Pursuing a holistic expression of Christian faith that is true to the Bible and applicable for today’s world.
He Becomes the Ultimate Sin Sacrifice Jesus fulfills the Old Testament, but today’s church still follows the Old Testament model for church: we have a church building where we go to worship God, hire a minister who represents the Almighty to us, and take a collection to support the whole thing. This is not what […]
Align Congregational Objectives with What Matters Most to Jesus What matters more at your church, your seating capacity or your sending capacity? Seating reflects an internal focus. Sending reflects an external perspective. The first serves the flock, while the second advances the kingdom. In my post “Three Church Priorities” I wrote, “The triple aim of […]
Moses Explained the Three Key Elements of Worship and We Still Follow Them Our churches today function in much the same way as outlined in the Old Testament. We follow the Old Testament model for church. We pursue these same three key elements. We meet in a building, hire paid staff to represent God to […]
Live a Life of Purity and Avoid Being Sexually Immoral In studying Revelation for my book, A New Heaven and a New Earth, two recurring phrases are sexual immorality and sexually immoral. The Bible decries this is something to avoid. But that begs the question: what is sexual immorality? No Moral Absolutes? The world teaches […]
Celebrate Jesus and His Death on the Cross to Save Us Traditionally, Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. It continues through to Maundy Thursday (the day before Good Friday and Jesus’s death). Some church calendars, however, end Lent on Good Friday and others on Holy Saturday. This is the season of Lent. (Resurrection Sunday begins the […]
Moses Presents a Model for Connecting with God When God gives Moses the Law, he sets three key expectations for worship, along with a lengthy set of mind-numbing details to guide the practices he wants his people to follow. God addresses this throughout Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. These three main elements relate to the […]
Exploring Doctrine, Theology, and Systematic Theology There are three religious terms I don’t care for. Hearing or reading about them has a negative impact on me. These words are doctrine, theology, and systematic theology. I don’t like them because they take the awesome mystery of God and try to provide structure to something that transcends […]
We Must Do Better at Our Religious Meetings “Why do you so hate the church?” Shocked, I furrow my eyes and scowl at my friend. “I don’t hate church.” “But you’re always criticizing it in your blog.” This gives me pause. True, much of my writing about church doesn’t celebrate what she does well but […]
We Can’t Force the Beauty and Mystery of God into a Neat Little Box Just as I bristle over the word theology, I also don’t like the word doctrine. Though the two words mean different things, in my mind they have the same effect: They both turn the beauty of God into an intellectual construct, […]
Discover These Significant Epistles of the Bible The New Testament of the Bible opens with the historic books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Acts. It ends with the prophetic book of Revelation. Between them are twenty-one letters, also called epistles. Five of them, which seem tacked onto the end of the section, are the […]