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The Hitchhiker Who Pulled a Gun on Me
I was driving in Columbus, Ohio, when I came upon a hitchhiker who alternated between holding his thumb out and clasping his hands together as if he were praying. I picked him up. His name was Mike, a... -
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Evangelists Are Seen as Salesmen
In another day and age, God, religion and church enjoyed the general respect of the culture. Not today. Religion is suspect, church is weird, and Christians are hypocrites. Distrust has become the nor... -
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One way to recognize whether we suffer from this disconnection is to look at our concern for people who are dirty... people who are "other"... people who don't fit the core group's i... -
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Why We are Reluctant to Share the Gospel
Why is it so intimidating to talk about Jesus in contemporary western culture? One obvious reason might lie in the ubiquitous negative portrayals of Christians in mainstream media. Sam Chan makes this... -
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Truth carries with it confrontation. Truth demands confrontation; loving confrontation, but confrontation nevertheless. -
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We must never underestimate our power to be wrong when talking about God, when thinking about God, when imagining God, whether in prose or in poetry. A generous orthodoxy, in contrast to the tense, na... -
scripture guide
Scripture Guide, Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
Preaching Angle: Wheat and Weeds Grow Even in the Church God’s good creation grows food for all living creatures. God made the Earth, God made all the plants, and God made all the humans and animals ... -
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Our Problem with Evangelism
Christians and non-Christians have something in common: we’re both uptight about evangelism. Our fear as Christians seems to be How many people did I offend this week? We think that we must be a littl... -
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In Christian terms, evangelization and humanization are not alternatives. Nor are the 'vertical dimension' of faith and the 'horizontal dimension' of love for one's neighbor and po... -
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Religion is like a pair of shoes.....Find one that fits for you, but don't make me wear your shoes. (For contrast) -
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The Unfulfilled Atheist
Some years ago, I was approached by a young man in our church who described himself as an “unfulfilled atheist.” He wanted to know why he should consider Christianity. I responded to him by asking him... -
liturgy
Lord, we confess our failure to hold fast
Lord, we confess our failure to hold fast to the message we have received. Forgive our wayward hearts for seeking after false forms of good news in place of the true message of the gospel. Forgive u... -
scripture guide
Matthew 25:31-46 (Guide A)
Coming to the end This is Jesus’s last story before his Last Supper, and while we do not want to put too much emphasis on salvation at the expense of Kingdom life in the present, we cannot ignore cle... -
scripture guide
Matthew 25:31-46 (Guide B)
Coming to the end This is Jesus’s last story before his Last Supper, and while we do not want to put too much emphasis on salvation at the expense of Kingdom life in the present, we cannot ignore cle... -
scripture guide
Scripture Guide, John 4:5-42
Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? The Samaritan Woman in a Male-Defined World In the ancient world, your place as a woman was defined by your connection to a man: Father... -
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Trust Is the Currency of Evangelism
Trust is sweet. It is better than gold. Trust is always a gift of the heart, and therefore it just may be the most precious thing in life, next to love. Trust between two people is so valuable and pre... -
scripture guide
Scripture Guide, Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18
Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? The Old, Old Story Jesus’ resurrection and ascension (and perhaps Pentecost) are the resolution of a story that starts with all the way... -
scripture guide
Scripture Guide, Acts 2:14a, 36-41
Setting the Context: After the introductory tag from 2:14a this week’s text begins with “therefore” in 2:36 (Greek oun , which is the second word in verse 36 in the Greek text), making it especially... -
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If one looks at the world scene from a missionary point of view, surely the most striking fact is that, while in great areas of Asia and Africa the church is growing, often growing rapidly, in the lan... -
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In our postmodern culture which is TV dominated, image sensitive, and morally vacuous, personality is everything and character is increasingly irrelevant. -
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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. -
scripture guide
Scripture Guide, Matthew 10:40-42
The Transitive Property of Welcoming In elementary school math you learn various basic principles of working with numbers…the commutative property, the associative property, the distributive property... -
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Jesus Christ did not say “Go into all the world and tell the world that it is quite right.” -
illustration
Overproduction and Poor Distribution
The story is told of a man who served in George Washington’s cabinet. He was totally bald. The top of his head would have been the envy of a shiny billiard ball. But in contrast to that barren scalp, ... -
liturgy
Merciful God, you have moved and
Merciful God, you have moved and changed our lives in amazing ways, yet we have kept these stories to ourselves. We confess the times we have kept these stories to ourselves out of fear of rejection a... -
scripture guide
Scripture Guide, Matthew 13:1–9, 18–23
Preaching Angle: Preach the Word, Rest in God’s Work Maybe I tend to focus on the negative, but when I read the parable of the soils, I tend to focus on the soils that struggle (the soil too close to... -
liturgy
Lord Jesus, you send us out into the
Lord Jesus, you send us out into the world in your name, but we prefer to stay safely behind. We are nervous, and unmotivated, and uncertain. We love to think about how you love us, but we are much mo... -
liturgy
Adapted from Acts 10:34-43
Pastor: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. As for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good n... -
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Inviting Jesus to Tea
A Frontier Fellowship mobilizer once met a Chinese monk while leading a vision trip. Through a translator she said to him, “We are all followers of Jesus. Do you know Jesus?” The friendly monk replie... -
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If he have faith, the believer cannot be restrained. He betrays himself. He breaks out. He confesses and teaches this gospel to the people at the risk of life itself.
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