My Online Church & Jubilate Deo Music Camp, 2026
We need to return to the ordinariness of church life from where spirituality, godliness, piety, courage, service, word and sacrament, and song shine brightest!
Those who are least interested in protecting ecclesiology locally are most eager to form their own X ecclesiology, with virtual ministers to declare the new dogma, elders to determine who comes inside the gates and who does not, and deacons to serve the needs of this gnostic ecclesial body. They may have some association with a local body, but their entire theology of the church is built elsewhere. They are Anabaptists ideologically trying to play Reformed roles in their favorite platforms.
There is no health in this! I have seen it and by now can formulate an accurate analysis of this shenanigan.
Cyprian’s old warning still stands: “He can no longer have God for his Father, who has not the Church for his mother.” And Calvin, following the same ecclesial line of thinking, emphasizes the same truth when he says that “there is no other way to enter into life unless this mother conceive us in her womb, give us birth, nourish us at her breast.” The farther we stray from it, the farther we stray from truth.
The solution is less complicated than some may imply. We need to return to the ordinariness of church life from where spirituality, godliness, piety, courage, service, word and sacrament, and song shine brightest! The ordinary means of grace are not lesser realities because they are local, embodied, and repetitive. Nor is it lesser because it doesn’t provide a fantastical display of positive emotions, emojis, or economic highs.
Here is the thing: the local body is the very place where God forms a people. As Bonhoeffer wrote, “The physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy and strength to the believer.” We should believe this and rejoice.
This is easily provable…at least pastorally. This virtual world will not be with you in your time of need. This virtual place—assuming there are benefi—should be merely an extension of our first true world at the household of faith; the Israel of God; the holy, catholic, and apostolic church manifested in a communion of saints bound by vows and baptism, love and hope in the material realities of our spaces in counties and cities. That is where our true ecclesiology begins and ends year after year.
The church is not an algorithmic assembly. It is not a disembodied presbytery of hot takes. It is not a place where every man does what is right in his own feed. It is baptismal font, sacramental table, pulpit, prayers, elders, widows, children, psalms, casseroles, discipline, forgiveness, hospital visits, gravesides, and feast days. It is the place where Christ gives gifts to men and where men learn to receive those gifts without curating them for applause.
Remember your first love and rest in the Lord of the Church. The virtual world will constantly disappoint you with its ebbs and flows, but the Church will remain forever.
Nuntium
I am here again in the great Monroe, LA, home of the Robertson clan, ducks, and Coca-Cola…yes, this is the first place where Coca-Cola was bottled. At least that’s what them local folk say.
This is my tenth year at Jubilate Deo Music Camp. The first day, as the kids would say, has been epic! Friends far and wide. About 400 in attendance. Good coffee. Lots of heavy cream. And immense CREC hospitality. Here are a few pics from day one from Brian Moats.
