Category: Church
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Can Mission Become an Idol?
“There is a first-rate commitment to a second-rate mission.” That is what Roger, a leader in global church planting, said as he looked at the rock climbers ascending a cliff in the Alps. Many of us called into ministry feel the same way. Rather than giving our lives to climbing a rock, building a business,…
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Gospel Clarity for Missional Calling
The article below by World Harvest Mission‘s Josiah Bancroft is a tremendously insightful and clear explanation of the relationship of the gospel to culture. Not only is this an important understanding for the mission field overseas, but Josiah explains why it is essential even within the local church in North America. The video above is…
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Numbering Those on the Ranch
With the following illustration, Alan Hirsch offers a different way of gauging a church’s effectiveness: In some farming communities, the farmers might build fences around their properties to keep their livestock in and the livestock of neighbor farms out. This is a bounded set. But in rural communities where farms or ranches cover an enormous…
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Loving Not Wisely But Too Well
Shakespeare’s Othello bellows: “I have loved not wisely but too well.” What he means is that his passions consumed him, and now he had destroyed what he loved. If you know the story, you will remember he had strangled his wife out of the mistaken fear that she had not been faithful to him. Similarly,…
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Practitioners of Love
Studying love is exciting, being taught the doctrines of love is enlightening, praying about love is heart moving, and seeing love modeled is motivating, but in the end, we must lovingly obey God and sacrificially serve people. We must be practitioners of love, not theorists. We must be doers of love, not talkers. We must…
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Moralism Trap
To reach people in our day, the gospel will have to be distinguished from moralism, because moralism is what most people outside the church think Christianity is all about – rules and standards and behavior and cleaning yourself up. Millions of people, both inside and outside the church, believe that the essential message of Christianity…
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Church Consumerism
Wow! In this message Matt Chandler rants against the consumeristic climate catered to and cultivated by the contemporary Evangelical culture… I wish I had said this! OK, I have said this. I just wish I had said it as well as Matt does!
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When People Go
Let’s face it, it is one of the bummers of being in ministry – or for that matter, of being a part of a church. While death and taxes may be among life’s inevitables, sadly, if you are part of a church, so is periodically watching people go out the doors. With the Wal-Martization of…
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Is John MacArthur Getting Crotchety?
Is John MacArthur getting crotchety in his old age? I will leave that for you to decide. My guess is opinions will vary. Some may even muse about the verb “getting”. But after watching a couple of brief videos he has me wondering. Before commenting on the videos let me say that I think John…
