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The Message We Want to Hear in Church
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... -
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Ultimately, each church will be evaluated by only one thing—its disciples. Your church is only as good as her disciples. It does not matter how good your praise, preaching, programs or property are; i... -
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The Doubts of a Church Planter
In this first-person memoir, Pastor Peter Chin shares a story that most pastors can probably relate to, the reality vs the expectation of a church-planter or even the pastor of an established church: ... -
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The Shock-Value of Attending American MegaChurches for Third-World Missionary Kids
A missionary family who has started organic churches in some of the most dangerous fields in the world once returned to the states for furlough. On the first Sunday back, they visited a large Baptist ... -
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God’s kingdom is not best represented by franchises of McChurch. If you focus your energies on copying someone else’s methodologies or programs, you will miss something crucially important . . . The H... -
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The Church has water and tears, the water of baptism and the tears of repentance. -
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Knowing God’s Will Will Pack the House
Within the Christian community this leads to a prominence of teaching on the will of God and how to know it. Russ Johnston draws upon his own wide experience to remark how this continues to be one of ... -
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The Barna Research Group reports that in the United States about 10 million self-proclaimed, born-again Christians have not been to church in the last six months, apart from Christmas or Easter. -
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We are Better Together: Moving from Empire to Kingdom
A Multi-faceted Church Who loses by the church and parachurch’s lack of unity and cooperation? Absolutely everyone : congregations, ministry organizations, ministry leaders, individual believers . .... -
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Hearing God’s Voice is no Small Matter
Sunday dinner was finished, but we lingered around the table, savoring the good food and reflecting on the morning’s service at church. The congregation—where I then served as a very young (and very g... -
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The Themes of Epiphany
Serious attention paid to the themes of the season following the Feast of the Epiphany, in particular, can be a strong antidote to a weak Christology. To be sure, all of the church calendar is formed ... -
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Thanking God for Ignorance
Melville Weston Fuller (1833–1910), a prominent U.S. lawyer and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (1888–1910), once presided over a church conference where a speaker passionately denounced higher edu... -
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The Death of Christendom
In one generation, the place of Christianity within culture dramatically shifted as we experienced what theologians and sociologists of religion call the “death of Christendom.” Christendom isn’t Chri... -
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How Do You Recognize a Christian?
A friend sat down in a small London restaurant and picked up a menu. “What will it be?” the waiter asked. Studying the puzzling selections, my friend said, “Uhh …” The waiter smiled. “Oh, a Yank. What... -
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Quarreling Yesterday & Today
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 ... -
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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... -
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Church growth experts tell us that most people seeking a new church care little about its doctrines. They're mostly interested in the facilities of the church, its nursery, and opportunities for f... -
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Staying in our Christian Bubbles
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 ... -
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Our churches struggle with being evangelistically effective because they are locked into a self-affirming subculture while the larger culture continues to move in other directions. -
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We structure our churches and maintain them so as to shield us from God and to protect us from genuine religious experience…The adult members of churches today rarely raise serious religious questions... -
lectionary
10th Sunday after Pentecost
Preaching Commentary Background to the Letter and Passage Paul’s letter to the Ephesians was probably intended for wider distribution and use among the various churches around Ephesus. As such, the... -
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Comeback churches care about the things God cares about. They display that “lost people matter to God” by the way they live, pray, and witness. -
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The membership of every local church is no accident; it is by divine design. There is no one there who is a spare part, a third foot, or second nose. There is no one there who is not necessary, or who... -
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What is the Church For?: Sermon Illustration Tuesday
In her excellent book, Liturgy of the Ordinary , author Tish Harrison Warren deals with an issue on many people's minds: why is it that so many people, especially younger generations, don't... -
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Every congregation looking for revitalization must declare its mission succinctly, and then outline the essential tenets that encompass its theological outlook and emphases. The congregation then shou... -
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The Church of My Choice
One Sunday morning at a Colorado prison, a group of inmates was being led to the Catholic and Protestant chapels. One young man, however, kept walking past them and headed toward the main gate. A guar... -
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Institutional Inertia
Churches, seminaries, and nonprofit organizations are notorious for saying they need change and then resisting the very leader they called to bring it. One of my consulting clients told me that he cal... -
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The Church's Funeral
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... -
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In most cases, the existing church culture is from a former era that is only meaningful to those in the church, not those in the community. -
scripture guide
Scripture Guide, 1 Corinthians 1:10-18
Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Corinth: "Young, Scrappy, and Hungry" Corinth was an up-and-coming city with an up-and-coming attitude. The Romans had conque...
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