Clearnote Fellowship

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...

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...

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...

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...

[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...

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...

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...

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,

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...