Tag: Clint

Categories
Canada Christel Clint Family Home & Health Marriage

What Do You Want Us To Write About?

Christel and I have been writing steadily at TheHumfreys.Com this year especially since the beginning of the summer. We appreciate all of the support that our readers have given us through liking articles on Facebook, retweeting on Twitter, or verbally encouraging us when they see us in person.

Here are the numbers:

  • nearly 5000 page views this year
  • nearly 3000 unique visitors

Most visitors come from Canada. We are, after all, a Canadian site! The second most come from the United States, followed by readers from the UK. Our fourth-highest readership is from Italy (please invite us to visit!). After that, there is an equal number of Dutch, Brazilian, and Australian readers. To all of you who took the time to read– Thank you!

As we make plans to write through to the end of 2019 and into 2020 we want to ask our readers this important question:

What do you want us to write about?

  • More bible meditations from Christel?
  • More pastor posts from Clint?
  • Theology?
  • Lifestyle?
  • Practical ethics?
  • Our life and marriage?
  • Home and health?
  • Other topics?

Please leave your comments on our Facebook page and remember to “like” the page to get the latest updates on your media feed.

Or you can contact us here: Ask Christel and Clint

Thanks for taking the time to read our articles. We write them for you!

Categories
Ministry

John MacArthur’s Ministry and its Fruit in My Life.

Image Credit: Josh Spires (Unsplash).

With 50 years of ministry under his belt, it would be difficult to calculate the influence which John MacArthur has had under God.  Such metrics are measured only in heaven and the formulas result in magnification, not of man but God.

So in our limited time, our scope of the fruitfulness of the Spirit through a man’s ministry remains limited as well. Each of our ministries will be flawed and imperfect. There will be sin and consequences. It’s the same for MacArthur, me and you. Nevertheless, as we consider a longstanding, fruitful ministry we can obey the directive of Paul to the Philippians regarding Epaphroditus, “honour such men” (Phil 2:29).

I first heard John MacArthur on Grace To You via the local radio station. The broadcast came on after the hog report and before J. Vernon McGee.  It was on a January evening after a day of feeding cattle that I heard MacArthur’s exposition, and his summons to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

I did. And I am forever grateful to God for using John MacArthur in my life that day.

I listened to Grace to You in the months that followed. It was very formative for me as a new believer. It was on the radio broadcast that I learned about The Masters College. It took a long time for a prairie cowboy to be convinced to travel to Los Angeles for college, but I acquiesced and attended TMC and Grace Community Church. I was still new in the faith and the experience during that time set me on a sound footing for the future.

A few years later I saw MacArthur when he would come to Canada for radio rallies, once in Calgary, and another time near Toronto. Somehow I’d get a question in, but I didn’t have any personal time.

In the last few years, I’ve been able to see him at T4G. At a lunch, I had a few moments with him. We talked about Calgary, where I’m from. He noted with interest that his father was born in Calgary and his grandfather worked for the Canadian Pacific Railroad while living there.

At the last T4G, with a decade and more of ministry under my belt, I had the chance to speak to MacArthur again. We talked about Calgary and his family connections as before. We went over my testimony about Grace to You on the radio. But I had to cut off my conversation when I got emotional at the thought of the length of his ministry and its effect on the length of mine.  Each year that passes brings us closer to the days when we will not meet again in the flesh but meet in glory.

There are too many layers for me to index when I think about MacArthur’s influence on me, so I’ll have to leave that for another time of reflection. Nor am I making a comprehensive evaluation of his ministry. As Alistair Begg said once, “The best of men are men at best”. For now, I will mention two of MacArthur’s books that have had a major impact on me.  

The first is Ashamed of the Gospel. This book was like a diagnosis of a person with an autoimmune disease. Though the patient might look healthy on the outside, their body is literally attacking itself. MacArthur’s insight was so clear and biblical that it helped me navigate the recurring waves of pragmatism that marked the late 20th-century evangelical church. Apart from a few dated references, Ashamed of the Gospel contains a perennial critique of our own day, proving the accuracy of his analysis, even if his efforts have not held back the tide that prevails. Still, his ministry has been an ark in that flood.

The second book that stamped me most was The Vanishing Conscience. I still think it is MacArthur’s best, and yet his most underrated and underappreciated. Others such as Charismatic Chaos or the Gospel According to Jesus likely sold more copies and were more talked about. They were at the centers of controversy. The Vanishing Conscience was at the center of something else— the battle for mind and heart.  

I could sum up MacArthur’s entire ministry as an extended effort to inform the conscience by the Word of God. It is utterly Puritan. Applying the precision of the Scriptures to the exact workings of that inner complex of heart, mind and soul. It’s no wonder that MacArthur had a chapter in The Vanishing Conscience which highlighted John Owen’s work on the Mortification of Sin.

Even as I limit myself to two books, I’m at a loss. In reflecting on a fruitful ministry, human metrics are poor measuring tools.  Hagiography and biography, weakness and strength will all pale in comparison to the day when the master says, ‘‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ (Matthew 25:23).

Categories
Clint Ministry Society

Are Christians Money-Laundering Outlaws?

In Carl Trueman’s recent essay for First Things, titled, “Preparing for Winter”,  he makes the case that Christian institutions need to have what he calls “a two-fold strategy”. The first is to become not only independent of government funding but also to be financially prepared for the day when not-for-profit status is revoked. In other words Christian schools, colleges and churches will not have tax exemptions.

Anyone watching the current scene will know this comes as no surprise. In Canada where I live, the provincial government is threatening to remove government funding for Christian schools in the public system that do not have a pro-LGBT policy.

Amazingly however, there is a tendency to ignore unpleasant realities and chose to revert to nostalgic thinking, decrying alarmism and simply hoping for the best.

The strategy ought to be hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.

No Right to Exist

This prospect of no tax exemption for churches has been long anticipated. But another more challenging problem comes from being unable to register as a society or an institution.  How do you handle money as a church if technically, before the law you have no right to exist?

This was the situation that perplexed me about the churches in China. When I visited China, I was amazed to see the extensive networks of theologically sound, missiologically robust churches. But in the eyes of the government, these churches did not exist.

They were ‘unregistered.’

The Puzzling Question

Practically this lead to puzzling questions for me as a Westerner. How could I financially support the mission of the unregistered churches?

In other contexts, I would simply write a cheque or make a digital money transfer to the account of the non-profit society that distributed monies to the workers on the ground.

If the charity was not registered in North America, I may not be able to get a tax reciept for the donation. But at least I could send money, legally and openly to Christian workers.

Not in China.

There are no ‘not-for-profits’ or charities through which I could send the money. Again, in the eyes of the law, the church does not exist.

So in my Western thinking, my solution would be to just send money. Send it via paypal or a wire transfer. The solution seems simple until I think in this new way. If the church doesn’t ‘exist’ before the law then money sent to someone is by nature ‘illegal’.

The Christian Outlaw

Are Christians money-launderers? They’re not supposed to be. But that is exactly how governments view a foreign donor to a Christian worker in an unregistered church.  Chinese citizens must account for their money just like any other governed people around the world. Lacking a category for money that is donated, the government will conclude it is illegitimate. Can the government be persuaded that reciept of foreign donations to Christians is a good thing? I don’t know if it’s possible. But I do know it would be viewed as a bit sketchy.

For a Westerner, it is uncomfortable to think that being a Christian is being an outlaw. Yet that is what it’s like in many parts of the world. And that experience is coming to an income tax form near you.  

Thoughts to ponder:

Is your church financially viable if donors could not recieve a tax deduction for their gifts?

If your church could not exist legally, how would a church building, and church staff be funded?

Categories
Clint Sunday Recap

Sunday Recap: Chinook, Uganda, the kingship of Jesus, church planting, country music, catechism and more.

The Lord’s Day January 13, 2019 came with a beautiful Chinook over the Rockies and a rising dawn as the days get longer.

In Sunday School we looked at the person of the Holy Spirit, addressing the all too common misconception of the Spirit as a force, not a person.

In the main service I ended up leading the service, though I was not prepared. The miscommunication was my own fault. But as happens on a Sunday morning in most churches a person must adapt to change. It’s good to trust the Lord for change lest we think the power is in our clever planning.

I had meditated on 1 Cor 2:2 in my devotions so I used that as the call to worship. “ I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”

We sang and I used Romans 3 as a meditation for our confession of sin and assurance of pardon.

We sang again and I introduced the preacher, a missionary in Uganda whose passion was contagious. At the end of the meeting I spoke with him and was challenged by his efforts to lay foundations for the church in a church-less region of Uganda.

He preached on the great commission in Matthew 28 and we were summoned to bow before Christ as king. Such a truth pilots all other things.

After the service I met a new family, originally from Pakistan who were Christian believers. They wanted to start coming to our church in a search for sound bible teaching.

Then there was a meeting with a core group our church is sending to plant in a nearby town. There was caution mixed with wise enthusiasm in the group. It was just the right mix.

After passing by another community group having a potluck in the basement I found my family waiting in the vehicle.

Christel was not feeling well and the service went extra long so we happily rested in recovery on this day of rest. I was tired, even though I didn’t preach, but fatigue reminds me that God’s sabbaths are made for man

Although we don’t have two separate services we spend nearly 4hours together corporately which permits us the time to know one another and show our love for each other.

Being challenged by a message about the kingship of Christ, I finished Sunday with a desire to follow him as his servant and summon all nations to follow him as they ought to do. This is good and right. Bless God for such good news!

We ate our evening meal and had some entertainment from our son’s who each played us their best song on guitar. Selections from Corb Lund, Marty Robbins and the Beatles.

At bedtime we reviewed at the New City catechism question. A few laughs and giggles but we got the basics down.

All of us retired to sleep ready on the first day of the week for what may come—Happy expectancy under the sovereign grace of God.