Christian Education Should Be Broad and Deep
Christian education programs in churches are often the least well-thought-out elements of church life. Thinking about discipleship provides some answers.
Why I Stopped Carrying My Greek NT to Church and then Started Again
There’s an article on For the Church, in which Dr. Andrew King tells students: “Don’t Take Your Greek or Hebrew Bible to Corporate Worship.” There are a number of good points in the article, such as the note that if you are not comfortable with the languages, working on them during a sermon may be…
Slippery Slopes
There are a few terms that are quite true and yet misleading in many actual uses. I like to cite “Christians aren’t perfect; just forgiven.” Precisely true, but in common use very likely an excuse for ordinary bad behavior. Whatever the intent, it ends up sounding like, “I’m a Christian, so I can do whatever…
Underlying Principles for Christian Education and Discipleship
… and with that pretentious title. Actually, last night I talked on the Energion Tuesday Night Hangout (I’ll embed the video at the end as well) about Christian education and how one might go about choosing curriculum. My sister, Betty Rae, asked me a question via e-mail this morning, and I thought it was so…
Church as a Social Occasion
Or perhaps as the social occasion. Thom Rainer has a post titled Seven Things Church Members Should Say to Guests in a Worship Service. It comes complete with a header picture of people who, to me, look like they’re forcing excessive smiles. I probably see it that way because I’m an introvert. I suppose that…
Helping One Another Change
I just extracted a note from Dave Black’s blog to The Jesus Paradigm. (That site supports his book by the same name as well as a few others that don’t have their own domain name.) In it Dave talks about admonishing, encouraging, and upholding. You’ll have to go read the post to find out what…
The Cross is an Offense Today
I rarely post a quote from a book I’m editing, but this one struck me today. It’s from the forthcoming book The Church Under the Cross by William Powell Tuck. Here it is: Jesus Christ has called us to a way of life which demands sacrificial living, and this call is still an offense to…
Discipleship Not About Numbers
… so says Dan Dick. All I can say is I agree. Go read!
What if Church Was Like
… This! This is Discipling from The Foursquare Church on Vimeo. (HT: Dave Black Online)
Dashboards, Discernment, and Responsible Leadership
Yes, that’s a big collection of topics, but I think they’re connected. John Meunier links to an excellent post by Dan Dick, which you should read before you read this one. The topic here is the conference dashboards in United Methodist annual conferences, such as this one for the North Alabama Conference. I do have…