“As a young pastor in the early 1980’s, I was excited about our church having a missionary come and speak to us. I challenged our members “To come expecting God to move in our hearts!” I will never forget that Sunday morning service when our missionary finally arrived and started speaking. Boring does not even come close to what our church experienced that morning. It was absolutely lifeless There is nothing worse that will keep ...
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1:1, 14) These verses hold precious theological truths about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. They tell us that He was the in the beginning with God, that He was God and that as the Word of God He became flesh to dwell among us. The fullest expression of ...
Social media has risen to prominence in society’s use within the last decade, and has infiltrated the lives and relationships of most people. As a result, Facebook, as a specific social medium, increases the dissatisfaction with interpersonal relationships among Christian female young adults. This leaves Christians in somewhat of a quandary as they learn how to respond to Facebook’s influence in their lives in order to feed healthier interpersonal relationships that will adequately foster biblical ...
“The world wants stories, not one big one, but many small ones. Stories in which we recognise our own lives, narratives rooted in personal experience and a real, earthy, gritty, worlds; anecdotes and metaphors and illustrations that illuminate small-t truth, rather than lectures that demand allegiance to capital-t Truth.” (pp 177,179) When I first read this I thought that the reason we like shorter stories is because we have a shorter attention spans. And the reason ...
I recently came across a video by Mars Hill. This video, found here, features Mark Driscoll explaining why they have chosen to use video as their primary means of preaching in their extension campus. He takes the viewer through the theological, historical, and practical reasoning which led Mars Hill to the conclusions to which they have come. While I have my own opinions as to the use of video-feed sermons, I want to hear what ...
Recently a link to this review was posted on this site and we were asked to share our thoughts. Below are not only my thoughts on that particular review, but also my own review of the movie Courageous as a whole. I just recently saw this movie in theaters. To be very honest I had low expectations and I went in with a critical spirit ready to point out anything I saw that seemed cheesy. As ...
Moody Church consists of 1,000 to 2,000 people- diverse in age, ethnicity, and economically. A large community of artists is growing within Moody Church. The Church has tried to provide a creative involvement for artists in the community. One way the college group has sought to do this is with an event called “Create”. The purpose of “Create” is for artists to display their work, and for others, who are not necessarily artistic, to have ...
Check out this article about a curious issue of one church called Mars Hill Church suing another with the same name over copywiright and branding. Thoughts? http://natomaschurch.wordpress.com/2011/10/20/another-argument-on-mars-hill/#f
For the BIBLE tells me so is a film made in 2007 which tells the stories of Christian families of homosexuals. Throughout the video the families speak of their journey with the church. Although the homosexuals were still accepted in their heterosexual families they were rejected by their churches. Although I don’t agree with the homosexual lifestyle I also don’t agree with the way the churches are treating the homosexuals. The church should show love and ...
While reading this article by Walter Kim from GQ Magazine, I was highly amused when he began bemoaning the Left Behind series and how the anticipated end of the world never actually happens. He claims this is because the end of the world is all the drama that Christians know so we have to drag it out for as long as possible. I thought his commentary on the series was telling of where Christian subculture has ...
Imagine a world without gang violence, suicide, rape, drugs, broken homes. The concept of a world without these things sounds like a fairy tale. For a person living in such a situation it does not seem possible, it is the only life they know. They do not dream bigger dreams because they do not think it is possible to escape the life they have known for so many generations. But for J. Nathan Corbitt and ...
I grew up in a non-emotional church environment, worship had to be solid and should not interfere with emotions. Raising hands was controversial and dancing was flatout wrong. “They are trying to wrap people up in their emotions!” my dad would say referring to the worship leaders of what we referred to as liberal churches. To a certain extent I agreed with what my dad said. When I went to Christian college and saw my friends ...
“Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’”-Matthew 21:12,13 With all the advertising and propaganda that believers do in churches are we making the church a “den of robbers”? This question intrigues me ...
It is entirely intriguing what people post on Facebook. You can learn so much about people by the information they put on their profiles. Here are a few I found to be comical, and unfortunately a seemingly good representation of the current state of American Christianity. Is that what Church is now, an activity? – Remarkable! At first glance it seems as though “Christian” is an adjective that modifies “Calvinist.” Sometimes the two terms do seem to get ...