At this year’s General Synod (our annual national decision-making assembly) of the Reformed Church in America, the delegates were blessed to hear three addresses from the Rev. Dr. Richard Mouw, currently serving as the president of Fuller Seminary. Those three addresses, with the discussion questions that followed each, have been combined into a single video. Taken as a whole, it’s a long one—almost an hour—and I wish they’d been posted separately, but they weren’t. Don’t let that stop you from watching Dr. Mouw’s messages, because there’s excellent material here. The first address, which focuses on the “Reformed” half of the equation, is about twenty minutes, while the second, which focuses on the “missional” half, runs another thirteen or so; the third, which brings the two together, takes up the rest of the video. They’re excellent, and if you’re interested in these matters, when you have the time to listen to them, I commend them to you.(Technical note: it’s my understanding that some versions of IE have had problems with this video; if you run into difficulties, you might try clicking the “Google Video” button in the lower-right corner, which will take you to the Google Video page for this clip.)
Update: I was pleased to find this post on the same subject on the blog Pursuing Truth (a blog I hadn’t tripped over before this); it’s not an interaction with Dr. Mouw’s addresses, but rather a separate consideration of being Reformed and missional (and an excellent one).
Thanks for the link! I really appreciate the kind words. Keep up the good work.
Thanks in return, and the same to you. I’ve appreciated what I’ve had the chance to read of your blog.
Wow. Timestamp at 18 minutes. That story really stopped me short. I really like it.
If that was the kind of thing that Reformed Orthodoxy inspired people to do and to say, I would be a lot more Orthodox.
If only we could talk about that at our next General Assembly – how can we become people who will give up our claim on our lives for the sake of what’s right?
“If that was the kind of thing that Reformed Orthodoxy inspired people to do and to say, I would be a lot more Orthodox.”
I meant to say “more often” because clearly it does sometimes.
Heh. Timestamp at 27 minutes.
There is no such thing as “undue” curiosity!
This is really good though overall.
I’m glad you’re appreciating this. I think by “undue curiosity” what’s really meant there is what I would call presumption—the belief that we have the right to have and the ability to understand the answer to any question we might ask. I would agree with you, I don’t think it’s ever wrong to ask a question—and I think Dr. Mouw would as well, actually—but sometimes we need to accept that we aren’t going to get the answer we’re looking for, either because we wouldn’t understand the answer or because the answer is none of our business. (I’m reminded of Aslan telling Lucy, “No one is ever told what might have been,” and “That is part of someone else’s story.”)
I appreciated that story too; that’s the kind of faith and spirit following Christ ought to give us. I do believe that’s always the kind of thing Reformed orthodoxy inspires us to do and say—that’s why I’m Reformed—but far too much of the time, those of us who claim that mantle don’t actually wear it. Far too often, we get caught up in other things instead, and follow other (easier!) paths—close enough to look like the one we think we’re on, but rather different in spirit.
If only we could talk about that at our next General Assembly – how can we become people who will give up our claim on our lives for the sake of what’s right?
That’s the $64 million question, isn’t it? I hadn’t thought about it in precisely that way, but that’s very well put; I’ll have to spend some time thinking about that. Maybe we ought to make a meme out of it, and see how many people we can get reflecting on that question; maybe if we all put our heads together, we can accomplish something.