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: God of mercy, we come before you with honest hearts. We bring not only our praise, but also our pain. We confess that at times we have lost heart. Hear now our lament, and kindle in us your ho...
I was in London browsing one of the ubiquitous British tabloids and an advertisement for a new health club grabbed my attention. The picture was of a magnificent gothic church sanctuary that had been ...
O Lord Jesus Christ, who has established your church as the bulwark of true freedom, and has committed to all believers the ministry of reconciliation, continue your work of reforming and cleansing wi...
I was taking a tour of the Church of Scotland’s beautiful Glasgow Cathedral, which is technically the High Kirk of Glasgow. It is estimated that over 50,000 university students live within walking dis...
Jonah 1:4, Luke 15:11-32, Matthew 18:21-35, Psalm 34:8, Romans 8:28
Maltbie D. Babcock, author of This Is My Father’s World and a Presbyterian pastor in Brooklyn, introduced a free pew system in his church, upsetting a wealthy woman who found strangers in her us...
Matthew 18:20, 1 Peter 2:5, Hebrews 10:24-25, Acts 2:42-47, Colossians 1:18, Ephesians 4:15-16, Romans 12:4-5
Editor’s Note: The following illustration came from one of my own sermons, as I was trying to help a congregation see itself not as a building, but the body of Christ. It has been adapted for TPW. No...
Genesis 18:1-8 , 2 Kings 4:1-7, Micah 6:8, Luke 10:25-37, Mark 10:45, Psalm 82:3-4
Leonard Sweet shares an interesting story in the introduction to Neil Cole’s book, Organic Church , about a parish pastor who lived in a Scottish village near Edinburgh called Davidson’s Mains. ...
Among healthy churches, 93 percent of members considered themselves to be involved in some form of ministry (though not necessarily at their church), compared to only 11 percent of members in the less...
Revelation 2:18-29, Psalm 50:16–23, Luke 9:23–25, Matthew 23:25–28 , Micah 6:6–8, Amos 5:21–24
Churches want to hear nice, optimistic messages, free of the mention of sin or a call for repentance. Churches want nice, lean programs, directed at nice, clean families, leading to growth without sac...
The church desires to change the surrounding culture. The truth, however, is that the church has been infected by the very culture it seeks to transform.
Isaiah 55:8-9, Jonah 4:1-11, Numbers 22:21-34, Matthew 9:10-13, Mark 2:23-28, Psalm 19:12-14
It takes a great deal of freedom and love to be therapeutic with a group. Many years ago when Emil Brunner, the great Swiss theologian, was lecturing in this country, it was reported that when he prea...
The Church was the one institution whose mission depended on galvanizing attention; and through its daily and weekly offices, as well as its sometimes-central role in education, that is exactly what i...
Almighty God, we have fractured your church, we have wasted the resources of this earth, we have corrupted our culture, Forgive us, we pray, renew us by the power of your Spirit, and draw us to y...
American Christianity is a story of perpetual upheavals in churches and individual lives. Starting with the extraordinary conversion experience, our lives are motivated by a constant expectation for t...
Recently we found ourselves around a table with a team of faith leaders from an influential Midwestern church. Their restlessness was palpable. “Peace has been one of our core values for years,” they ...
Lessons Learned in Quarantine and Beyond Do you remember that first Sunday when you stayed cloistered in your home with the immediate family, when you exchanged your dapper church clothes for a pair ...
Many in the church have turned their back on serious study, and have embraced an anti-intellectualism which refuses to learn anything from scholarship at all lest it corrupt their pure faith. It is ti...
We were recently with a collection of pastors in San Diego and were asked to share about our common call to peacemaking. Fully aware of the posturing and isolation of many of these churches, we found ...
James 4:1, Philippians 2:14, 1 Corinthians 14:33, James 1:5
Conflict in Ministry Have you ever whispered to yourself, “I didn’t sign up for this?” I confess those words have passed through my mind more than once over the years. When I started out in ministry...
In Paul’s day the church quarreled over the Jewish law and over genealogies, over meat sacrificed to idols and sabbath practices, and over favoritism shown to the rich patrons and negligence shown to ...
We must re-grasp the idea of church membership as being the membership of the body of Christ and as the biggest honour which can come man's way in this world.
The problem is not recognizing the importance of the individual. The problem is the glorification of the individual. When the individual self is glorified over the greater good of the community, right...
In 2009 I (Dave) gathered a group of twenty lead pastors in the Denver area so we could think, dream, and pray about how our churches might join forces to serve our community. We invited our local may...
Romans 12:4-5, Colossians 3:14, Galatians 3:28, John 17:20-23, Ephesians 4:3-6
O God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our only Savior, the Prince of Peace: Give us grace to take to heart the great dangers we are in by our unhappy divisions. Take away all hatred and prejudice...
Heavenly Father, in your Word you have given us a vision of that holy City to which the nations of the world bring their glory: Behold and visit, we pray, the cities of the earth. Renew the ties of mu...
I sometimes wonder (although I exaggerate in order to make my point) if it would not be very healthy for church members to meet only on Sundays (for worship, fellowship and teaching) and not at all mi...
The church is a covenanting people. It consists of those whom the Spirit has called out of the world through the gospel proclamation to walk together as God’s people. This covenanting people, however,...