Awakening the Faithful, Reaching the Lost, and Making Church Matter By Michael White and Tom Corcoran Reviewed by Peter DeHaan Are things not working at your church? Is your congregation aging and attendance dwindling? Are people just going through the motions and not engaged? Do folks arrive at the last minute and scurry off as […]
Seeking a Spiritual More I’m talking about more from a spiritual standpoint. I yearn for a “spiritual more.” I suspect—deep down—you do, too. Everything else is a hollow substitute for what God has to offer, not just any god but the God revealed in the Bible: biblical God. But we don’t often find more from […]
Dividing the Church by Forming Denominations Isn’t Biblical, and It’s Time to Move Past It Jesus prayed for our unity, that we would be one—just as he and his father are one. He yearned that his followers would get along and live in harmony. Dividing into religious sects wasn’t his plan. Yet that’s exactly what […]
We Need to Order Our Priorities With Intention and Do What Matters Most Whether we realize it or not, we form priorities to order our lives. For most of my adult existence my number one priority has been God. Though I held this out as my ideal, sometimes, perhaps too often, my actions didn’t live […]
We Live in a World That Thinks Bigger Is Better, but That’s Not Always True Our modern-day society evaluates things based on size. We celebrate magnitude, with bigger being better. Consider the opposite. For example, do you want to shrink your church? Of course not. You want to grow it. We often assume that bigger […]
Jesus Wants Us to Live in Unity but Instead Our Manmade Denominations Divide Us I recently attended a friend’s ordination ceremony who had graduated from seminary and became a minister. It’s not the first such occasion I attended, and it won’t likely be the last. It was, however, the first time I really listened to […]
Jesus Uses Narrative to Inform Us About His Father’s Kingdom Jesus uses parables—“an earthly story with a heavenly meaning,” as I learned in Sunday school—to teach us about the kingdom of God. We are part of the kingdom of God, and we need to do a better job of acting like it. Since Jesus talks […]
People Complain About Things That Matter to Them; Silence Reveals Apathy When a customer complains about a business, the astute businessperson knows to embrace it as an opportunity. The fact that the customer is complaining means they’re still a customer, and they’re simply providing a chance for improvement. After all, if they no longer view […]
Most Christians Carry Unexamined Criteria that Others Must Agree with Before They’re Accepted I was once interviewed for a volunteer position at my church. The pair of interviewers cranked through a series of pre-assigned theological questions to determine my supposed worthiness to lead. For some queries the answers were straightforward; others, not so much. On […]
Being Active at Church May Seem a Wise Use of Time, but It’s Often Misplaced Action One Sunday at church I passed our associate pastor as I scurried from one assignment to the next. “How are you?” he asked. Instead of lying with a socially acceptable response, I told him the truth. “Busy.” I sighed. […]