A Telling Tale: The Church Smith’s Of Calvary Chapel

In evangelical Christian streams, the Chuck Smith’s, Sr. and Jr., and respected fellows. The front page of the L.A. Times, according to Don William’s, is filled with the following story.

Here is an interesting experience they are having – the younger Smith is embracing more Catholic and Orthodox ideas in his more ambiguous postmodern journey, and his father is moving the other way.

I exert no concrete opinion here; I just felt its a telling sign of the times for what is a poweful response to the frailties and fluctuations of faith in Jesus in our generation (at least in North American protestantism).

Key Quote From Theologian Don Williams (Note: the whole context is more reflective than prescriptive): “…This absence of the freedom and operative gifts of the Spirit clearly created a vacuum in his son’s heart and turned him “eastward” to Orthodox spirituality and “westward” to Roman Catholic mysticism. When we surrender the adventure of living in the Spirit and seek to domesticate him, if we don’t pay a price, our children will. Understanding eastern and western spirituality may be helpful to us, but spiritual disciplines must never become a substitute for the dynamic of the Spirit’s power and presence in our communities and our ministries.”

Kingdomrain.net – FIRST RESPONSE: Father, Son and Holy Rift

AVAILABLE NOW

Sheltering Mercy and Endless Grace help us rediscover the rich treasures of the Psalms—through free-verse prayer renderings of their poems and hymns—as a guide to personal devotion and meditation. Sheltering Mercy helps the reader pray Psalms 1-75; Endless Grace leads in prayer through Psalms 76-150.

The church has always used the Psalms as part of its prayer life, and they have inspired countless other prayers. Each book contains 75 prayers drawn from the Book of Psalms, providing lyrical sketches of what authors Ryan Smith and Dan Wilt have seen, heard, and felt while sojourning there. Each prayer is a response to the Psalms written in harmony with Scripture. These prayers help us quiet our hearts before God and welcome us into a safe place amid the storms of life.

These artful, poetic, and classic devotional books are a perfect gift, and feature compelling stunning illustrations and hardcover binding, offering a fresh way to reflect on and pray the Psalms. Co-written with Ryan Whitaker Smith, Brazos Publishing.

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