Pursuing a holistic expression of Christian faith that is true to the Bible and applicable for today’s world.
We Don’t Need a Church Building to Encounter God or Enjoy Spiritual Community So far, we’ve looked at the Old Testament model for church—of building, paid clergy, and tithes—which we still follow today. Then we considered how Jesus fulfills the Old Testament and looked at how the early church functions in the New Testament, considering […]
What Do You Focus on When You Should Be Focusing on God? This is a post I’m hesitant to share. Yet I’ve always been forthright when I talk about my spiritual journey. So there’s no point in holding back now. The disconcerting truth is I often struggle with church distractions during the service. I wrestle […]
We Must Rethink What Happens at Our Church Services A friend once said in his Sunday morning message that some people go to church for the music and put up with the sermon. Others go for the sermon and put up with the music. The minister’s statement suggests that people feel a church service has […]
Not Everyone Can Be a Missionary, but Everyone Can Support Missionaries We’ve talked about four places—or ways—to be a missionary for Jesus. How does the idea of a short-term mission trip fit into Jesus’s command to be his witness (Acts 1:4-8)? Or his instruction to go make disciples (Matthew 28:19-20)? It doesn’t. At best a […]
We Must Correct Some Wrong Perspectives about Our Religious Practices We’ve looked at how Jesus fulfills the Old Testament to provide a new way for us and our churches to function, replacing the temple, paid clergy, and tithes. Then we explored ten New Testament practices and five New Testament examples to inform our church behavior. […]
Make Disciples of all Nations In the oft-quoted passage that wraps up the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells his followers to go and make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19-20). In doing so, they—and we—are to be a missionary for Jesus. We see this repeated in the book of Mark (Mark 16:15-20). In the parallel […]
Discover What the Bible Teaches About Meeting Together While considering a better New Testament approach to church, we talked about the three key perspectives that Jesus changed: meeting in homes, serving as priests, and helping those in need. Then we looked at ten more New Testament practices: relying on the Holy Spirit, worship, prayer, fasting, […]
As We Read the Bible May We Imagine All God Has in Store for Us I’ve always been wary of meditating. It seems so mystical, so ungodly. This is because I encountered the idea of meditation from Eastern religions, not biblical Christianity. Though there are many types of meditation, I’ve heard most about transcendental meditation. […]
Discover How the SPACE Bible Study Method Can Inform Your Life I often encourage people to study the Bible. But we shouldn’t read Scripture to amass knowledge to stuff into our brain. The primary value is to let the Bible’s words inform our journey and reform our life. Therefore, we need to apply the words […]
Examine What the Early Church Did and Apply It In part one of this post we looked at the first five practices of the early church as detailed in the Bible. They relied on Holy Spirit power, they worshiped God, they spent time in prayer, they fasted, and they lived in community. Here are the […]