the Holy Crap must go

Walter Russell Meade lays down his marker. its a good read. I especially like this bit, but the whole thing is good: The Christian churches in the United States are in trouble for all the usual reasons — human sinfulness and selfishness, the temptations of life in an affluent society, doctrinal and moral controversies and [...]

Verge 2010

I wasn’t able to go to Verge 2010 last week, but I watched quite a bit of the streaming video. It was some amazing stuff. Many of the thoughts and beliefs with which I have been struggling for the last seven years were echoed from the stage. just amazing. In particular, two things that I [...]

age segregation

interesting story from Mollie Hemingway about voluntary age segregation in churches and its unforeseen effects. number one on the list; no funerals. “Cool! Your church has funerals,” a friend recently said after I told him about attending one for a fellow parishioner at my church. My friend attends one of those churches that meet in [...]

why do you love the church?

if you love the church, why? (the “if you don’t, why not”? is a whole ‘nother post) Josh Harris lists some wrong reasons why people sometimes love their church. what do you think?  Here are a couple to get you started, then go read the rest of his post including the reason we should love [...]

Body metaphor

Randy Alcorn posts an excerpt from Philip D. Kenneson’s Life On The Vine: Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit in Christian Community (Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999). I agree that we should probably all spend some time thinking a bit about what Kenneson says here: This [the church as a body] is only one [...]

a bold move

the Episcopalian church in the U.S. has made a bold move and declared itself to be committed to the full normalization of non-celibate homosexuals within the leadership of its communion. here is the New York Times write up and here is the Los Angeles Times. Dr. Mohler also discusses the votes on his blog today. [...]

the church through history

Ed Marcelle on the Resurgence Blog is doing a quick series on how people have “done church” over time in different eras. The fourth installment is about the church during the Industrial Revolution period that is ending. then there is this little teaser for what comes next: The world had changed. The Industrial Revolution had [...]

revitalizing a local church

JD Greear is posting a series on The Resurgence blog about revitalizing a local church. the introduction: I’ve been asked to speak on church revitalization at the Advance Conference this year. Six years ago when I was called as a pastor, Homestead Heights was a declining 41-year-old Baptist church. Attendance was down to about 350 [...]

why American believers don’t give

one thing we have noticed in visiting churches this year is that budgets are in deep trouble. It is to be expected in a recession like this that church receipts would be down significantly, but we have seen several churches who have in 2009 received only 35 and 40% of the amount that they had [...]

what he said

here is Mark Driscoll talking about holding truth tightly while being relevant to the culture. Bumped up from last July, because it is still relevant. here is the page where you can download the entire message that the above video was advertising.

church

Mike Leuken wonders about our default approach to thinking about our church. “I am dissatisfied” was identified as a barrier to spiritual growth. Of those surveyed, 17 percent expressed some degree of dissatisfaction with their church; over half of these came from the most advanced stages of maturity. The greatest source of dissatisfaction was the [...]

yesterday

Yesterday we went to Origins Church. It is a church plant that only began having public worship services last September. They meet in a Holiday Inn meeting room which was nice. Meeting in that location lessens the setup and takedown stress on the people, because the hotel does much of it for them. The church [...]

what is the target?

Ed Stetzer has some interesting thoughts about the gospel that we are preaching and the goal of conversion according to that gospel. Here is his full article at catalyst. the excerpts that Ed posted on his blog follow: I continue to see movements gaining traction among Christians that do not seem to have many converts. [...]

the pursuit of God

In our men’s Bible study on Tuesday mornings we have started the book The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer. On page 14 of my copy, Mr. Tozer says this: This intercourse between God and the soul is known to us in conscious personal awareness. It is personal: it does not come through the body [...]

church tradition metaphor?

how about old couch? was great when it was new 20 years ago, but now it isn’t. can’t get rid of it because of all the wonderful memories associated with it. metaphor courtesy of Andy Stanley, via CataBlog

church or “preaching center”?

Vitamin Z has posted an excerpt from the book Total Church by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis. here is an excerpt from the excerpt: “The Bible calls the church a family. It describes the church as a community that shares together. The church is a body whose members perfectly fit together. We belong to one [...]

True or False?

Here is an excerpt from Quitting Church My research suggested that people are simply not being pastored. Often ministers are out of touch with what’s happening on the ground, as they are surrounded by a wall of secretaries and voice mail. Congregants have to wait up to a month for an appointment, if they can [...]

more on megachurches

Catablog has links to studies regarding the current state of megachurches (over the last few years). Here are some of the findings, but go to Catablog and hit the links to the source materials for more detailed information. “Megachurches – Protestant congregations that draw 2,000 or more adults and children in a typical weekend (attendance [...]

megachurches on the slide?

is the age of the megachurch showing signs of beginning to pass? here is a fascinating look at this question in USA Today. statistical blip or the start of a trend? On paper, megachurches look like a trend still on the rise. Their total number rose from 600 in 2000 to more than 1,250 in [...]

Is the church for evangelism?….continued even further

In a way this whole discussion seems weirdly artificial. All of our life as Christ followers is the gospel. Everything we do or say is because of the presence of God in us. I am not a preacher (vocational pastor of a congregation). I am a lawyer who teaches (and yes I do preach some) [...]

is the church for evangelism?….continued

Ken Stewart, professor of theological studies at Covenant College, had a comment posted to Tony Payne’s thoughts that I mentioned in this post. The comment was elevated to the text of this post Here is the beginning of what Professor Stewart had to say, “In the abstract, the argument of this post is unassailable. It [...]

elder led

In an earlier post regarding congregationalism, I made the point that God’s model of leadership in the local ekklesia is elder led. Phil Newton has written an article for Tabletalk magazine touching on this topic so I can link to his work. Here is part of Phil’s introduction and first point, but go read his [...]

Is the Church for Evangelism?

this is the question posed by the Ramblin’ Pastor Man and by Tony Payne. It is a more difficult question than it appears on the surface. Tony makes some good points and here is one of them: However, even if we acknowledge that there will be ‘gospel’ things happening all over the place in church, [...]

why government?

Pulpit Magazine has a two part series from Nathan Williams on why God put government in place. here is the introduction to the series. With the Democratic National Convention being held last week, and the Republican National Convention being held this week, our country will turn attention increasingly to the issue of politics and government. [...]

more reading

do you agree or disagree with congregationalism? (governance of the church by the congregation). I grew up Baptist which means basically that we were pastor led congregational governance model churches. I never really thought about whether or not that was an appropriate biblical model of church governance until a series of events in 2003 plunged [...]