Tag: Church
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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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Total Church
I have recently been listening to Tim Chester and Steve Timmis speak about Total Church. I appreciate their emphasis that two key principles should shape church life: gospel and community. As Tim Chester writes: Christians are called to a dual fidelity: fidelity to the core content of the gospel and fidelity to the primary context…
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Bashing the Bride
This video cracks me up… and it also makes me a little sad. It is sad because this critic is all too familiar – not just to me, but probably to most church leaders. In our consumer culture, where some people have little more allegiance to their covenant community than they do to Wal Mart, K-Mart,…
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Screwtape Meets the “Me Church” Generation
Among C.S. Lewis‘ masterful works is the Screwtape Letters. For those unfamiliar with this book, Screwtape is a fictional senior devil mentoring his nephew, Wormwood, a junior devil, in undermining his “patients” new found spiritual journey. When reading Screwtape Letters it is important to remind yourself that everything is presented from a backward perspective –…
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4 Ingredients for an Assimilation Recipe
It has been said: When people visit a church they are not so much looking for friendly people as they are looking for new friends. If all they wanted was friendliness they could go to almost any store in the mall and find it. I have always sensed that there is much truth in this…
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Worship God Seeks
I wonder what would become of the worship wars in our congregations if we recognized the truth in what worship leader/songwriter David Ruis expresses: “The worship God is seeking relies completely on His initiative, knowing that the only true expression of worship is through the abandonment of all our agendas for His, as we trust…
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Missional Shift
In his book The Present Future, Reggie McNeal reveals and contrasts different ways leaders can think about the church and its ministry. McNeal reflects upon the different paradigms that pastors can have as they lead and conduct ministry in the church. Being missional is a shift in thinking about the nature of the church. Once…
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Steak on a Paper Plate
I am not sure I agree with everything he says, but Trevin Wax offers some very insightful thoughts worth considering about contemporary worship wars: More and more churches are focusing on the centrality of the Word in worship. The resurgence of Reformed theology among younger evangelicals, the reestablishment of a rock-solid belief in the inerrancy…
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Art of Our Discontent
Trevin Wax asks these questions: How do unbelievers know we are Christians? By the fish symbols on our car? By our bumper stickers? By our voting patterns? By our church attendance? No. Jesus tells us that the outside world will know we are Christians by the way we love one another. (John 13.34-35; 1 John…
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5 Reasons Church Leaders Quit
Why do so many church leaders quit or go into early permanent retirement? This is epidemic these days. According to Pastor in Residence, a ministry aimed at restoring ministry casualties back to active duty, at any given time as many as 33% of American pastors consider throwing in the towel. And this is not a…
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Living Together as the Church
The late theological statesman, Edmund Clowney observed: “If we lack interest in the church we lack what was for Jesus a consuming passion. Jesus loved the church and gave himself for it (Ephesians 5.25).” Jesus’ love for his church is evident throughout the pages of the New Testament. In Matthew 16.18 Jesus promises to build his…
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What Makes a Good Church?
Steve Erickson of Pointway Church in Baxter, Minnesota serves up some up beat thoughts to the question: What makes a good church? “What makes a good church? If all the… …Lazy folks get up …sleepy folks wake up …Discouraged folks cheer up …Gossiping folks shut up …Dishonest folks fess up …Estranged folks make up …Depressed…
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Shallow Small Groups
OK… This might make some folks cringe a little – especially some Small Group junkies… But this is just too funny!
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Organic Church
You will observe that I am not merely exhorting you “to go to church.” “Going to church” is in any case good. But what I am exhorting you to do is go to your own church – to give your presence and active religious participation to every stated meeting for worship of the institution as…
