Three Easy Ideas If the Word Evangelism Scares You In the post Are You Reluctant to Invite Friends to Church? we looked at the New Testament church and saw that people first invited others to follow Jesus. Then they went to church. Therefore, we shouldn’t invite people to go to church with us until after […]
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, […]
Make Sure Your Faith Community Focuses on the Right Thing We need to examine the purpose of church. Why do we meet each week? What are our goals when we come together? What should our focus be? Though people will give various answers, the responses fall into two broad categories: ourselves and others. Church Is […]
The Holy Spirit Gives Jesus’s Followers Special Abilities In the Bible, Paul talks about spiritual gifts, special abilities given to us by the Holy Spirit. These aren’t for our personal use but for the common good of Jesus’s followers, that is, his church. Some of these supernatural abilities enhance our existing capabilities, while others are […]
Spiritual disciplines are things we do to draw us closer to God or to honor him. But if we do it out of obligation or in response to guilt, we miss the point. To be of real value a spiritual discipline is something we enter into willingly, with joy and anticipation. Unlike spiritual gifts, which […]
Warfare Prayer: How to Seek God’s Power and Protection in the Battle to Build His Kingdom By C. Peter Wagner (reviewed by Peter DeHaan) The subtitle of Warfare Prayer is How to Seek God’s Power and Protection in the Battle to Build His Kingdom. The book is the first in Wagner’s trilogy series entitled, The […]
The Third Wave of the Holy Spirit: Encountering The Power of Signs and Wonders By C. Peter Wagner (reviewed by Peter DeHaan) C. Peter Wagner begins The Third Wave of the Holy Spirit by identifying the first two waves: the Pentecostal movement that opened the twentieth century and the wider Charismatic movement that followed it some […]
By Donald S. Whitney (reviewed by Peter DeHaan) As stated in the book’s title, “Spiritual Disciples for the Christian Life,” this work discusses spiritual disciplines for those who follow Jesus. Spiritual disciplines are willing and intentional actions that promote spiritual growth, making us more like Jesus. They should not be thought of actions that earn […]