Timothy Paul Jones

Leadership, Family Ministry, Apologetics

Timothy Paul Jones

Church History: When Did Churches Stop Baptizing by Immersion?

As part of my research for the chapter on baptism in a recent book written by the faculty of Southern Seminary, one of the questions that I wanted to answer was, “When did churches leave behind the New Testament practice of immersion?” The answer is, “Far later than you probably think.”

Most of the students I teach seem to assume that the practice of immersion was already long-forgotten by the time of the Reformation—but this assumption doesn’t fit the historical facts. The facts are considerably more complex, but this much is clear: baptism by immersion was far from forgotten in the Western church in the era of the Reformation.

Continue reading.

Sermon: The King Who Died with an Open Hand

img_1338In 2007, a movie starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman wove a new phrase into the vocabulary of Western culture. This new phrase also happened to be the name of the movie: The Bucket List. A bucket list is a series of experiences that you want to have before you “kick the bucket.” Near the end of the first book of Chronicles, we find the bucket list of Israel’s most revered king, David the son of Jesse—but it’s not the type of bucket list you might expect a king to keep. There was, in fact, only one item on David’s bucket list, and it was this: “It was in my heart to build a resting place for the ark of the covenant of the LORD” (1 Chronicles 28:2).

God, however, refused to allow David to fulfill that one item on his bucket list. Instead of building the temple that he had envisioned, David gave everything he possessed to build a resting place that his eyes would never see. David died with an open hand.

Continue reading.

Writing: If You Want to Remember It, Write It By Hand

Words and writing matter.

In the opening chapter of the Scriptures, God speaks, and a cosmos bursts into being (Genesis 1:3). When he constitutes Israel as his  people, God speaks and writes, and a covenant is born (Exodus 31:18). John described the incarnation of God in Christ by declaring, “the Word became flesh” (John 1:14). Continue reading.

Sermon: Learning to Live in Awe

“For this reason,” Paul declared in his letter to the Ephesians, “I fall to my knees before the Father” (3:14). When people fall to their knees in the Bible, we tend to assume that the primary purpose of their prostration is prayer—and that was indeed part of what Paul was expressing here. But that’s not all that Paul seems to have been saying here. Kneeling is, in this text, more than a convenient posture for prayer. This is Paul’s moment of surrender in response to something that had inspired deep awe in his soul.

So what was it in this text that caused Paul to fall to his knees in prayerful awe? It wasn’t a miraculous vision, and it wasn’t a voice from heaven. It was something that may seem quite mundane to many of us. It was something that is experienced today by billions of people around the globe.

Continue reading.

Church History: The Centrality of Scripture in the Ministry of Macrina

Two years after the Council of Nicaea in the year 325, Macrina the Younger was born. She—as Coleman Michael Ford has pointed out—

lived between two worlds. One world was the age of Christian persecution by the likes of emperor Diocletian and others. For many Christians in the three centuries before Macrina’s birth, persecution leading to death was an ever-present reality. At best, Christians were merely tolerated. At worst, they were brutally executed. The second world was the emerging Roman empire of Constantine, an empire in which Christianity was officially recognized and privileges towards churches and leaders grew steadily.

Two of her brothers—Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa—became known, along with their friend Gregory of Nazianzus, as “the Great Cappadocians,” due to their contributions to the widespread establishment of an orthodox view of the Trinity in the eastern half of the Roman Empire. Basil was a man of action, Nazianzus was a great orator, and Nyssa was a deep thinker—but Macrina should be revered and remembered no less than these three Cappadocian fathers.

After her family’s wealth was divided among the children, Macrina convinced her mother to establish a religious community for women on the family’s property in the province of Pontus, on the banks of the River Iris. The family’s slaves were set free and the female former slaves became members of a new religious community, where Macrina worked alongside them as an equal. In the words of her brother Gregory,

Now that all the distractions of the material life had been removed, Macrina persuaded her mother to give up her ordinary life and all showy style of living and the services of domestics to which she had been accustomed before, and bring her point of view down to that of the masses, and to share the life of the maids, treating all her slave girls as if they were sisters and as ones who belonged to the same rank as herself.

Basil established a men’s monastery across the river from Macrina’s community, but Macrina contributed to the spiritual leadership of both communities. On July 19, in the year 379, Macrina died in the religious community that she and her mother had founded.

Continue reading.

Church History: The True Story of St. Patrick

imageThis week, in the year AD 461, Patrick of Ireland passed away. Ever since the early seventeenth century, churches have designated March 17 as St. Patrick’s Day. Prohibitions on feasting during the season of Lent were traditionally lifted on this day, and green had been associated with Ireland at least as early as the seventeenth century. The result has been a tradition of kisses and pinches, partying and wearing emerald hues on March 17.Continue reading.

Writing: If You Want to Remember It, Write It By Hand

Words and writing matter.

In the opening chapter of the Scriptures, God speaks, and a cosmos bursts into being (Genesis 1:3). When he constitutes Israel as his  people, God speaks and writes, and a covenant is born (Exodus 31:18). John described the incarnation of God in Christ by declaring, “the Word became flesh” (John 1:14). Continue reading.

Family Ministry: When and Why Did Weekly Children’s Classes Begin in Churches? (Part Three)

This research into the history of age-organized catechetical classes in the church is based on an academic paper that I presented to the practical theology section of the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in Providence, Rhode Island, on November 16, 2017.

This post is the third in a three-part series.

Click here for Part One in the series.

Click here for Part Two in the series.

“The Church of God Will Never Preserve Itself Without a Catechism”: Confirmation and Catechetical Instruction in the English Reformation

Following the death of King Henry VIII in 1547, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer grew a beard that suggested solidarity with the continental Reformers—but it was not merely in his pogonotrophic proclivities that the Archbishop of Canterbury imitated what was happening on the other side of the English Channel. Cranmer—not unlike Calvin—required catechesis of children in the context of the church.

Continue reading.

Family Ministry: When and Why Did Weekly Children’s Classes Begin in Churches? (Part Two)

This research into the history of age-organized ministries in the church is based on an academic paper that I presented to the practical theology section of the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in Providence, Rhode Island, on November 16, 2017.

This post is the second in a three-part series.

Click here for Part One in the series.

Click here for Part Three in the series.

“At Midday, There Is to Be Catechism”: Weekly Classes for Children in Sixteenth-Century Geneva

John Calvin provided instructions for catechesis in the same section of the ecclesiastical ordinances in which he described the frequency and locations for weekly pastoral proclamations of Scripture. He directed that each Sunday “at midday, there is to be catechism, that is, instruction of little children, in all the three churches.” The individual responsible for this instruction in each congregation was to be the pastor.

These weekly catechetical classes were designed as a distinct and separate gathering for children, and children’s attendance was not optional. Continue reading.

Family Ministry: When and Why Did Weekly Children’s Classes Begin in Churches? (Part One)

This research into the history of age-organized ministries in the church is based on an academic paper that I presented to the practical theology section of the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in Providence, Rhode Island, on November 16, 2017. This post is the first in a three-part series.

Click here for Part Two in the series.

Click here for Part Three in the series.

In recent years, a small but vocal cluster of church leaders has contended that age-organized programs and ministries in the church should be eliminated. These proponents of “family-integrated church” have called for churches to dismantle programs that practice systematic “age-segregated discipleship.” In churches that follow this model, the congregation has no youth ministers, children’s ministers, or nursery. “We do not divide families into component parts,” writes one proponent of family-integrated churches. “We don’t even do it in Bible study.” The support claimed for family-integrated ministry is typically twofold, contending both that age-organized ministries are unwarranted by Scripture and that ministries for children and youth are a recent innovation that represents the imposition of “individualistic philosophies” in the church.

Continue reading.

Church History: Martin Luther and the Ninety-Five Theses

On October 31, 1517, a monk and professor named Martin Luther sent a document entitled Disputatio Pro Declaratione Virtutis Indulgentiarum to the archbishop of Mainz. This Disputatio consisted of ninety-five theses for theological debate. Perhaps on October 31 or more probably a week or two later, Luther hammered the theses to the door of All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg. Although the Protestant Reformation was a complex social movement with many causes, this event is frequently identified as the beginning of the Reformation.Continue reading.

Sermon: The Cycle That Only A Cross Could End

“If only I could see God do something amazing, then it would be easier to follow him.” Has that thought ever occurred to you? It’s certainly crossed my mind from time to time! And yet, what we learn throughout the Scriptures is that, even when people did see God do something amazing, faithfulness wasn’t any easier for them.Continue reading.

Leadership: Why Are Leaders Needed if All God’s People Are Priests?

“Everyone in the entire community is holy, and the LORD is among them!” That’s what a band of rebels from the tribes of Reuben and Levi declared when they revolted against Moses and Aaron before going on to demand, “Why then do you exalt yourselves above the LORD’s assembly?” (Numbers 16:3). The rebels were consumed by earth and fire the next day, suggesting that God may not have agreed with their assessment of the situation. And yet, we must admit that their question made some sense. God had, after all, designated all of Israel as a royal people and a holy priesthood (Exodus 19:6; 22:31; Leviticus 20:7, 26). If all the people participated together in kingship and priesthood, why were leaders needed?

This question becomes even more acute in the New Testament, particularly in the letter that we know as 1 Peter. Continue reading.

Church History: Leadership Wisdom from Ignatius of Loyola

Íñigo López de Loyola—better known to us as Ignatius of Loyola*—passed from this life on July 31, 1556. He was a Spanish priest and a leader in the Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation. Roman Catholics have celebrated July 31 as his feast day since the seventeenth century.

As a Protestant, I may not celebrate the feast day of the founder of the Jesuit order, and I do not know whether or not he trusted wholly in the unearned merit of Jesus Christ to be made right with God. I have, however, found these words from his Spiritual Exercises to be helpful as a scholar and as a leader. Here’s what Ignatius had to say about responding to someone with whom you disagree:Continue reading.

Leadership: What Does It Mean to Be Christ’s Body?

In a grove of trees south of the city of Corinth stood the Asklepion, an ancient temple dedicated to the god of healing (pictured above). Every year, thousands of women and men made pilgrimages to this temple to seek relief for their bodies. Worshipers who believed that they received healing in this place left behind an odd sort of testimony to their experience. Continue reading.

Family Ministry: The Discipline of Generational Diversity (Part 2)

This post on intergenerational diversity in the church is the second part of a two-part series. Click here for the first post in the series.

TIE Fighter, which has nothing to do with this post except for the acronym TIE

A Model for Movement toward the Discipline of Generational Diversity

If you look at your church and glimpse a lack of intergenerational ministry, it may seem at first as if the right response is to add a stack of new activities to your church’s calendar. Consider, however, that—according to recent research into the perceptions of pastoral ministers—nearly half of all ministers already feel as if they do not have sufficient time to accomplish all that their ministries demand. Furthermore, when ministry calendars become too crowded, church members can become so busy doing church that no time remains for them to be the church in their homes and communities.

With that in mind, I wish to propose an alternative possibility for the pursuit of intergenerational ministry—one that metamorphoses existing activities instead of adding additional programs. I have colloquially dubbed this alternative “the TIE Model.” Continue reading.

Family Ministry: The Discipline of Generational Diversity (Part 1)

The Function of the Family in the Storyline of God

At the center of God’s story stands this singular act: In Jesus Christ, God personally intersected human history and redeemed humanity at a particular time in a particular place. Yet this central act of redemption does not stand alone. It is bordered by God’s good creation and humanity’s fall into sin on the one hand and by the consummation of God’s kingdom on the other. This story of (1) creation, (2) fall and law, (3) redemption, and (4) consummation is the story that Christians have repeated to one another and to the world ever since Jesus ascended and sent his Spirit to dwell in his first followers’ lives. This age-old plot-line should frame every aspect of our lives—including our ministries to families. Seen from the perspective of this fourfold storyline, here’s what becomes clear about family, family ministries, and diversity: From the beginning, the family has been a God-ordained means for the fulfillment of God’s purposes, but God’s plan for the family has always been to reach beyond the family to form a diverse community.Continue reading.

Family Ministry: A New Definition for Family Ministry (Part 3)

I delivered this paper on an expanded definition for family ministry in May 2017 at the HOUSE Conference in Australia, a conference sponsored by YouthWorks and themed around the intersection between family ministry and ecclesiology. This post is the third part of a three-part series.


Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

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A RENEWAL OF INTEREST IN INTERGENERATIONAL MINISTRY? YES AND NO

In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, church leaders from a broad range of ecclesial backgrounds began to question the assumption that discipleship occurs most effectively when it is segmented generationally. In 1988, Roman Catholic educator James William White published an influential text calling for intergenerational religious education. Lutheran educator Ben Freudenburg called for youth ministries to provide three types of programming: home-centered, peer-centered, and intergenerational. Presbyterian youth minister Mark DeVries presented a “smorgasbord of ideas to equip parents and to create intentional intergenerational connections between youth and adults” in his book Family-Based Youth Ministry. The Search Institute even developed a survey to assess the intergenerational health of congregations. And yet, as the family ministry movement has grown, the parent-equipping component has tended to eclipse the forging of intergenerational connections, particularly in evangelical contexts. The intergenerational aspect of church-as-family has been overshadowed in practice by the dynamic of family-as-church.

Why is it that parent-equipping tends to eclipse intergenerational ministry in churches? Continue reading.

Family Ministry: A New Definition for Family Ministry (Part 1)

I delivered this paper proposing a revised definition for family ministry in May 2017 at the HOUSE Conference in Australia, a gathering sponsored by YouthWorks College and themed around the intersection between family ministry and ecclesiology. This post on a revised definition for family ministry is the first part of a three-part series.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

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1. A DEFINITION FOR FAMILY MINISTRY

In 2009, I developed a definition of “family ministry.” A few years later, I recognized that my definition for family ministry was incomplete. This paper serves as my retractatio of that original definition—not in the sense of a “retraction” or “rejection” but in the sense that Augustine of Hippo once used the term, a “re-treatment” in light of later reflection.

Continue reading.

Sermon: The Difficult Journey Toward Deep Diversity

“It is appalling,” Martin Luther King, Jr., once pointed out, “that the most segregated hour of Christian America is eleven o’clock on Sunday morning.” One of the primary reasons that churches remain segregated today is because white Christians failed to acknowledge the full humanity of their African-American sisters and brothers many years ago. For many African Americans, segregated churches functioned as a shelter from the systemic hypocrisy of church leaders who simultaneously claimed all people were created in God’s image and yet asserted supremacy over African Americans. The result is a lack of diversity that still persists in churches today.

The Midtown congregation of Sojourn Community Church—where I am blessed to serve as one of the pastors—is embedded in diverse neighborhoods. Yet the demographics of our congregation do not match the demographics of our neighborhood.

Not yet, anyway.Continue reading.

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