Christopher Chelpka

Todd Bordow is the pastor of Cornerstone OPC in Houston. He has degrees from Westminster Seminary California (M.Div.) and Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando (D.Min.). He blogs occasionaly at Kingdom Kompilations.

In the following episodes of the Glory-Cloud Podcast, Pastor Bordow talks wtih Chris Caughey about several challenging and controversial issues church leaders face, especially in conservative churches. Bordow is a careful exegete with a deep commitment to Scripture. He also speaks from years of experience and demonstrates genuine love for Christ and Christ’s flock.

So I’ve complied this mini-series here for easy reference. He begins with some thoughts about pastoral counseling in general.

☞ 154 – Critique of Nouthetic Counseling

☞ 155 - Counseling Continued

☞ 156 – Counseling Continued – The Elephant in the Room

☞ 157 – Counseling Cont’d – Narcissists & Manipulators

☞ 158 – Counseling Cont’d – Men & Women

☞ 159 – Counseling Cont’d – Men & Women II

☞ 160 – Women & Church Leadership

☞ 161 – Marriage

☞ 162 – Myths & Mistakes About Gender Roles

✿ Bonus article: Women in the Church by S. M. Baugh

Instead of counting to 20 when you wash your hands, sing a hymn. It’s a practical way to trust in God instead of getting anxious. And since each verse of the hymn I picked lasts about 20 seconds, even if you sing fast, it helps you do the job well while glorifying God. We are learning verse 1 this week. Join us! My amazing daughter, Clara, will show you how. #handwashhymn

Passing communion trays is a very common practice, but it doesn’t seem to be the best way if you are trying to limit the spread of germs. So are there other ways to serve communion in accord with God’s word and Christian prudence?

Consider the history of the Reformed churches. Though not without some controversy, the history of the Reformed churches shows a variety in practice.

At the heart of the Reformed understanding of the Lord’s Supper is the sharing of the sacred meal. The medieval Mass put the emphasis on reciting the canon through which the miracle of transubstantiation took place and the consecrated host was offered up as a sacrifice for the living and the dead. As Reformers taught it, the communion was the focal point of the service. The sign Jesus gave was the sharing of a meal and as the Reformers understood it the visual sign should look like a meal shared by the communicants. Various approaches were taken by churches to make the celebration look more like the sharing of a meal. In Strasbourg, right from the start, the altar was replaced with a table. People came forward and stood around the table as the ministers passed the bread and wine to them. In Zurich a table was set in the middle of the church in front of the pulpit. While the people remained in their seats the bread and the wine were passed to them. The church was centered around the baptismal font, the pulpit, and the table. In the Rhineland, the Netherlands, and Scotland special tables were set up in the front of the church and the people left their seats, sat down at these tables, and passed trays of bread and the cups from one to another.

For more details on this history, see B. B. Warfield’s article, The Posture of the Recipients at the Lord’s Supper: A Footnote to the History of Reformed Usages., and also Liturgical Space: Christian Worship and Church Buildings in Western Europe 1500-2000 by Nigel Yates.

I suspect all Christians would like to improve in their ability to pray. I know I would.

Even though we don’t believe prayer is a performance, it is still something that can be done well or done poorly or somewhere in between.

But how can you improve? I’ve read various books on prayer—old and new—and they are good in so many ways, but I’ve often felt like there is a missing piece. I ask questions like: “Is there a method for using A Method for Prayer?“

If you’ve ever felt like this, here’s what you need to know: In order to improve at anything, you need to gain awareness of what you are aiming for in relation to where you are, alongside practice in attaining it. Books like Matthew Henry’s classic, A Method for Prayer, can help if you use them in the right way.

You get a sense for what this looks like in Leading in Prayer: A Workbook for Ministers. In this book, Hughes Oliphant Old describes the kind of things he did to improve his prayers and provides sample prayers, with plenty of margin space for note taking, to help us improve too.

Here’s what Old did and suggests:

1. He set aside time to pray. For example, he used Saturday mornings to prepare prayers for Sunday. The puritans prayed well because they prayed a lot. They prayed alone, with their families, and in their churches.
2. He learned through emulation. Like an apprentice painter that learns to paint by first painting the great works of art done by others, Old used prayers he admired from others for his own praying. He used the Psalms and the prayers of the Reformers and church fathers, for example.
3. Old also practiced his ability to identify the qualities of good prayers (tone, parts, logic, imagery, etc.) and the deficiencies of bad prayers. Well-known books on the topic offer lists and explanations to help you with this. But it’s good to learn through close, personal observation as well.
4. Old would also practice by rewriting or reworking prayers to fit modern English and the particular needs of the moment.

Essentially the same advice is given by Samuel Miller, Isaac Watts, and others but with more power and detail than I’ve done here.

Based on these four types of exercises, you could devise a 1-2 week plan of assignments for yourself. Then when you finish, reflect on what you’ve learned, and then do it again, work on something else, or tweak your plan and try again.

This kind of practice will help you improve your prayers and should not be disregarded lightly. But remember: In learning to emulate the patterns of holiness, guard yourself from becoming a mere mimic. Having the appearance of godliness but denying its power is not the goal.

This kind of irreverent mimicry is mockery. It happens when we trust in our own strength rather than the Spirit, and it happens when we aim to please man rather than serve God.

Instead, when you pray, offer yourself fully to God in your prayers. Seek to do his will from a sincere heart. And when you sense your weakness, rely on the Spirit to help you. Because, as it says in Romans 8:27, he will intercede for you according to the will of God.