What Happened To Our Churches

What Happened To Our Churches

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22 Comments

Do Your Ministries Reflect Belief in the Holy Spirit?

In general, the ministries of traditional mainline churches are done without conscious belief in the Holy Spirit—a belief that goes beyond mouthing the Creed. We mostly rely on the Father and the Son. But ministries lose their effectiveness over time without reliance on the power of the Spirit. Our ministries cannot remain effective without a firm belief in the Holy Spirit and the role he performs. Luther describes how the Spirit “calls me by the Gospel, enlightens me with his gifts, sanctifies and keeps me in the true faith, just as he calls, gathers enlightens and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth.”

Those roles are the essence of the ministries and church life we try to guide and develop. How can we do that effectively if we are not looking for and expecting the Spirit’s power to accomplish what we are trying to do on our own? Believing in just the Father and the Son is like trying to do ministry with one arm tied behind your back. Without the Spirit, tradition too easily turns into traditionalism.

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Filed Under: Recognizing the Spirit Tagged With: Holy Spirit, reformation, trinity

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How Well Do You Know the Spirit’s Role in the Trinity?

The Trinity is a mystery. Yet the presence of Father, Son and Holy Spirit is basic to Scriptures. Understanding the God in three persons becomes a lot easier with a functional view. The conventional approach is an ontological perspective that asks: Who is God and who are the three persons? Asking about the “is-ness” of […]

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Holy Spirit, church growth, church decline, trinity

4 Comments

When Thinking Church, Look on the Other Side of the Coin

Recall the two-sided coin with the cross on one side and a dove on the other, discussed several blogs ago (Look on the Other Side of the Coin). The coin represents God’s presence in our lives. At times Paul focuses on Christ crucified, who changes our fundamental relationship with God. We become different people “in […]

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Holy Spirit, church, church growth, church decline, grace, mercy, trinity, other side of the coin

22 Comments

When Churches Wither, Turn to Christ’s Spirit for New Energy

The “good old days” ended about fifty years ago for traditional mainline church bodies. This was the boom time after World War II. My denomination had 4,625 congregations in 1945. It grew to about 6,000 twenty years later. That is a growth rate of new congregations of about 7% per year. Now we are withering […]

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Holy Spirit, church, church growth, church decline, trinity, other side of the coin

14 Comments

The Spirit Arouses God-Pleasing Feelings

When I was leading a group on a tour of Israel, we went out on the Sea of Galilee in a tourist boat. We could see many of the special places where Jesus taught and ministered. The operator then played a recording of “How Great Thou Art” at high volume. We all sang the three […]

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Holy Spirit, church, church growth, church decline, trinity, other side of the coin

11 Comments

What Triggers Religiously Significant Experiences?

Mainline churches traditionally emphasize a transcendent spiritual experience, meaning above and beyond the ordinary. They meet in settings very different from weekday environments. Worship happens in special buildings (sanctuaries with stained glass windows) and in special clothing (gowns and Sunday-best) with organ music now associated only with churches. Sunday is meant to be a weekly […]

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Holy Spirit, church, church growth, church decline, trinity, traditional church, nondenominational

7 Comments

Recognize Spiritual Experiences When You Have Them

Poet T. S. Eliot famously observed, “We had the experience but missed the meaning.” All practicing Christians have had experiences of the Spirit. Most Christians in traditional churches weren’t taught the meaning. Eliot was referring to the “sudden illumination” of meaning beyond temporary circumstances, deep meaning across generations. Christians have moments of sudden illumination of […]

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Holy Spirit, church, church growth, church decline, trinity, traditional church, nondenominational

14 Comments

Whispers of God

“God wants to talk to you as much as he talked with David, Isaiah and other people of the Bible.” When I first read this claim, I was stunned. Could that actually be true? I thought God did his speaking through the writers of the Bible. Theologians explain those biblical truths, and so I needed […]

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Holy Spirit, church, church growth, church decline, trinity, whispers

14 Comments

Stuck at Stage One, Staying at Stage Two

I was teaching a class of about 30 lay pastors. On the second day, one raised his hand and asked whether you could smoke and still be a Christian. I stopped what we were doing and led a long discussion on being saved by grace, not by works that you do or don’t do. The […]

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Holy Spirit, church, church growth, church decline, trinity, stages of faith, christian

6 Comments

Have You Hit the Wall Yet?

For Janet Hagberg and Robert Guelich each, the wall was a failed marriage that took them by surprise. Successful in everything else they had done, each had to process this new reality. Each came out of it a better believer, closer to God. They describe that process in their book The Critical Journey: Stages in […]

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Holy Spirit, church, church growth, church decline, trinity, christian, hit the wall

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