Teaching How to Experience God
| | |

Teaching How to Experience God

At my home church, Chumuckla Community Church, we’re going through the Experiencing God workbook. There will be 10 sermons, and then discussion groups. My wife Jody leads one right after church each Sunday, and I’m part of that. Doubtless someone will suggest that the book is somewhat more conservative than the theology I express on…

Ignoring the Biblical Teaching about Greed
| | |

Ignoring the Biblical Teaching about Greed

On a variety of subjects I regularly hear about how people ignore the plain teaching of scripture. I’d like to take away the phrases “the Bible clearly teaches” and “the plain teaching of scripture” from conservatives, while taking “we don’t take that literally” away from liberals. Then maybe we could get around to discussing the…

Resources for Progressive Preaching: Pastor2Pew
|

Resources for Progressive Preaching: Pastor2Pew

One of the least accurate characterizations I hear about progressive Christians is that they don’t care about the Bible. Now it’s hard to get a single image of the average or perfect progressive Christian, so generalizations are hard to make, but let me note that the generalization that progressive Christians in general disrespect the Bible,…

Seven Marks of a New Testament Church – Sacrificial Living
|

Seven Marks of a New Testament Church – Sacrificial Living

… salvation of necessity leads to service. (Seven Marks of a New Testament Church, p. 43) This is the final post of my series on this book, and I’d like to make an observation about the entire enterprise. I’ve become increasingly convinced of two things during this study. First, there is no single form of…

What Have They Seen in Your House?
| | | |

What Have They Seen in Your House?

Yesterday the Scripture for my Sunday School class was Isaiah 40:21-31. The daily readings in the student guide included the first 20 verses of the chapter as well. Those acquainted with critical scholarship on the book of Isaiah recognize this as the opening of 2nd Isaiah, chapters 40-55. At first I was going to avoid…

Why I Believe in Dialogue, Respect, and the Gospel Commission
| |

Why I Believe in Dialogue, Respect, and the Gospel Commission

I’ve recently said and written a few things about the gospel commission, including my claim in my concluding presentation for my video series on eschatology that eschatology is all about the gospel commission. You’ll hear more about this in my foreword to Dave Black’s new book Running My Race. It’s in the final stages of…

Nobody Ever Thinks They Are Creating a New Denomination
| | |

Nobody Ever Thinks They Are Creating a New Denomination

Christopher Ritter is complaining, though only in the nicest, most creative way, about critics of the new Wesleyan Covenant Association. It’s interesting how efforts to reform often end up creating new denominations, even when the leaders don’t intend to do so. Just look at the example provided by Ritter in his post. I commend Ritter…

A UMC House Church
| | | | |

A UMC House Church

One of the points I have tried to make in my series regarding the books Seven Marks of a New Testament Church, Thrive: Spiritual Habits of Transforming Congregations, and Transforming Acts: Acts of the Apostles as a 21st Century Gospel is that one can follow these “Jesus principles” of church leadership under many different formal…