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.