Pastor Jeremy Carr reflects on the various ways Satan attacks and how we ought to respond. Spiritual warfare comes in many forms: false teaching, divisive spirits, deception, roadblocks to the Gospel, and yes even physical attack. I’m not prone to…
“Don’t do to your child what I did to mine”
C. John Miller in his book, Outgrowing the Ingrown Church (34): . . . I once overheard a visitor to one of our services tell this story to a young father. He said, “This morning you brought your child to…
Is the church a participatory democracy?
We have a church decision coming up. In decisions such as this one (buying additional property), our church believes it is critical to get the input of the congregation for the purpose of unity, wisdom, and acknowledgement of God’s direction.…
Does it dishonor God to long for a reunion with loved ones?
Randy Alcorn: Believers periodically tell me versions of the following: “We shouldn’t be thinking about reunion with loved ones, or the joys of Heaven. We should only be thinking about being united with Christ, who is our only treasure.” This…
Problems With Meaningless Membership
One of the things our church has worked hard at is keeping our membership rolls current. Our church is 153 years old and at times, this means removing names of people who are no longer committed to our church (only…
Thom Rainer: “You are My Pastor”
Thom Rainer: You are my pastor. You are not perfect. You get frustrated like everyone else. You don’t always say exactly what you should say. You do indeed make some mistakes. On that reality you readily agree. But your imperfections…
10 Simple Things Good Pastors Say
Jared Wilson writes a thoughtful list of 10 things good pastors say. Given my own shortcomings, I have ample opportunities for 1 and 2. Click through to the list. HT: JT
Fellowship is fundamentally a reality, not an experience
Most often , Christians speak of fellowship as an activity or subjective experience. Yet, “fellowship” translates the Greek word “koinonia” and a better translation would be “invested partnership” or “a sharing together”: fellowship is an objective reality. John Stott explains:…
Arousing ourselves to death
Kill this or it will kill you. Beat to death with a shovel if you have to as described here. Kill it in any case. Russell Moore writes about how churches should deal with the pornography epidemic: The couple will…
Ten Reasons Not to Be a “Brick” in the Valley
We often encourage our people that God makes bricks with a building in mind, or as Peter said, “You also like living stones are being built into a spiritual house (1 Peter 2:5).” (See Why this blog is called “A…