Author Archives: Clint Humfrey

Between Youth and Old Age

Posted on by under Soul

In the span of three days I’ve seen the span of life. From ‘senior-highers’ to seniors, I have been able to travel the path of promise and mortality through the faces of a youth group on Friday night and a senior’s centre on Sunday afternoon.

On Friday, the bustling talk stumbled easily from the bible to Batman and bear attacks. Teenagers can talk a lot to cover up what is going on inside of them, or they can not talk and stay covered that way too.

But sometimes you can see the portal to their souls open up. You see lives filled with promise, hope and ambition. You also see real cares and real fears in search of true security and not the the platitudes they so often see from the adult world.

If someone takes the time to walk through key biblical texts with teens they are extremely smart and have an apprehension of large, significant truths. Youth group should be fun since it’s youth in a group. But if it is biblically thoughtful and faithful, it will also open those spiritual portals into young hearts.

At the other end of the spectrum is the senior’s home and a Sunday afternoon service. As the old hymns sound out in the foyer, the seniors hum and mouth the words or just sway to the melody. Truths long held are refreshed in their memories as they hear those old lyrics. When the request goes out for favourite hymns, the call-back is not only for Christmas traditionals, it’s for ‘the Old Rugged Cross’.

A simple message from a Gospel is offered. There can be no assumptions here. With all religious stripes in attendance, the urgency of sharing the good news of Jesus Christ clearly and succinctly is as needed as ever. So with wit and wisdom a short text is expounded. The seniors are stirred in their faith, if Christ is their own. Others shuffle off before the message is done. Some show their inattention intentionally. Others are inattentive because they can’t help being so.

After the service the children that have attended are star attractions. Each senior has questions for the kids. They also have their own stories to share of when they were that age, or what their own grandchildren are up to. Some seniors are forgotten. Others are just separated from loved ones.

Discussing biblical themes opens up those portals of the soul in seniors too. One widow shared about her time as a missionary in India and all the hours her husband spent trying to keep an old Jeep running. They shared the gospel there. And then again later on in Ontario in parish ministry. She told me her husband studied at Knox College in Toronto. I mentioned the significance of  D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ visit to Knox College library where he discovered the writings of BB Warfield. The widow had read Lloyd-Jones and we talked together about the great need for revival in our land. And finally she said that to see revival, we need praying Christians. What a simple and wise description of a disciple of Jesus: ‘a praying Christian’. 

So in both of these ministries, the youth group and the senior’s centre, I went to serve, but as usual, I was the one who was blessed. God reminded me of the vigour and enthusiasm of new faith and fresh effort from the youth. But I was also reminded of the seasoned perspective which persevering faith brings. It keeps the main things where they’re supposed to be. Faith in Christ, appeals to God to act for his glory, and finishing well— these are the lessons which I learned from aged saints.

If you are between youth and old age, consider your own need to have your blind-spots exposed and your soul to be expanded. Minister to young and old and enjoy their ministry to you. Remember, we are all interconnected. As Paul said, “the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable” (1 Cor 12. 22).

Teaching the Nicene Creed At Dinner

Posted on by under Theology

Our table is like most. Three boys fidget. Their fingers dart toward their plates before prayers. Sitting still and waiting are two expectations that seem torturous to minds filled with Nerf wars and the next silly face. So we all laugh and we wait. I pray. Or my wife prays. Or we all pray. One prayer or five depending on how things are going.  We eat and talk and giggle and correct and are corrected and giggle and share.

After everyone except the slowpoke has finished their meal, with dirty plates still in front of them, we’ll take a few moments to return our thoughts toward the living God.  I will read a passage of Scripture, or we will work on some Bible memory. If we are learning a new passage, sometimes I will have one of the older boys read it for us. Then I will ask questions about the passage.

“What does ‘grace’ mean?” I’ll ask. 

One will respond and say something like, ‘I know what it means but I just don’t know how to describe it”.

So I always back up. “Is it a good thing or a bad thing?”

Kids always have good instincts on this. Even if they don’t understand a concept they can have great antennae for picking up positive or negative signals in words. From there we will talk about what ‘grace’ looks like in our family relationships (‘picking up your brother’s dirty plate, as well as your own when he left his behind’), and then on to some classic little definitions from our relationship with God (‘undeserved favour’).

In just a few minutes of back and forth questioning we have done just a little bit of what might be called catechesis. It’s not Cyril of Jerusalem, but its something. And even as I consider what others do in the church today, what we do isn’t what could be done, and certainly not what many others do so well, but it is a small bit that may contribute to a lot in our children’s lives over the weeks, months and years.

In the course of things, our youngest didn’t have a bible memory verse assigned from school, so we would work on the Nicene Creed with him. He’s five now and attempting to fit in with the order and discipline of kindergarten two days per week. Fidgeting, chatting, lounging and generally being a boy—that’s his learning style these days. But he is learning the Nicene Creed.

All that I do is make him recite the lines. The syntax of the Creed lends itself to short, structured phrases of immense importance. He’ll repeat after me, “begotten, not made.” After which I’ll ask him what does ‘begotten’ mean. Talk about diving into the deep end of the theological pool! At the very least I’ll tell him about the relationship between a father and a son, and how there is a picture in that of being begotten, yet “begotten, not made” is a great mystery. He is content to confess the Creed, to understand it in ways that he can, and to leave speculating in ways that he can’t. He knows enough to answer without heresy when asked, “Is Jesus created?”. Most of the time he can say, “No. He’s begotten, not made”.

We’ve used other resources like the New City Catechism. With its friendly app, the shortened version for children is included within the text of the longer version for adults. Our kids delight in reciting the shortened version and challenging us to recite the longer one. As my memory stumbles it’s a good time for some dessert of humble pie.

Added to the table talk is using a great bed time book. For the Nicene Creed, I am grateful for my friend Ian Clary who gave us, I Believe: The Nicene Creed. Published by Eerdmans the main benefit of this small blue board book is the illustrations from Pauline Baynes. She is best known for her work illustrating the Narnia books from CS Lewis and Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. The book itself is filled with imagery that looks like it comes from a medieval manuscript complete with creatures of fantasy beside gothic church architecture. Our ‘Creed book’ is on its third child and bound by layers of Scotch tape.

Is this table talk of the Word of God and the theology of the Church a great model for others? Probably not. There are those who are able to have ‘family worship’ that is more complete or robust than what we do. But we pray and we try and we trust God to use this little table talk for his glory in the lives of our children.

photo credit: By Frederick George Cotman (1850 – 1920) (British) Born in Ipswich, Suffolk, England. Details of artist on Google Art Project [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Holy & Intense Activity: JI Packer’s Four Stage Sequence

Posted on by under Theology

With all of the dangers we face with being too busy (see DeYoung’s Crazy Busy), there can almost become a suspicion of intense activity as being a bit fleshly.

I remember once in a church how some people were criticizing an explosion of ministry activity by a zealous few. A wise farmer told me that everyone looks busy when you’re standing still.

We can still cast suspicion on those who are busy with the Lord’s work. It is helpful to have guidelines for what intense activity looks like when it maintains holiness as a priority.

JI Packer has great wisdom on this theme. In one section from Keep in Step With the Spirit, he outlines the four stages of activity according to what he calls “Augustinian holiness”.  He says:

“The activity Augustinian holiness teaching encourages is intense, as the careers of such prodigiously busy holy men as Augustine himself, Calvin, Whitefield, Spurgeon, and Kuyper show, but it is not in the least self-reliant in spirit.”

This is Packer’s “four stage sequence” for intense, holy activity

  1. First, as one who wants to do all the good you can, you observe what tasks, opportunities, and responsibilities face you.
  2. Second, you pray for help in these, acknowledging that without Christ you can do nothing—nothing fruitful, that is (John 15:5).
  3. Third, you go to work with a good will and a high heart, expecting to be helped as you asked to be.
  4. Fourth, you thank God for help given, ask pardon for your own failures en route, and request more help for the next task.

Packer concludes:

Augustinian holiness is hardworking holiness, based on endless repetitions of this sequence.” Keep in Step With the Spirit (Baker, 2005), 105

Questions to Consider:

  • Are you suspicious of those who seem to do a lot of good ministry?
  • Have you considered that God could expand your capacities according to opportunities and responsibilities? Have you seen God do this for you in the past?
  • Do you pray for help so that you don’t work in a Christ-less way?
  • Do you have expectancy that God will help you in the good activity?
  • Do you show gratitude to God for the things that you’ve accomplished, or repentance for what you’ve failed in, as well as prayer for further help?

Winning People Not Just Arguments

Posted on by under World

From Os Guinness:

Our urgent need today is to reunite evangelism and apologetics, to make sure that our best arguments are directed toward winning people and not just winning arguments, and to seek to do all this in a manner that is true to the gospel itself.”

Fool’s Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion