Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Camden Bucey speaks with Harrison Perkins about his book Meeting God in His Means of Grace: How Word, Sacrament, and Prayer Help Us Encounter Christ. Perkins argues that the Christian life is fundamentally receptive: we do not invent our own paths to God, but meet him where he has promised to be present and active for the good of his people.
The conversation explores the ordinary means of grace—Word, sacraments, and prayer—as Christ’s appointed instruments for strengthening faith, assuring believers, and shaping the church’s worship. Perkins discusses the reading and preaching of Scripture, baptism as a covenantal sign, the Lord’s Supper as communion with Christ and a foretaste of the marriage supper of the Lamb, prayer as a means Christ uses to sustain his people, and congregational worship as active participation before God rather than religious spectatorship.
Chapters
0:00 Introduction
1:03 Meeting God in His Means of Grace
3:04 The ordinary things Christ gives his church
5:55 The Christian life as fundamentally receptive
7:46 Connection, experience, and the means of grace
12:54 The danger of treating faith as a mystical quest
16:39 Means of grace as God’s work for us
19:28 Christ at work through the reading and preaching of Scripture
30:54 Private Bible reading and communion with God
38:25 Grace as fellowship with God
42:04 Baptism as Christ’s appointed means
47:16 Baptism and the covenant community
50:59 The Lord’s Supper and Christ’s presence
51:30 Passover, the Lamb, and the Supper
54:51 A foretaste of the wedding feast of the Lamb
57:33 Prayer as a means of grace
1:00:15 Singing as prayer in public worship
1:03:59 Worshipers are not spectators
1:08:05 Resisting consumerism in worship
1:10:16 Closing thoughts and resources
Learn more: reformedforum.org/ctc967
#ChristTheCenter #ReformedTheology #MeansOfGrace
Camden Bucey speaks with Harrison Perkins about his book Meeting God in His Means of Grace: How Word, Sacrament, and Prayer Help Us Encounter Christ. Perkins argues that the Christian life is fundamentally receptive: we do not invent our own paths to God, but meet him where he has promised to be present and active for the good of his people.
The conversation explores the ordinary means of grace—Word, sacraments, and prayer—as Christ’s appointed instruments for strengthening faith, assuring believers, and shaping the church’s worship. Perkins discusses the reading and preaching of Scripture, baptism as a covenantal sign, the Lord’s Supper as communion with Christ and a foretaste of the marriage supper of the Lamb, prayer as a means Christ uses to sustain his people, and congregational worship as active participation before God rather than religious spectatorship.
Chapters
0:00 Introduction
1:03 Meeting God in His Means of Grace
3:04 The ordinary things Christ gives his church
5:55 The Christian life as fundamentally receptive
7:46 Connection, experience, and the means of grace
12:54 The danger of treating faith as a mystical quest
16:39 Means of grace as God’s work for us
19:28 Christ at work through the reading and preaching of Scripture
30:54 Private Bible reading and communion with God
38:25 Grace as fellowship with God
42:04 Baptism as Christ’s appointed means
47:16 Baptism and the covenant community
50:59 The Lord’s Supper and Christ’s presence
51:30 Passover, the Lamb, and the Supper
54:51 A foretaste of the wedding feast of the Lamb
57:33 Prayer as a means of grace
1:00:15 Singing as prayer in public worship
1:03:59 Worshipers are not spectators
1:08:05 Resisting consumerism in worship
1:10:16 Closing thoughts and resources
Learn more: reformedforum.org/ctc967
#ChristTheCenter #ReformedTheology #MeansOfGrace
