This month's most popular posts

  • Church Without Walls – How To Build Missional-Attractional Church That Transforms Communities The poor, the lost, the hurting, and the broken are not problems to be solved or burdens to be borne; they are gifts to us, because they help us experience God’s grace afresh as we meet Jesus in their faces posted on January 10, 2025
  • Sheep and Shepherds Preparing for next Sunday's Video talk, which we're filming later today, I found a great deal of interesting detail from this source, reproduced at www.baptistbiblebelievers.com Manner And Customs of Bible Lands by Fred H. Wight Copyright @ 1953 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - Shepherd ... posted on December 10, 2013
  • Every Disciple Is Meant To Have A Deliverance Ministry! One woman slept nightly with her pet python sprawled across her body. Eventually, the snake stopped eating so she was worried about it. A vet discovered the snake was curling itself around her to size her up, and starving itself ... posted on January 11, 2025

The Church Does Not Need More Christians

The word disciple occurs 269 times in the New Testament. “Christian” is found three times. The New Testament is a book about disciples, by disciples, and for disciples of Jesus Christ, who made it clear that to follow him means we must become his disciple. But the church has made it possible for the vast majority of those in its ranks to be ‘Christians’ without becoming disciples of Jesus.
The churches of the Western world have not made discipleship a condition of being a Christian, so churches are filled with ‘undiscipled disciples’ – though of course in reality there is no such thing.

We’re Not All In The Same Boat – But Imagine If You Were

How often have I loved to preach or read about Jesus coming and walking across the storm to the disciples in their little boat when they cried out for help to him. It gives me such comfort for whatever I might struggle with when I read that he cares and he knows, that he came in their hour of need saying, “Do not be afraid it is!” I snuggle up in bed reassured that he calms the storm. And I love to sing, “My lighthouse! You will carry ME safe to shooooooore…”
Why do I love that? Because as with so many songs we like in church, it’s all about ME.

Relational Check List

Can you put some names in these places? Who fathers/mothers you? Someone older/ wiser. Who makes you think? Deliberately surround yourself with people smarter than you.  Who encourages your visions – inspiring you to move beyond the status quo? Who understands you – and shows you mercy? I know God does, but who can accept me as a sinner and not leave me there but walk with me to the altar for grace? Who offers you reliable judgement? To sound ideas off Who comes alongside you – and lightens the load? Team members have different strengths. Who rebukes you? Who loves you enough to tell you you’re going the wrong way. A good leader invites the ugly truth.  Who has fun with you? If you need this one explaining, well… Who inspires you to seek faithfully after God? – when you leave their company, you feel closer to Jesus.