Church life
The Great Commission and the local church
Are you a goer or a sender?
I trust you’ve heard a preacher or a missionary ask that question. Their point: the Great Commission calls some people to leave kith and kin for the foreign fields of unreached peoples. And it calls other people to send missionaries with prayer, finances, and support broadly.
Church life
Prayer is…
‘Prayer is the measure of a man, spiritually,
in a way that nothing else is,’ said J. I. Packer.
Our prayers reveal what our hearts want.
They reveal how we regard God and His
power. They reveal the quality and measure
of faith. Do we pray often and carefully, or
not much at all?
The
same must be
true of a church’s
prayers. They reveal what a church values,
and where it places its hope.
Church life
Love the church more than its health
This one goes out to the doctrine lovers. The ones with opinions about church.
There’s a temptation you and I are susceptible to: we can love our vision of what a church should be more than we love the people who comprise it. We can be like the unmarried man who loves the idea of a wife, but who marries a real woman and finds it harder to love her than the idea of her.
Church life
Church leadership: top down or bottom up?
When people think about leadership, ‘up’ is good and ‘down’ is bad. People want to be ‘over’ others, the ‘top dog’, the ‘pinnacle’ of power. They want to move ‘up’ the ladder, not be ‘under’ others, the ‘low’ man on the totem pole, at the ‘bottom’ rung.
Scripture uses spatial metaphors this way too. ‘God reigns over the nations’ (Ps. 47:8). His throne is ‘high and lifted up’ (Isa.6:1). Elders have ‘oversight’ (1 Peter 5:2). The up/ down language makes sense. To lead, you need a view of the landscape.
Church life
Discipleship and growth
You disciple everyone around you. Whether you mean to or not, inevitably and invariably, your actions and words impact people in your world. You assist them toward righteousness or wickedness.
That’s true whether you are three or 30, a senior pastor or the office intern. Yes, people higher on the totem pole make a bigger impact. They have more social leverage. But everyone leaves some dent on others.
Church life
The discipline of tough love
Do the words ‘love’ and ‘church discipline’ sound like an oxymoron?
It’s true, church discipline can be unloving. Yet if your church is a loving church, it will practice church discipline.
Church life
Church membership: joy!
‘I have a lot to catch you up on. So I’m just
going to talk, okay?’ I smiled at Chris and
nodded. I had nothing to talk about. Plus,
I enjoy hearing about my friend’s life. He
took a sip of coffee. I took a sip. Then he
talked for, maybe, 45 minutes? Maybe 60?
He walked me through the
last month
of a relationship that looks to be heading
to marriage. The month presented
some
challenges.
Some
inner
turmoil.
Some
misunderstandings with
another
church
member. But the major theme of his story:
God walked him through the challenges, the
turmoil, the misunderstandings.
Church life
Why evangelism is
a team sport
Is evangelism an individual sport or a team
sport? It’s both. Jesus commands every
Christian to make disciples. But we should
make disciples in and through our churches.
Think of the first chapters of Acts, where
the apostles proclaimed
the
resurrection.
Behind them was the church, living together and sharing everything in common, ‘praising
God and enjoying the favour of the people’
(Acts 2:47; also 5:13). Somehow, the life of
the church served as a positive witness to the
gospel. Then, when persecution broke out
and the church scattered, ‘Those who had
been scattered preached the gospel wherever they went’ (Acts 8:4).
Church life
How conversion makes you a family member
For years I lived as a nominal Christian – a Christian in name only. I believed the right things, but I didn’t love the right things.
True Christians love God, God’s word, and God’s people, or at least they have begun to. Nominal Christians don’t. Sure enough I had little to no interest, in my nominal days, in God’s people or God’s book (knowing it or obeying it). In fact, I was a little embarrassed to be seen with either.
Church life
The gospel creates church
Have you ever met someone who says they love the gospel, but not the church? Doing so is impossible, and I want to help you understand why.
The gospel is a message. That message, when embraced and trusted, creates a people. And those people in turn demonstrate the promises and truth of the message.
Church life
Why your church needs biblical theology
The discipline of biblical theology is just as important to the life of your church as systematic theology.
Biblical theology is the root of doctrine; systematic theology is the fruit. And we need to get both right if we want to know who Jesus is, what the gospel is, and how to guard and guide our churches.
