A Guide to Our Series

The blogging medium is perfect for making a polemic point without the constraints of the format of a journal article and without the length of a book. But the downside is that a step-by-step argument spread over several days can lose its momentum and seem sort of piecemeal. Plus there is simply the practical issue: where do you find the links to the entire series?The Cripplegate has run a few such series, so I thought it would be helpful to give all the links in one spot.

Eric Davis, who pastors a church that he planted in Jackson Hole, WY, did a series on common mistakes church planters make:

1. An introduction and an overview of the series: Cautions for church planters.
2. A warning about the idolatry of “mission”: Church planters and missionolatry.
3. A warning about church planters willing to do whatever it takes to grow: Church-planting and pragmatism.
4. A warning about losing sight of the importance of the Sunday morning sermon: Church-planting and pulpit priority.
5. A warning about seeing church planting as the end for which God created the world: Church-planting and idolatry.

Josh Thiessen did a series on training the next generation of church leaders:

1. An introduction to the series: The Next Generation.
2. The art of informal discipleship: Part 1.
3. Formal discipleship: Part 2.
4. Elder training: Part 3.

Jesse Johnson did a series on a biblical approach to mercy ministry:

1. Why the critique is needed: Dispensationalism, Keller, and the Poor.
2. An overview of the series: Biblical Pillars for Mercy Ministry.
3. Difference between personal and church-wide commands: Are All Biblical Commands Corporate?
4. How mercy ministry is an individual’s command: My Church Loves the Poor, so I Don’t Have To.
5. The story of the good Samaritan: Only God is Good, and that Includes Samaritans.
6. How dispensationalism affects mercy ministry: Discontinuity: the Poor, Israel, and the Church.
7. Are we building the kingdom? Mercy Ministry is Not Kingdom Work.
8. Mercy ministry done well: Examples of Mercy Ministry.

Nate Busenitz has continued to post very instructively on the topic of cessationism:

1. Why he is not a charismatic.
2. An overview of cessationism: What cessationism is not.
3. Why the end of the gift of Apostleship matters: Are there Apostles today?
4. What the real gift of tongues was: Two types of tongues?
5. The charismatic distortion of the gifts: Facebook gibberish and the real gift of tongues.
6. Examining the doctrine of being ‘slain in the Spirit’: Suing the Spirit?
7. Potentially harmful pastoral implications of the conservative continuationist’s understanding of prophecy: Five Dangers of Fallible Prophecy
8. Was Agabus a false prophet?: Throwing Prophecy under the Agabus

Mike Riccardi did a series from 2 Corinthians 4:3-6 on principles for faithfulness in Gospel ministry:

1. We must know the purpose of our ministry. Is it Amusing the Goats or Calling the Sheep?
2. We must know the problem we’re trying to solve: Blindness to the glory of Christ.
3. We must know the proclamation; namely, not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord.
4. As an extension of not preaching ourselves, we are to know ourselves as heralds, not orators.
5. And we must know the prescription for spiritual blindness: God’s shining the light of His glory in the face of Christ.
6. But we can’t stop there. We have to proclaim what makes the Good News good news.

Mike also wrote a series from John 1:14 on Christmas according to John:

1. The Word has become flesh and has made His dwelling — He has tabernacled — among men.
2. There is an inseparable connection between the dwelling of God and His glory that fills that dwelling place.
3. Jesus is the ultimate divine self-expression and the paramount dwelling place of God.

Jerry Wragg addressed the call for sexually-explicit dialogue in counseling married couples:

1. Of Straw Men and Shameful Speech, Part 1: Is today’s generation more sexualized than the past?
2. Of Straw Men and Shameful Speech, Part 2: Can explicit dialogue do more harm than help?
3. Of Straw Men and Shameful Speech, Part 3: Are older pastors just prudes who leave their congregants to get sex advice from the culture?