(I only recently realized that Tullian Tchividjian’s blog wasn’t showing up on my feed reader – be sure you update your subscription if you aren’t getting his blog now that he has been installed at Coral Ridge).
Here is what Tullian wrote the day after he was installed at Coral Ridge. It’s a good challenge for all Christians:
Last night I was officially installed as Senior Pastor of Coral Ridge. It was an amazing night. As one new church, we celebrated God’s promise to build his church. Through the praying, praising, preaching, and taking of vows, God came near and reminded us that it’s all about him and his glory, his fame, his renown. God’s presence was indeed thick and unmistakable. He was, “surely in that place.”
My friend Os Guinness reminded all of us that the church in America is indeed facing a crisis and the answer is not structural renovation but spiritual renewal. He exhorted all of us from Exodus 33 to never stop praying, “Lord, show me your glory.” When the weightiness of God rests on the church and spills out from the church, the world is changed. It was a great reminder that the ultimate factor in the church’s engagement with society is the church’s engagement with God.
And then one of my dearest friends, John Wood (senior minister of Cedar Springs Presbyterian Church in Knoxville), charged both the congregation and me to die. With God-fueled fire in his eyes, he reminded all of us that bearing fruit requires death. Jesus said we must die in order that we might live. Daily Christian living, in other words, is daily Christian dying: dying to our trivial comforts, soul-shrinking conveniences, arrogant preferences, and self-centered entitlements, and living for something much larger than what makes us comfortable and safe. . . .
Read the whole thing here.
