Showing posts with label church. Show all posts
Showing posts with label church. Show all posts
Creature of the Word: 12 quotes to challenge the way you think about church
It’s one thing to see the gospel as an important facet of one’s ministry. It’s quite another to hold firmly to it as the centerpiece for all a church is and does, to completely orbit around it.
just as an individual must continually return to the grace of Jesus for satisfaction and sanctification, a local church must continually return to the gospel as well. Our churches must be fully centered on Jesus and His work, or else death and emptiness is certain, regardless of the worship style or sermon series. Without the gospel, everything in a church is meaningless. And dead.
a big gap exists between understanding the gospel and understanding what the gospel means for the Church. Perhaps this is largely because we tend to think of the gospel as an individual message
Man can approve and accept you without any knowledge of your motives. He may never spot the shady, sinful, selfish motives that lead you to perform your “good deeds.” But God knows your wicked heart. And still, He died on the cross for you.
Worship gatherings are not always spectacular, but they are always supernatural. And if a church looks for or works for the spectacular, she may miss the supernatural. If a person enters a gathering to be wowed with something impressive, with a style that fits him just right, with an order of service and song selection designed just the right way, that person may miss the supernatural presence of God. Worship is supernatural whenever people come hungry to respond, react, and receive from God for who He is and what He has done
The essence of Christian faith is not that we serve Christ but that He served us. Click to Tweet this
Instead of participating in this one great drama, we’re content just to watch and wish we were involved in something this significant. We keep going to movies, watching television shows, and buying video games that give hints of this grand romance and battle. Yet for some reason we fail to see that we are actually caught up in it. What’s bigger than being part of the biggest story going?
Children and student ministries are often a wasteland for well-intentioned morality training… A church that goes after a child’s behavior and not the child’s heart is shepherding that child in opposition to the gospel.
Children must be impressed with the awesomeness of Christ, with His nature and character. They must see in their leaders a sense of awe for the beauty and attractiveness of Christ. They must see what it means to treasure Christ more than anything else. Children are perceptive, and if they see leaders and parents talk with boredom and apathy about faith yet become overtly passionate about sports teams or shopping malls, they will think the sport or the mall is more attractive than Jesus.
Every single thing the Church does teaches. Culture is continually being reinforced as leaders are always teaching and people are always learning. Much of this teaching and learning comes through implicit messages rather than explicit ones the songs selected, the way Scripture is read, the attitude of the children’s leaders, and the programs that are offered. If the implicit message communicated via the programs contradicts the explicit message communicated in the teaching environments, then people are left confused and frustrated.
The church budget is a doctrinal statement.
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standing exposed before Jesus
"the Bible calls the church Christ’s bride. So it’s like standing before Jesus, completely exposed, all of our flaws and insecurities and—worse than that—our sins are right there in front of his face, and against all reason and rationale, the song of grace becomes startlingly, exhilaratingly true because the Groom looks at us and declares us beautiful. Spotless. Righteous. Justified."
Matt Chandler, The Mingling of Souls
11 provocative quotes on the church by Mark Dever
Nine Marks of a Healthy Church is a provocative book which challenges use to think biblically about what a church looks like. Check out some quotes below:
1 - Do we believe the Bible is actually God's word?
We say that we believe the Bible is actually God’s Word, God speaking to us, and yet so often we ignore it and set it aside and refuse to give time to thinking about it. Instead, our lives are absorbed by things such as going out to dinner with a friend, watching television, or reading books other than the Bible. None of those things are bad. But what does it mean when we say that the Bible is the Word of God? It means that we must hear it and heed it.2 - Preaching in line with the word of God
We should want pastors who will preach from the Word of God, but we should also carefully listen to what the pastor says and decide whether or not what he says is according to the Word of God. We need not just someone who claims to preach from the Word, but someone who substantially does that—whose sermons are in line with what the Word of God actually teaches.
3 - Is everything fine?
We are at our most dangerous point spiritually when we think everything is fine.
4 - Reflecting on the relationship
We can’t just say, “Oh well, I only broke seventeen of God’s laws this week—that’s not so bad.” No, the issue is, what does it say about our relationship with God Himself if we knowingly disregard His law? What’s going on between us and God?
5 - Joyful evangelism
When you understand that evangelism isn’t converting people, but that it is telling them the wonderful truth about God, the great news about Jesus Christ, then obedience to the call to evangelize can become certain and joyful. Understanding this increases evangelism, as it moves away from being a guilt-driven burden to being a joyful privilege.
6 - Committed to local church
By identifying ourselves with a particular church, we let the pastors and other members of that local church know that we intend to be committed in attendance, giving, prayer, and service. We allow fellow believers to have greater expectations of us in these areas, and we make it known that we are the responsibility of this local church. We assure the church of our commitment to Christ in serving with them, and we call for their commitment to serve and encourage us as well.
7 - Uninvolved members
Uninvolved members confuse both real members and non-Christians about what it means to be a Christian. We “active” members do the voluntarily “inactive” members no service when we allow them to remain members of the church. Membership is the church’s corporate endorsement of a person’s salvation.
8 - Recognising members
If we are more careful about how we recognize and receive new members, we will have less occasion to practice corrective church discipline later.
9 - Church discipline
Corrective church discipline is never to be done out of meanness of spirit but only out of a love for the offending party and the members of the church individually, and ultimately out of our love for God Himself.
10 - Elders
The Bible clearly models a plurality of elders in each local church. Though it never suggests a specific number of elders for a particular congregation, the New Testament refers to “elders” in the plural in local churches (e.g., Acts 14:23; 16:4; 20:17; 21:18; Titus 1:5; James 5:14). When you read through Acts and the Epistles, there is always more than one elder being talked about.
11 - Leadership qualifications
Instead of searching for leaders with secular qualifications, we are to search for people of character, reputation, ability to handle the Word, and who display the fruit of the Spirit in their lives. Those are the kinds of people we should recognize and into whose hands we should commit the responsibility of leading a congregation.
planting missional churches
"Missional means actually doing mission right where you are. Missional means adopting the posture of a missionary, learning and adapting to the culture around you while remaining biblically sound. Think of it this way: missional means being a missionary without ever leaving your zip code
Establishing a missional church means that you plant a church that’s part of the culture you’re seeking to reach.
... learning about the components of the mission field around you, reaching at least some of them as effectively as you can, adapting your approaches while remaining faithful to the gospel—all of this is missional.
the goal of missional church planting is glorifying God, growing his kingdom, and developing healthy churches with new converts"
Ed Stetzer, Planting Missional Churches
active waiting
No longer having Jesus with them could be seen as a massive blow to the disciples. It would be a massive blow if it wasn't for the Holy Spirit. Jesus' ministry will no longer be limited to the physical place he is standing because his presence is no longer limited to there. The Holy Spirit inhabiting the church will spread around the globe.And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. 10 And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, 11 and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:9-11, ESV)
The angels tell the disciples that Jesus will return but question why they are standing staring up into heaven. Jesus will return, and while we should be expectantly waiting for that, that waiting doesn't involve standing around looking at the sky and speculating about his return. The waiting involves getting on with what he has given us to do: Holy Spirit empowered mission.
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