Articles (Page 11)
Sending Out Missionary Helpers — Could This Be You?
While reading a modern missionary’s book, I’m struck again with the phenomenon that so many become missionaries with a dangerously low level of insight into Scripture coupled with extraordinary romantic zeal. A handful of verses guide them, about which most have little true understanding. Their experience of church life is limited and often built on poor models, even though their labors are to be all about planting churches and making leaders (even if they’ve never been leaders before), and setting…
Ten Reasons Why Nursing Homes Are Great Places to Minister
While recently reflecting upon Jesus’ compassion toward those who were “distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd” (Matt. 9:36), I determined to find similarly downcast people in my neighborhood so that I might serve them and tell them about Christ. I now find myself regularly in a nursing home, and the ministry opportunities abound. Perhaps you might consider ministering in a nursing home. Maybe there are others in your church who would enjoy such an outreach. I’ve compiled ten…
Do We Still Need the Local Church?
The down-the-street local church is not the only show in town anymore. We are able to enjoy faith-building messages, listen to the latest Christian music, and explore the rich diversity and variety found in the most noted Christian gatherings, all with the click of the mouse or the touch of a button. Many local church pastors now say, “The world is my parish,” just as did the horseback-riding evangelist, John Wesley. But they mean this without ever going out of…
Audacious Prayer
Christians must be people who pray with audacity, not because we deserve an answer, but because God will give it. When one of Jesus’ followers requested of Him, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John also taught his disciples,” Jesus’ response was two-fold. He first gave an example of how we ought to pray, and then he told a story about a man who desired bread from a friend. “Suppose one of you has a friend, and goes to…
Women in Your Ministry Context: An Appeal for Male Christian Leaders to Choose Male Assistants
A fine young pastor and his family take a small church in a rural area, or perhaps in a tired part of an otherwise thriving city. It’s their first opportunity to lead a church, and they have dreams of something deep, growing, and lasting. There is little money given by the church to hire anyone else other than this single leader. Well enough. It can’t be other than it is in the beginning. But right off the pastor is in…
Shadows of Hell: Fear and Emptiness Before Death
This poignant note came to a faithful friend of mine who is suffering from life-threatening cancer. It concerns a woman in the nursing home who has been a “good church-goer only.” The note reads: “It is sad beyond words to watch mom’s health failing and see her fear and anxiety or detached numbness as she faces each day. She wavers back and forth. It is all sad and full of despair. There is no longing for glory, no hope of…
Cremation or Burial?
There is no sin in cremation, that is for sure. And there is no inability on God’s part to raise a cremated body from the dead. But is cremation, a practice most often seen in Eastern religions, the best for the believer in Christ? It is clarifying to note that burial was God’s preferred method of disposing of the body of Moses. God had the power to cremate Moses’ body on the spot, but rather, this gentle and loving phrase…
Hard Work: The Spurgeon Way
Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the renowned preacher of London in the 1800s, was not only a gifted leader, but was a hard worker. By the time most pastors write a few emails, wrestle with the dates for VBS and read the junk mail, Spurgeon would have completed a mountain of tasks. For instance, each week he preached several times (often 10), trained pastors in the pastor’s college, wrote several hundred letters (“I’m immersed to my chin in letters.”), led an elders’…
Preparing to Be an Amazing Old Man or Woman: Six Motivating Suggestions
Like it or not, if you continue to live, you’ll get old. As you look around at all those ancient people in the grocery store, the golf course, the retirement village and the nursing home, don’t be smug — you’ll be there soon enough. It will do you well to prepare to make those years the best they can be for the glory of God. It’s not uncommon for God to use older people. Take Caleb who fought giants as…
This is WHAT Day the Lord Has Made?
This Is WHAT Day the Lord Has Made? Jim Elliff When we quote or sing “This is the day the Lord has made,” we aren’t saying that this very day, the day we are in presently, is the day the Lord has made. That is true, of course, but it isn’t what Psalm 118: 22-24 is about. Rather, something much more important is being said. Read it closely: “The stone which the builders rejectedHas become the chief corner stone.This is…
Thirty-five Questions for Maturing a Christian Marriage
The following questions are not intended for short answers such as a mere “yes”, but are a means to meaningful discussion between a man and a woman who have vowed to love each other “until death do us part.” Take your time to talk them over. Let the conversation flow. You may answer these questions in any order you wish, or all at one time. Two rules apply: First, be painfully honest. Nothing much has happened to improve marriages without…
The Law of Love: New Covenant Primacy
The Law of Moses and the Prophet’s admonitions are all fulfilled in the law of love. “Treat others the way you would have them treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (Mt. 7:12). The New Covenant responsibility for the believer is similar: “Bear one another’s burdens and thereby fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal 6:2). Or, put another way, “Do not look out for your own personal interests, but for the interests of others” (Phil 2:4). Love…
Seven Laws of the Race
The motif of the Olympic race was dear to the Apostle Paul. Did he sit in the stands in Athens or Corinth? Perhaps so. Regardless, parallels between “the games” and the believer’s race in life were often on his mind. He (along with the author of Hebrews) gives us seven laws for running the race. 1. Run to win “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such…
We Must Live With This: Anathema
“Let anyone who has no love for the Lord be accursed.” (1 Cor 16:22, NET) This verse seems to dangle there with no immediately apparent connection to what precedes it or follows. Paul placed this thought in the very last handful of sentences in the first letter to the Corinthians. He’s given the readers some final punctuated reminders to end up his long epistle. It has a strength there, even if all alone. But maybe it’s not totally alone. It’s…
A Common but Misguided Perception
It is misguided and a dangerous misconception to base God’s acceptance of you on your worthiness, or attempt to comfort others with the concept that, “underneath it all, you are actually beautiful in character, and therefore truly deserving of God’s love.” Why? 1. You aren’t, and the Bible makes that very clear. Though all people are created in the image of God, all of us are sinful, abusing our status, both by nature and behavior and are therefore deserving of…
Book Hoarding
“Beware, and be on your guard against every form of greed; for not even when one has an abundance of books does his life consist of his library.” A pastor in a small church received his first book allowance, provided by the church. He began to purchase the books he needed to stimulate his thinking, improve his understanding, and jolt his conscience. His library grew. Later, at a larger church the book allowance increased, and he was able…