This blog will be the last in what became a weekly series of 128 blogs. I have run out of productive things to say. My emphasis from the beginning was to understand the decline of traditional mainline congregations with our distinguished histories. The underlying question is how to turn this trend around. Answers are to […]
Read MoreAmerica has approximately 180 denominations. Each was forged out of controversy at some point in its history. Each called on the Bible to mark out its position in the dispute that set them apart. So, which is the true interpretation? One easy response to this confusion is to refuse to choose. This is happening among […]
Read MoreSix GROWTH practices: Go, Read, Obey, Witness, Trust, Humble Yourself Go to God in Prayer and Worship Believers tend to admire those who spend a long time in prayer. They must be especially devout. The rest of us usually feel guilty in comparison. Yet highly admired Christian leaders taught otherwise. Augustine of Hippo (5th century) preferred […]
Read MoreSix GROWTH practices: Go, Read, Obey, Witness, Trust, Humble Yourself Think of spiritual growth as going through stages of development. Martin Luther himself offered a three-stage scheme of faith development. First is learning the external rules of church life. The second is living faithfully but out of guilt with no joy. The third is living with […]
Read MoreAre you interested in growing spiritually? Most Christians are not. The usual category for this topic is discipleship. Believers should want to become more like Christ. However, in my experience, most don’t because they do not understand the benefits of such growth. This is because they do not understand the work of the Holy Spirit. […]
Read MoreThe Easter promise of Christ’s resurrected life is applied to our resurrected life, too. That is the message preached in Christian churches all over the world. What wonderful news! The preached promise of Easter, however, loses some of its power in three ways: when resurrected life is reduced to the springtime freshness, when the resurrected […]
Read MoreOur staff’s weekly devotions are from a book by an experienced pastor whose one-page reflections are well written and usually right on. A recent one was on advancing the kingdom of God in church life. His description of what should and can happen through grace was well said. But he missed the key ingredient—the Holy […]
Read MoreChristianity has a long history of reference to the Ten Commandments to identify sins that need to be exposed, confessed, and repented of. This is basic to a biblical view of sin and salvation. But in the new post-modern culture, holding unbelievers to this standard does not work so well as a starting point. Better […]
Read MoreTransformation into a different personality is something God’s Spirit does to and for us. Our part is to spend time in the Spirit’s workshop—believers gathered around God’s Word and sharing its meaning for them. What about a more aggressive approach? What can we do to move ourselves along more quickly to become more like Christ? […]
Read MoreI derive satisfaction from figuring out how Christ’s Spirit can change and even transform human personalities. Some of my insight on this comes from listening to a Learning Company recorded lecture by Dr. Andrew Newberg. Then I read his book The Spiritual Brain: Science and Religious Experience. Better yet was when he teamed up with […]
Read MoreAt a retreat, I was sitting next to a physician who was the radiologist at the local community hospital. The speaker told about the miracle that happened when his wife was diagnosed with cancer. Just before surgery, they took another X-ray. The cancer was gone. I asked the radiologist, “Does that really happen?” “More often […]
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