What goes on in Church...

Our crack of dawn (well actually 7:45am) Sunday school class is reading line by line through the Westminister Confession of Faith. If you ever have an opportunity I encourage you to pick up a copy and noodle through it. It's best to have a copy that has all the scripture references or even better the copy with all the scripture proofs written out.

The Catechism's are likewise useful in our untaught mostly post-modern world.

I found this commentary this morning.

Especially Preaching: The Ordinary Means of Grace and Christian Spirituality
Feb 11, 2011 Luke Stamps 5:00 AM CT

Question: How is the word made effectual to salvation?
Answer: The Spirit of God maketh the reading, but especially the preaching of the word, an effectual means of convincing and converting sinners, and of building them up in holiness and comfort through faith unto salvation.
—The Westminster Shorter Catechism

Read the whole post at the above link...but here is a section about the chruch.

Not Incidental But Vital Gatherings
What the church does when it gathers on the Lord’s Day is not incidental; it is vital for the salvation and sanctification of God’s people. The Word, baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and prayer are, after all, Christ’s ordinances. Ligon Duncan, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Mississippi, explains the biblical basis for the ordinary means: Ordinary means of grace-based ministry believes that God means what he says in the Bible about the central importance of these public, outward instruments for spiritual life and growth. God explicitly instructs ministers and churches to do the following things:

“devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching” (1 Tim. 4:13); “preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching” (2 Tim. 4:2); “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:19); “take, eat; this is my body. . . . which is for you . . . drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins; …do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (Matt. 26:26–28; 1 Cor. 11:25–26); “I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made. . . . I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands” (1 Tim. 2:1, 8)

—Ligon Duncan, “The Ordinary Means of Growth,” Tabletalk (October 2007).

The ordinary means of grace, then, are not the inventions of man; they are the institutions of Christ. And if Christ is the one who instituted the ordinary means through his apostolic word, then we neglect them at our own spiritual peril.