mgpcpastor's blog

For those who have a bit of extra time on this public holiday, here’s an interview with Dale Ralph Davis (call him Ralph) conducted by the folk at the Katoomba Christian Convention website.
Readers here know that I think Ralph Davis is the best Old Testament preacher you’ve never heard of, and when you’ve heard of him he’s pretty much then the best of the ones you have heard of.
Why one of east-coast colleges or assemblies haven’t brought him over to do some guest lecturing or preaching, I have no idea.
In addition to the usual ‘getting to know you’ questions there are some interesting answers to questions about the Presbyterian congregation from which Davis has recently retired.
Here he describes the pattern of congregational life:

Probably about 200 people more or less and when we would have new members join us we would tell them it’s sort of a vanilla type church, as we called it. We didn’t try to do anything super duper. We didn’t have fancy programs or something for everybody and our view was that as far as families went (we had a number of single people in the church too) they were better served by trying to practice godliness in their own home rather than dragging themselves off to church all the time for some activity. So, because of that we put the emphasis on the preaching and teaching of the Word, so we had morning and evening services on the Lord’s day. But we didn’t have a whole lot of other stuff. Various people in the church would have Bible studies, there was a women’s bible study, there was a men’s Bible study and so on, but we didn’t push people, we didn’t say you need to be involved in this and this and this. We placed the emphasis on preaching and teaching and public worship and then let the other things fall where they might, and according to people’s time and so on. But we didn’t try to press a great degree of them needing to be hyper involved in church activities. Sometimes, at least in American situations it can break up families and divide families, by just being too busy with the church. So we didn’t try to hyper program anything and that sort of thing. So that’s kind of what it was, it was just kind of a ‘Plain Jane’ congregation and if you didn’t like the preaching and teaching of the Word well you should go somewhere else.

This is part of a response to a question about encouraging church life and fellowship.

…(I can’t speak for Australia or anywhere else) but I think in our America culture, there’s a mentality in the church that people think we need to provide people with this and this and this. If they think there’s a need for something, then somehow the officers or the eldership of the church has to provide them with something, they have to start a program, they have to start a small group, they have to do this or that. Our view was if you feel the need for something like that, and it’s not there, then go start it. ‘You want a small group Bible study?’ ‘You want some help with it?’ well holler at us ‘You think there ought to be prison ministry?’ then check out what options there are, then start one or get involved in one but don’t necessarily expect the ‘government’, don’t expect the church to level something down from on high on you. I guess it’s trying to put responsibility on the initiative of the believers that feel the need and say use your own ingenuity and initiative about some of these things and don’t expect some program, we’re a church of two hundred people, we just can’t do everything. And it was a little bit of a struggle, because people aren’t geared to think that way, they’re a bunch of socialists, and to get them to think that way sometimes is a little bit of a trick.

Read the whole interview here at the Katoomba Christian Convention website.