This is part two of our very brief look at prayer. It will also be the last blog of 2025. I will return to this space in January of 2026. [Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss a blog.] In my previous blog I outlined a brief theology of prayer and what we can expect when we pray. In this blog I want to draw a few conclusions based on what we learned. There are a lot of conclusions we could draw but I will only make a few here. The first conclusion I need to draw is base

Brett McCracken may be a new name to some of you but he has been writing books and articles for the Gospel Coalition, where he is the senior editor and director of communications, for some time. This book is, in fact, almost 10 years old. But that does not make it irrelevant. In fact, what he speaks about has been and will continue to be an issue within the church until Christ comes again -- the local church is a necessary, though not perfect, and often uncomfortable place to

The men have just finished discussing the Reformation Triangle for spiritual formation in our Men’s Theology book, A Heart Aflame for God: A Reformed Approach to Spiritual Formation by Matthew Bingham. I’ll spare you the details (ask a man in the church for them if you like) but the triangle includes Scripture, meditation, and prayer. The topic of prayer has been on my mind for some time and our discussion of Tuesday night got me thinking that I should write about it. [I wil

Mental health issues have become part of the zeitgeist of our culture. We are bombarded with labels, diagnoses, and drugs and therapies to respond to them. Sadly too many Christians are too quick to embrace secular culture and secular brain science without filtering what they are being told through the truth of God’s word. Thankfully there are many very good resources from a Reformed perspective which will help us sort out the ever-present mental health obsession of our Weste

NOTE:  I have invited the contributions of Stu Reimer to write in this space on the issues of marriage and family. If you follow CRC at all you will know Stu to be my frequent substitute in the pulpit and I am looking forward to his work as my substitute from time to time in this space. Expect his blogs to appear every 6 weeks or so. Stu is no expert on the things on which I have asked him to write (Just ask his wife and children), but he is a committed reformed Christian and

I really enjoy writing and podcasting as a part of my ministry at CRC (and beyond). But there are times the well of ideas runs a bit dry and I have trouble coming up with topics about which to write in the blog or talk about on the Here I Sit podcast. So I’m asking for a bit of help. If there is anything you would like me to discuss -- a bible passage, theological topic, social or ecclesiological movement, whatever -- follow the link below to send your idea to me. https://doc

I mentioned in an earlier blog that I spent some time this summer with Canada’s finest philosopher Charles Taylor. To be fair, he was nowhere to be found, but his massive tome, A Secular Age, was in my hands a lot over the warmer months of the year. I also mentioned in the previous blog that ‘Scripture alone should be the sole influencer of our social imaginary’ or something like that. I then said I would provide more information on this in a future blog… this is that blog. T

I’m getting old. As I do I have less of life ahead of me to look forward to, and more of life behind me to look back upon. This creates a potential problem. Looking back can be a good thing -- recalling stories and experiences that bring joy -- but it can also be a bad thing -- recalling stories and experiences that bring regret. Regret is a powerful emotional and intellectual prison which binds us to the ‘what-if’s’ that our imagination creates as it looks backwards over the

C. S. Lewis once quipped, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it but because by it, I see everything else.” It’s typical wit from Lewis but within this short repartee a very important truth emerges. It is one thing to believe that the sun has risen; it is a completely different thing to live by the light that it gives. The specific point Lewis was making in his article, “Is Theology Poetry?”, was that we know the truth of Chr

NOTE:  I have invited the contributions of Stu Reimer to write in this space on the issues of marriage and family. If you follow CRC at all you will know Stu to be my frequent substitute in the pulpit and I am looking forward to his work as my substitute from time to time in this space. Expect his blogs to appear every 6 weeks or so. Stu is no expert on the things on which I have asked him to write (Just ask his wife and children), but he is a committed reformed Christian and

In a future episode of the Here I Sit Podcast I will be diving into the much neglected but exceedingly important doctrine of Union with Christ. It is a foundational doctrine for understanding how we were saved, how we are saved, how we will be saved, and thus it offers us deep insight into how we are to live in light of being saved. But for now I offer a review of a short, sweet, and excellent book by Sinclair Ferguson on the topic entitled, Union with Christ: The Blessings o

On Sunday I spoke about my greatest fear for my ministry and for our church -- Assumed Evangelicalism, or to put it in the vernacular, assuming the gospel. Or to put it into business terms, mission drift. Or to put it in Pauline terms, making that which is of first importance, anything other than that. Here is the definition of Assumed Evangelicalism as defined by David Gibson, the author who originated the term. Assumed Evangelicalism believes and signs up to the gospel. It

Probably not. So I’m going to fill you in. And while I do so I hope to give you a bit of insight into the yearly schedule I keep and why...

After a month of rest, preparation, and renewed focus I am back! And after a summer of the same for the church as a whole we are back as...

A few weeks ago I preached on Ephesians 6:1-4, which spoke to children regarding how they should obey and honour their parents and to...

This past Sunday we looked at Ephesians 6:1-4. We heard Paul speak to both children and parents regarding their roles in the family. We...

Since we are in Ephesians 5-6 in our CRC sermon schedule, I thought we would take a look at two books, one related to marriage, which we...

Since we are in Ephesians 5-6 I thought we would take a look at two books over the next two weeks. One on marriage, the other on family....

NOTE:  I have invited the contributions of Stu Reimer to write in this space on the issues of marriage and family. If you follow CRC at...

At CRC we are nearing the end of our look at the Epistle to the Ephesians. We find ourselves, at the moment, right in the middle of...