What is a church?
“It is easy to determine when something is aflame. It ignites other material. Any fire that does not spread will eventually go out. A church without evangelism is a contradiction in terms, just as a fire that does not burn is a contradiction.” – Christian Theology in Plain Language, p. 42 I love this quote, because it begs the question: “If you cannot really have a church without evangelism as it is a contradiction in terms, then exactly what is a church without evangelism?” Well?
Men of the Church
Great video sent to me from Just Jim. He feels like a less abrasive Mark Driscoll. “Church Planter” by Darrin Patrick from Crossway on Vimeo.
The perfect church
So I know we’ve all done it. You look around and say “I can’t believe my church does/does not do this!” or we have said of someone in our congregation “I can’t believe he/she said/did/didn’t do/that!” or my favorite you hear “I can’t believe he/she wore that to church!” I know that as humans we limit what God can do with each of our churches and congregations, but I have been trying to think lately of what the perfect church would look like. Some of the characteristics of my “Perfect Church” would be mostly straightforward and pretty much no-brainers. A reliance on the Word of God and the Spirit of God guiding the church. Lots of prayer and study. So many churches try to make...
Every Tribe, Tongue, and Nation
Dr. Martin Luther King once said ,“the most segregated hour in America is 11:00 on Sunday morning.” While segregation has been long since abolished (thanks be to God), most evangelical churches I’ve attended don’t have a lot of people of color in their pews. That’s NOT to say that the modern evangelical church is racist. I just think that we, as human beings, tend to naturally gravitate what we are familiar with. The result is our communities, churches, and lives end up being homogeneous. Last week, however, my church decided to try a little experiment. We have a Hispanic church worship at our church every Sunday evening. Sometimes we pass each other and say, “Hola,” but for the most part the two congregations never really interacted. That is,...
God's Method
So many times I see Churches trying to “reinvent the wheel” so to speak. There’s a new program, a new series, a new song, a new building, a new (fill in the blank) that is going to attract attention, regain interest, see souls saved, build momentum, and secure growth to better spread the Gospel. I understand it. There are things in life I get bored with, and even church can get boring at times. (Yes, heathen that I am, I admit I also get bored with church once in a while!) How often have we heard of teenagers who grow up into young adults that leave church, sometimes for a time only to return, and sometimes never to return except on special days, and all because church is boring, or they have heard it all before. How often have new...
Lukewarm
For father’s day, my wife bought me the book Crazy Love by Francis Chan. I am not though with it yet, but wow is it a convicting book. He is in essence critiquing the American church and our “American” approach to Christianity. I just got through reading the chapter entitled “Profile of the Lukewarm.” He begins the chapter by retelling the parable of the sower (in which the seed lands on path, the rocks, the thorns or the good soil.) When I hear that passage, I of course know that I am the good soil. Don’t we all? Chan points out that we shouldn’t assume that we are the good soil. He writes: “I think that most American churchgoers are the soil that chokes the seed because of all the thorns. Thorns are anything that distracts us...