Articles (Page 12)
Closing With Christ: Rethinking What Has Become Sacrosanct
When modern evangelical churches seek to bring the unregenerate to Christ (and they should do so with passion), they often fall prey to a formula which produces disappointing results. The pattern runs something like this: Extending a public altar call Praying “the sinner’s prayer” Giving immediate verbal assurance that one is in Christ on the basis of the sinner’s sincerity and the accuracy of the wording of the prayer Immediate, or near immediate, public announcement that this person is now…
The New Year Starts: Making Plans?
You may have reason to fear the year now upon us. What is on the other side of the door? Every person has their allotment of trouble, even among believers. Will there be loss, illness, death, aggravation, perplexity? Will those you love come to distrust you? Will you sin badly, ruining your reputation? Will there be economic trials and anxiety over money? Will you lose your job, or worse, your mind? Will you be hurt deeply? Will you be in…
Enduring Love, Enduring Pain, and Christmas
The endurance of love for a loved one who has died or one who is suffering, especially at Christmastime, can at once be a weight that pulls you down and a buoy that lifts you up. It pulls you down because love exercised where hope is lost leads to disappointment. It can lift you up because love exercised along with hope, even in difficulty, can keep your head above the waters of pain. So then, your flailing may in fact…
Helps On How to Think About the Law
This may assist you as you think about what it means to live under the Law. 1. It’s not possible for a Christian to be a Pharisee without first rejecting Christ. If a believer imposes personal convictions that go beyond the Scripture on other believers, he may be unloving and without understanding, but he isn’t a Pharisee. 2. Living by the letter of the Law versus the Spirit of the Law is not a biblical dichotomy. Paul isn’t speaking about…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Check Your Guns at the Door: Responding Like Christians to Social Media, Blogs and Web Forums
Those of us who have a ministry of writing are usually pretty tough folks. Many of us have been in the combat zone for quite a while and can take almost anything that is said by readers of our articles. This short is more about my embarrassment for all of us who are web-interactive Christians than it is for my own hide. In short, I’m appealing for etiquette characteristic of believers in reader’s responses to articles, blog entries, and social…
What they Did Before TV
My mother was the youngest of fourteen children growing up on a farm in the first part of the last century. The old home place burned down when she was a girl. It was a typical Southern house divided into a boys’ room, a girls’ room, a kitchen (they ate in the open breezeway during the summer), and the parents’ room. A porch surrounded the entire home. “Mom and Dad’s” room was the gathering place at night. The fireplace blazed…