...

Next week is our conference for church leaders.

You may have noticed I haven't been posting much, recently. I've been hard at work on a book documenting and critiquing the church's present compromises with the homosexualist forces.

The compromises are most visible in celebrity church leaders' recent promotion of the UK's LivingOut.org and the gay Christian lobby. Undiscerning believers are being taught that "godliness is not heterosexuality," that they should have no issue with their church hiring gay pastors, that homosexual orientation is a real deal, and that no pastor should help parents teach their child to love and live the sex God made him...


Stone Gate Ministries: pastoral care for sinners...

Harry Schaumburg and Brian Bunn invited a group of pastors and elders up to Port Washington, Wisconsin, this past week. Harry is the author of two classic books written to help Christians on the road of repentance for sexual sin. The books titled False Intimacy and Undefiled are an extension of the one-week Biblical intensive counselling program Harry provides...


New from My Soul Among Lions...

Speaking of what's going on with Warhorn Media, My Soul Among Lions is back at work creating strong Psalm settings. We're working on the next set of ten (Psalms 11–20), and want to share some of the first fruits of our labors:

If you didn't get in on the Kickstarter campaign for the first album or haven't heard the first ten Psalms we've done, they're available for sale in our Bandcamp store.


WarhornMedia.com...

About a month ago Clearnote Fellowship quietly launched a new ministry called Warhorn Media. It’s our attempt to pull together a bunch of stuff we’ve been doing over the past several years all under one roof—specifically, our forays into publishing, music, and now podcasting (if you like classic lit like Pride & Prejudice, etc., The Bookening might be for you #DOUGWILSON).

Much of the written content at WarhornMedia.com is a spinoff of our little magazine, The Warhorn, which we know many Baylyblog readers have enjoyed and looked forward to. While we readily admit there’s been more looking forward than there’s been enjoying, if you haven't been getting it, you've been missing out. Get a free subscription here.

Although The Warhorn Mag is still alive and well, our efforts for the time being have been focused on pulling together our online presence…which we have done. Very well. In fact, we've become rather well-known among male TV lovers between the ages of 25 and 34.

You see...

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You blew it...

We had our largest attendance at a pastors conference yet, this year. Over a hundred and it was a joy to be together, although the work was hard. So this post doesn't come out of disappointment in our numbers.

Sometimes a pastor needs to say to his people, "you blew it."

So, permit me to say to those of you who should have been here for the conference on child abuse and incest, you blew it. And I'll go further than that: it's my conviction that some of you didn't attend, not because you thought the conference wouldn't be helpful, but because you knew it would be. You're a pastor, elder, elder's wife, or women's ministry director and you simply didn't want to spend time thinking about how best to discover and minister to those children in your congregation who are being raped by their father, uncle, brother, or molested by their sister. 

It's easier not to know, isn't it?

Well, you can take a mulligan...


Sexual Abuse in the Church: conference audio available...

Here's the audio from our 2016 Shepherds Conference, "The Enemy Within: A Conference on Sexual Abuse in the Church." I'd particularly recommend "Recognizing Sexual Abuse" and "Shepherding the Sexually Abused."

Please let us know any criticisms or suggestions you have for us. We'll be doing a similar conference next year on the church's ministry to those suffering the gay/lesbian/transexual/BruceJenner/bisexual temptations. Here's the conference title and dates:

Not Ashamed: Gospel ministry in a post-Obergefell world

February, 15-17, 2017

Here then are the audio files for this year's conference on the sexual abuse of the church's children...


Paedocommunion (2): permission or requirement...

"Why do we eat as a divided body? [1 Corinthians 11] judges traditional Presbyterianism as a church for 'not discerning the body'! ...traditional Presbyterians have for too long 'despised the church of God and humiliated those who have nothing' (1 Corinthians 11:22)   - PCA paedocommunionist pastor, Jeff Meyers

There are varieties of belief and practice among paedocommunionists. Some bring infants to the Lord’s Table, others wait until the children are sign-language toddlers, and still others wait until the toddlers are capable of some level of verbal communication. Beyond age and maturity, some paedocummunionists reject regeneration, others are sacramentalists, and still others believe in regeneration and deny sacramentalism. 

Paedocommunionists typically used to be credobaptists who changed their view to paedobaptism and don't see why their children shouldn't immediately come to the Lord's Table, also. This is key to understanding their arguments and the strength of their commitment to the practice. As they see it, both paedobaptism and paedocommunion are the logical and necessary steps to leaving their Baptist roots behind and embracing covenantal theology.

Paedocommunionists acknowledge the Reformers and Reformed fathers since the Reformation have practiced paedobaptism while opposing paedocommunion. But paedocommunionists approach the history of the Reformed church's condemnation of paedocommunion the same way credobaptists approach the history of the Reformed church's practice of paedobaptism: both paedocommunionists and credobaptists claim they are the true keepers of what Scripture requires and that the historic Reformed church did not have the courage or faith to...


Paedocommunion (1); Introduction...

[The sacraments] are no means of grace except through the faith of the recipient, and in consequence of his own spiritual state and act. There is no inherent power in the ordinance itself to confer blessing, apart from the faith of the participator, and except through the channel of that faith. There is no deposit of power—whether, with the Church of Rome, we deem it physical and ex opere operato, or whether, with Tractarians and High Churchmen, we call it spiritual—in the Sacraments themselves to influence the mind of him who receives them. They have no virtue of themselves, apart from the work of Christ through His Spirit on the one side, and the spiritual act of the recipient through his faith on the other side. - James Bannerman, The Church of Christ

This is an introduction to a series of posts on paedocommunion, the practice of communing at the Lord's Table children who have not yet confessed their faith and been examined by their pastor or the elders of their church. This practice is most common today within the broad Evangelical church where parents simply commune their own children. When the bread and wine are passed, the children whisper to their father or mother that they "want some, too," and the parents see no reason to say "no."

What we are going to examine, though, is a much less common version of paedocommunion found in a small number of congregations in the Protestant and Reformed tradition. Their practice differs from that of the broader Evangelical church in three ways: first, those young children in mainstream Evangelical congregations who commune have not yet been baptized while the children communed by their parents in Protestant and Reformed congregations have been baptized. Second, children communing in mainstream Evangelical congregations don't normally do so because their fathers and mothers believe paedocommunion is Biblical and have developed a system of doctrine to defend their practice. It's really only an ad hoc practice which exists because no one's thought about it and parents aren't inclined to tell their children "no" when they want to do something that seems good, spiritually. On the other hand, parents who commune their children in the small group of paedocommunion Protestant and Reformed congregations believe Scripture requires their children...


My Soul Among Lions: Psalms 1-10 now ready for pre-order...


Why women are being encouraged to attend The Enemy Within: Sexual Abuse in the Church...

This year we hope women will attend our February 17-19, 2016 conference, The Enemy Within: Sexual Abuse in the Church. Previous years we called this conference a "Pastors Conference" or "Church Officers Conference," and only men attended—men who are officers and men who aspire to holding office in the Church.

This year, though, our subject demands the most intense work and wisdom on the part of pastors, elders, and deacons, and that work cannot be done and that wisdom cannot be gained without the help of wise women of the church, including officers' wives. So we've opened up registration, not just to the wives of pastors, elders, and deacons, but also to women, single or married, who obey the command of God given in Titus 2:3-5, to serve the church by "teaching what is good."

My wife Mary Lee and I will be talking about the necessity and helpfulness of church officers working with Titus 2 women in the protection of children of the church. If elders and pastors don't have...


The Enemy Within: Are you registered, yet?

Conference information.

Conference registration.

How many souls are suffering incest, child molestation, and other forms of sexual violence in your own family and church without you realizing it or helping them?

In our culture of sexual wickedness, we are missing opportunities to show the love of Jesus Christ to the least of these burdened with shame, tormented by fear, and distrustful of authority. When they suffered, no one in their church knew the signs of incest. No one heard their cries for help. No one protected them.

Your church has men and women, boys and girls who are suffering because of present and past incest and child abuse.

Do you know who they are? Do you know...


The Enemy Within...

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Sexual abuse is an epidemic in modern America, and our churches are no exception. This is why you are invited to Clearnote Fellowship’s conference, The Enemy Within: A Conference on Sexual Abuse in the Church, February 17-19, 2016...


Ask us your questions...

In a few short months, and a couple of long ones, there's going to be a gathering of old friends at Clearnote Church, Bloomington called the Homecoming. You might think you know everything about Clearnote, but don't be too sure. Take some time to watch the following video and ask us your obvious questions. You can send them here. Jon and Nathan are committed to getting you the not-so-obvious answers to your obvious questions. And, who knows, we may all learn something along the way.


Thank you...

You, dear readers, answered my request and fully funded the $9,000 needed by Lions Among Lambs to record the first ten Psalms in their commitment to write and record musical settings for all 150 psalms. And it was funded before I went to bed Friday evening, as I requested. Thank you so very much.

The Kickstarter campaign is now oversubscribed to the tune of $10,800 ($1,800 over) and this gives us joy. Every extra dollar will be used for further work on this project. With love,


Lions Among Lambs: get in while you still can...

Actually, after posting this I was informed by Jody that the goal has been reached and exceeded. Praise God and thank you, dear brothers and sisters!

Since I asked readers to contribute yesterday, $1,000 of the $1,500 still needed to fully fund the recording of Psalms 1-10 has been given. That means you can still finish the work by giving towards the $578 still needed. Please do it now. I would like to go to bed tonight knowing Baylyblog readers lifted this good work over the top.

A warm thank you to all who help.


Become a subscriber to My Soul Among Lions...

The faith, zeal, and self-sacrifice of our Clearnote musicians have strengthened our church and her officers for years, now. I don't know how I lived as a pastor in former times without the strength of these men's leadership. I didn't know what our churches were missing until our brothers turned their backs on money and personal fame in the music world and gave themselves to the Church and her worship. They are true Sons of Asaph.

As Jody told you in a post earlier this week, and then another a few minutes ago titled A Psalms concert for your church..., they have embarked on a project of writing musical settings for all 150 Psalms. They're done with the first ten and are ready to record them. My favorite is their setting for Psalm 6 (the Psalm I preached on last week). Wonderful setting for this penitential Psalm but I can't give you a listen because...


A Modern Psalter...

What could be more important to the reform of our churches and homes than restoring God's Word to the center of worship? And, outside of preaching, what better way to go about this than reintroducing the forgotten practice of singing the Psalms?

We're embarking on an exciting adventure, and we're inviting all of you here at Baylyblog to share in it with us. Just this spring some of the musicians and songwriters here in Bloomington teamed up with a handful of worship leaders from Indianapolis and Toledo to begin work on producing a modern psalter for our churches and homes. In just a few short months, we finished multiple versions of the first ten psalms, and now we're looking to record them and produce charts and lead sheets, made available entirely for free.

We want to encourage a revival of Psalm singing in our churches, but we need your help. So we launched a Kickstarter project. Check out the video below, and then head over to Kickstarter to sample more of our work (see the videos at the bottom of the page), check out the rewards we're offering, and see how you can help. If nothing else, do us a favor and pre-order the digital album for only $10 or hardcopy for $25. And if you're a pastor, be sure you take notice of the sweet deal you can get your church on booking a concert...