On Being Reformational

Written by Joel Busby, August 2022

As you might imagine, I’m asked lots of questions about our church. One of the most frequent ones goes like this: “So I know Grace does not belong to a traditional denomination, but can you locate yourself for us, doctrinally speaking?”

My reply:

“We are ‘Reformational.’ We descend from the tradition of the Protestant Reformation. We are trying to move forward with a fresh expression of historic, Reformational Protestantism for Over the Mountian Birmingham.”

I’m not sure what comes to your mind when you hear the word, “Reformational.” But in what follows below I’ll share a) how I got there, b) what I mean, and c) what it looks like on the ground at Grace (specifically for Sundays and the rest of my week as our pastor).

I hope it gives you a window into me, and further, that it renews your passion for what we do together.

How I Got Here

When I was a student at Beeson Divinity School, I was exposed to the ways in which the Protestant Reformation was a movement that reshaped the vision of what-pastors-like-me-are-supposed-to-be-doing. It was truly a re-formation of the pastoral office.

By reading 16th Century pastoral letters, I learned so much about the way church leaders tried to pray, preach, order worship gatherings, administer baptism and the Lord’s supper, visit the sick, offer pastoral care and counsel, guide through emotional problems, aid parents in training up children, shepherd through everyday decisions, and encourage faithful endurance in difficult circumstances.

And, notably, that time in history was very hard. “The ground was shifting beneath everyone’s feet.” Great political and social upheaval, a cycle of wars upon wars, new technologies that were re-ordering lives, and the plague that had laid Europe bare in previous centuries, made for a chaotic historical moment. No one knew what to think and do, and these ministers were writing little treatises, like our blog posts, little letters like this one I send to you all, trying to address the spiritual needs of their people.

In so many ways, it was a time much like ours. I’ve become convinced that so many of the resources required to renew God’s people in our day can be found in these riches.

What I Mean

Though I’m sometimes uncomfortable in not belonging to a traditional denomination, I do not consider Grace untethered from the Great Tradition, or from the Reformational Tradition more specifically.

In fact, at Grace, we are trying to pursue and cultivate a rich, vibrant, affective, historic, Protestant expression of Christianity. We want to our church to be pulsing with the good gifts that emerge from this stream of the Christian faith, as well as other streams.

The longer I’ve been doing this work (in some shape, form, or fashion for 18 years) the more clear it is to me that a boundless store of resources for pastoral ministry exists in historic Protestantism. We can take cues as to what-we’re-supposed-to-be-doing from the Reformational tradition, even as we seek to be faithful to the unique challenges in our day. In my experience, I have learned that the way forward normally involves a retrieval of what’s old.

The Reformation was a pastoral care project. It’s easy to forget that pastoral concerns were the driving burden for 16th Century leaders. These leaders (men and women) knew—deeply and personally—the troubles of the human conscience. They knew angst, fear and terror, worry about the human person’s standing before God.

Their famous doctrinal works began as pastoral concerns, emerging from a desire to help ordinary people live in communion with God, in the very real, ordinary, actual circumstances of their lives.

The Reformation was a worship project with hopes that souls would experience the love of God in tangible ways. For example, in England, Thomas Cranmer reworks the entire liturgy/worship structure of the church that it might announce clearly that God loves sinners, that Christ died to win them, that they have been raised and made new to love and serve the Lord in obedience and joy. His “comfortable words” in the communion liturgy are intended to help someone experience the truth of doctrines in that very hour, in a very real way.

Cranmer wants ministers to “read in a loud voice” so that there is no superstition or secrets. It’s you and God here, and he loves you and is making you new, right now. (It’s no coincidence that art and hymn writing flourished in this time).

The Reformers were very very concerned with the way the Scriptures and sermons and *heard* by a person and how that person when troubled, can be set free and set right with God in the hearing of the Word of God preached.

The Reformation was a discipleship and mission project. Countless catechisms, pastoral letters, guides, Q&A sessions, small lectures, and sermons were created to form folks and to send them out on a mission to declare and celebrate the gospel through their ordinary vocations. Later downstream, figures like John Owen are talking about human personality and how it shapes one’s discipleship (long before things like the Enneagram, Myers-Briggs, Strengths-Finder, etc are popular).

The Reformation was a revival project as emphasis was laid upon the renewing work of Holy Spirit. The Reformation was a time when the Holy Spirit’s person and work were highlighted in all kinds of ways. Particularly, a strong emphasis rested upon the ways in which the Spirit of God animates the worship of God’s people on Sunday. The singing and praying of God’s people gathered, the preaching and teaching and listening to the Scriptures, the public reading of God’s Word, the life and vocation of God’s people as a “priesthood of all believers” are all made possible, and lively, because of the work of the Spirit.

We attempt to lead at Grace in this tradition and in these themes. There’s much that can be said about the ways in which this rich heritage shapes Grace (other traditions influence Grace, too). More could also be said about the ways in which sin and the fallenness of human persons mark and mar Christ’s church.

It was not a perfect era and even the Reformers themselves desired that the church be ever reforming according to the Scriptures, into the fullness of Christ. We hope to be doing the same, always, at Grace. Further up and further in I say!

On the Ground at Grace

As far as the way this plays out in the life of Grace Fellowship, I mention three things in brief.

First, Grace’s gathered worship on a Sunday seeks to make use of the various resources of the Reformation tradition. Even more so, we to hope to allow the structure and order of our worship service to rehearse in clear ways the holiness of God, the sinfulness in us, the provision of the Lord Jesus, and the ways in which we are made new to love and serve him in our world. We hope the entirety of our worship gathering “tells that story” again and again.

Second, we aim for Grace’s preaching to take its cues from particular passages, unfolding them in such a way that the person and work of Jesus is amplified, therefore unlocking their meaning as clearly and simply as possible. We hope that in sermons God’s righteous requirements are shown and that Jesus’ provision is made plain in the power of the Spirit, so that peace with God is shown to be accessible and available for you and me. We hope that Scripture’s great and precious promises are applied to your heart like a medicine, to your precise places of need, each week.

Third, throughout the week, I (and the rest of Grace’s ministry team) desire to sit with you, listen to you, eat with you, get to know you, encourage you, support you, remind you, train you, see you grow in your gifts, see you flourish, tend your soul, and counsel you in ways that help you take hold of the precious promises of God.

That’s what we are attempting.

“What kind of church is Grace?”

That kind.

We're Hiring! Grace Kids Coordinator

Grace Fellowship exists to worship the Triune God, to abide in Christ together, and to see Jesus treasured above all things. We believe that we're called to be a family of Christ-followers sent to celebrate and declare the gospel in our homes, neighborhoods, workplaces, and to the ends of the earth.

As the church continues to grow, mature, and develop, our needs with regard to kids’ discipleship and equipping our parents and kids volunteers have grown as well. Because of the hard work and sacrifice of ministry leaders, volunteers, core teachers —especially Marjorie Eiland and Smyth Taylor—a wonderful foundation has been laid for Grace Kids.

And upon this good work, we believe the Lord has directed us to increase our investment and see our ministry mature and develop for a new season. We are seeking the right person, with the right gifts, to join our team and build up our body by taking on the role of Grace Kids Coordinator.

The Grace Kids Coordinator works alongside the Lead Pastor and the Grace Kids Discipleship team to provide leadership and direction for all areas of Grace Kids and oversees the implementation of the goals we have set for this vital ministry area.

Grace Kids is centered on three important aims: 1) Teaching our kids of the promises of God, 2) Creating a church culture where kids can belong to our church and participate in her in meaningful ways, and 3) Training and equipping parents for the parenting task.

This is primarily accomplished by providing direct oversight to all activities within the Grace Kids ministry (birth –5th grade), identifying & leading ministry leaders and volunteers, conducting training and development those charged with the care and instruction of children within the ministry, and special event planning for the building up of children and parents. This position requires an excellent communicator that leads efficiently and effectively a large number of volunteers, employees, parents, and children.

A candidate with experience and training in family ministry, and/or formal theological training is preferred.

For now, this is a part-time position. We are flexible with regard to hours, but we anticipate the role requiring up to thirty hours per week.

Inquiries, including a chance to see the full job description, can be directed to: jobs@gracebham.org

Grace Writer's Collective: A Close Reading of Will Sorrell's poem, "Charcoal" by Haden Bell

Photo by Wander Fleur

Essay by Haden Bell

In Will Sorrell’s Theological Talkback, he walked us through what it means to exist in an “economy,” how to be good stewards of what we have, and what it might look like to live counter to the world’s economy (and even America’s economy) out of faithfulness to the Lord’s commands and love for our neighbors. During the Q&A, Will mentioned that one of the ways that we can form (or re-form) our own hearts to conform to the likeness of Jesus Christ in this issue is to adopt a posture of prayer, and he encouraged us to seek out liturgical prayers or pre-written prayers, like the ones in Every Moment Holy or, in fact, ones written by the very people in Grace’s own body.

If you weren’t aware, Grace Fellowship has a writers’ group called the Grace Writers’ Collective. Our aim is to be able to write things - devotionals, poems, prayers, etc. - that serve our church in such a way that we participate in the sanctification of our collective imaginations. We believe in telling the Truth, but the Truth doesn’t have to be stale and boring and scientific. Like the Psalms we walked through this summer, we believe that as Christians, we are invited to tell the Truth in ways that are beautiful and aimed at our hearts. 

We in the GWC haven’t been  great at knowing how to share our work with the whole congregation. There have been times we’ve read poems or prayers during a service, or put stanzas of a poem in the worship guide, but often our poetry or prayers or essays or devotions are inspired by things the Lord is teaching us through our worship services, home group gatherings, and daily interactions with each other. So sometimes the timing is off, and it feels unnatural to read things or share things in the context of a gathered worship service. 

But Will actually wrote a poem several months ago about the very topic on which he taught - good stewardship, loving his neighbors, and honoring God in the way he moved throughout the world with his finances. I’m going to share it here, and then give a short explication of it. 

“Charcoal”

I buy my charcoal down the hill from where

I worship. Blocks of oak and bovine boots

Have stamped a scent of true belonging. Prayer

And patient conversation, rush uproots.

It’s not convenient. Christian wisdom long

Implored I steward well. Just find a deal

And keep the cash and God will go along.

Is silver what creation needs to heal?

O God of riches, drive from me the need

To clutch—my time, my mind, my wallet’s lips.

May feasts and fire, consuming bread we knead,

Reprieve the curse. May Advent greed eclipse.

Another Table readied by a hand

Of scars, it smells of charcoal on the sand.

Will chose an English sonnet form for this poem. The English sonnet is the form most often used to encapsulate the transcendent. If you think back to your English classes, you can probably remember reading Shakespeare’s sonnets, written about the deep, transcendent love he has for the woman to whom he is writing; or John Donne’s Holy Sonnets in which he tries to articulate the wonder and magnanimity of the Holy God. So if we recognize that Will chose this form for his poem, we would expect, then, that the poem is going to attempt to capture something of the transcendent.

Sonnets are also, however, written in iambic pentameter, which is a fancy way of saying they sound the most like normal human speech -- whether we know it or not, we often speak in a sequence of unstressed and stressed syllables. “I buy my charcoal down the hill from where / I worship.” It is the opening line of a conversation, a very ordinary sentence that seems strangely inconsequential to be the topic of a sonnet. Already in the very first line of this poem, then, we are prepared to encounter the collision of transcendence with the ordinary. 

I have had the honor of knowing Will long enough and reading enough of his poetry to know that he loves alliteration (which, if you remember back to your English classes again, is the repetition of the beginning sounds of words… like “Summer Sermon Series in the Psalms,” for example), and he gives us plenty of that in the first stanza: 

Blocks of oak and bovine boots 

Have stamped a scent of true belonging. Prayer

And patient conversation, rush uproots. 

Notice that Will could have said “leather” instead of “bovine.” Both words have the same number of syllables and the same accent patterns. He intentionally chose to make the reader think of cows, perhaps recall the smell of them in his or her mind’s eye (nose?) so that the reader is forced into the exact experience of the writer. We are no longer watching or listening as Will tells us about where he buys charcoal -- we are there with him. But the act of repetition itself, the fact that we keep hearing the same sounds over and over, cultivates, I think, the very discipline with which this stanza ends: we are forced to stop rushing. 

Think about it: we don’t enjoy repetition as modern humans (and, I think especially, as Americans). We want novelty, the next new thing, and when we have to do something over and over we typically get bored and stop doing it because we are impatient for what’s next. How many of us gave up piano in middle school because practicing our scales and arpeggios became too monotonous? How many of us still give up on disciplines -- daily prayer, reading scripture, fasting, even non-spiritual things like exercising -- because we want to be good at it or enjoy it immediately, and we don’t have the patience for the repetition that discipline takes?

But notice the flow of the stanza! Repeated sounds of bovine boots stamping long enough to leave a scent, and the scent itself stills the speaker of this poem into a sense of communion, of “belonging.” There is then room for the repetition of “Prayer / And patient conversation,” and by the end of the stanza there is no more alliteration because the goal has been accomplished: “rush” and hurry and impatience have been uprooted. As we have entered into the scene with the speaker, we also experience alongside him the act of slowing down. 

This forced slowness prepares us for the second stanza, because it is only in such a posture that we can begin to ponder the questions and ultimately prayers to which the rest of the poem leads us. The second stanza forces us inward, to look at the state of our own hearts. Will makes use of enjambment, which means that he doesn’t end his thoughts at the end of the line of poetry; instead he breaks up the flow of the rhythm by putting his punctuation in the middle of the lines, and ends his lines on an incomplete thought. This forces the reader into a state of discomfort, and that’s exactly what we’re supposed to feel as we examine our own greed along with the speaker. Like the experience the speaker is describing, buying charcoal locally and being forced out of a sense of rush and hurry, enjambment itself is “not convenient” for the readers, how our minds want to process the lines of poetry. We want the thought to end at the end of the lines, because we are often taught to care more about the rhyme itself than the thought the poem is conveying; we are taught, in short, to care about the wrong things. 

This demonstrates exactly Will’s point in the stanza -- though “Christian wisdom long / Implored I steward well,” our “wise stewardship” often looks like only spending money on cheap, mass-produced items so that we can keep or “save” as much money as possible: we “Just find a deal / And keep the cash and God will go along.” Notice how this sentence is structured: rather than the slow repetition of the first stanza, this description of our own American economy is rushed, the enjambment displaying a run-on sentence and no punctuation. It is both grammatically and theologically incorrect, and illustrates the poem’s thought perfectly: we’ve been taught to care about the wrong things, and in doing so, we participate in the World’s economy rather than God’s, yet still expect God to bless our “wisdom” in being frugal.

The last line of this stanza is jarring after all the enjambment in the first three lines: a single question which fits into one line of iambic pentameter and opens our eyes to see: “Is silver what creation needs to heal?” I’ll admit, I phoned a friend on the interpretation of this line (and by “friend” I mean the poet himself. Thanks, Will). This question is prompted by the opening verses of Isaiah 55: 

“Come, everyone who thirsts,

Come to the waters;

And he who has no money,

Come, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk

Without money and without price.

Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,

And your labor for that which does not satisfy?

Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, 

And delight yourselves in rich food.” (Is. 55:1-2)

According to Will, who’s preached on Isaiah many times, the word for “money” or “silver” in Isaiah is often used as a double entendre: it means both literal “money,” and is the main substance used for idol making in this period in Israel’s history. But note the first verse in Isaiah 55. It is only “he who has no money” that can “come, buy and eat.” By alluding to this imagery in the question Will asks, he is forcing us to reorient our notion of wise stewardship. In Isaiah 55, our money - and our idols - are worthless. The idols we create from silver cannot heal the things that God Himself has created. The answer to Will’s question, then, is a resounding No. 

This “no” then moves us to the last stanza, in which we enter with the speaker into a posture of repentance. Will’s use of enjambment in the first line again jolts us: the prayer itself asks God to “drive from [us] the need to clutch,” but the fact that the line ends on the word “need” gives this new meaning. Indeed, it is a direct logical answer to the question in the line before. Isaiah 55 paints a picture of a market at which only those with no money can “come and buy.” Only those of us who are aware of our need, then, are welcome at such a market...if we are confident in our own financial sufficiency, then we have no need of those waters, that milk, that honey. The “God of riches,” then, drives from us both our need by providing for us abundantly, and our “need / To clutch” our own resources. When we realize that those things have no value in God’s marketplace, we reorient the place wherein we put our trust: our trust is not in “[our] time, [our] mind, [our] wallet’s lips,” not in our “silver” idols or financial sufficiency. Our trust is in the God of riches, who provides for every need and asks us to submit all that we are and all that we have to Him. 

In return, we “consum[e] bread we knead,” and this rhyme is a brilliant bait-and-switch. (In fact, the first time I read it, I think I said “Oh, SHOOT” out loud.) We need bread, literally, to live. Jesus emphasizes this when He teaches His disciples the Lord’s prayer: “Give us this day our daily bread.” It also recalls the manna in the wilderness which God provides for the Israelites; they received as much as they needed for each day, and they were not allowed to hoard any of it or else it would rot.

But the literal word here, “knead,” calls to mind the image of participating in the breadmaking. My mom and I used to make sourdough bread every autumn, and kneading the bread was my least favorite part of the entire process. We had to line the whole counter with flour so that the dough wouldn’t stick to the surface. We did the same thing with our hands. The dough itself was difficult to maneuver; bread dough has to be kneaded to the point that it won’t break when it’s stretched out. We had to use a lot of upper body strength to really get it to do what it’s supposed to do, and it hurt. At least it did when I was a kid with zero arm muscles who could barely reach the counter even standing on a step-stool. It was messy and painful and long. It takes a great deal of patience and endurance to be able to knead bread dough well enough to make good bread. But the final result was always delicious, and so much better than the mass-produced, preservative-filled, pre-sliced bread we got at the grocery store. And, the more we did it, the easier it got. 

This is the image Will is cultivating here. We consume the bread we knead - we participate in the process and like the purchasing of charcoal, it is not convenient. It requires longsuffering, perseverance, and discipline. But it’s better bread in the end, and so it is with living faithfully in God’s economy. Living this way “Reprieve[s] the curse.” 

We trust in God’s provision for our “needs” by being faithful to the ways of His economy. And while I absolutely believe that the literal kneading of dough is a means of God’s sanctification, the image points us to the greater reality of the manner in which we live our lives, which is illustrated even further in the final thought of the poem: “May Advent greed eclipse.” Though we celebrate Advent at the end of the liturgical calendar, as Christians, we exist in a season of Advent at all times as we await Christ’s second coming. Christ Himself is “the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world” (John 6:32-33). It is for this, the bread of life, that we remain patient, longsuffering, for which we endure all things. And in our waiting for this True Bread, our greed for false things, for the wealth of the world, is eclipsed by the riches of the Kingdom of God.

This Advent leads us directly to the final couplet, which is a direct reference to John 21. After the Resurrection, the disciples are in their boats trying to catch fish. They stay out all night, but they don’t catch anything:

4 Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the shore; yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. 5 Jesus said to them, “Children, do you have any fish?” They answered him, “No.” 6 He said to them, “Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in, because of the quantity of fish. 7 That disciple whom Jesus loved therefore said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment, for he was stripped for work, and threw himself into the sea. 8 The other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, but about a hundred yards off.

9 When they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire in place, with fish laid out on it, and bread. 10 Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” 11 So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, 153 of them. And although there were so many, the net was not torn. 12 Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” Now none of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord. 13 Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and so with the fish. 

Notice that when the disciples arrive with all the fish that they caught, Jesus already has fish there waiting for them. Though Jesus still welcomes the fish they caught, evidence of His faithfulness and provision, they needed to bring nothing - their Lord had already prepared the Table for them with His scarred and Resurrected hands. This is the Table at which we are also invited to feast - the Table which “smells of charcoal on the sand,” where our Savior has already provided the meal, already finished the Work. 

All we need to do is come.