christian living on Going to Church

[R]eliable quantitative research around this has brought some helpful insights to light. Jim Davis, Michael Graham, and Ryan Burge have released the largest study ever done on dechurching in America i...

The more I understand people and their needs, the more I am persuaded that God has uniquely designed the local church to respond to those needs.

By failing to come to grips with how cultural dysfunctions deeply impact the health of the church, our leaders will continue to fail to discern an essential reality concerning the nature of change: Cu...

About 2 out of 3 American adults who regularly attend church or other religious services say they go for their kids.

I do not go to church because it is enjoyable (usually it’s not), or because it is never dull (usually it is). I do not go to church because it satisfies my private needs and wishes (it seldom does). ...

The Danish philosopher and contrarian Soren Kierkegaard once compared Christians of his time to a flock of geese in a barnyard. Every week, they listened to an eloquent speaker who recounted the stori...

The Church should be the society of the forgiven and the forgiving.

What is the place of the church in relation to God’s mission? Pastor John Stott offers some crucial thoughts, For the church lies at the very center of the eternal purposes of God. It is not a div...

The story goes about a young man (or woman!) with dreams of growing a small church nestled in rural Oklahoma. Despite his relentless efforts, the church continued to teeter on the edge of extinction a...

Too Busy for God? American work culture is all-pervasive. For many members of your congregation, it can be a real fight to get actual time off—and cell phones and the internet has made it possible to...

Leader: Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, All: by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, t...

Having therefore, brothers, boldness to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by the way which he dedicated for us, a new and living way, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh, and ha...

And having a high priest over the house of God; Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pur...

People don’t enter a church; the church enters a building.

The story is told of a man who had gone to church for several years but suddenly stopped attending. His pastor dropped by one evening unannounced. The man answered the door and invited him in. Of cour...