May
31
2011
“In the battle to renew and rebuild the wobbling edifice of the Church in the 21st century, I’d put my money on the 30-something apprentice with an iPod, some business experience and a day job over the 20-something with a piece of paper and a huge load of debt every time.”
Bursting the Seminary Bubble – Part 2
Comments Off | tags: Church Growth | posted in Quotes
Mar
14
2011
Richard Bledsoe has posted an interesting article in two parts on the Biblical Horizons blog.
“The great question for the emerging East, for Asia and other awakening third world areas, for an emerging nation like China is, ‘what fate awaits them?’ They are now emerging from an analogous paganism that the West emerged from centuries ago. Here an amazing quotation from David Aikman, the Time Magazine religious editor. He is a quoting from ‘a scholar from one of China’s premier academic institutions, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) in Beijing, in 2002.’
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2 comments | tags: China, Church Growth, Church History, Communism, Culture, Rich Bledsoe | posted in Biblical Theology, Christian Life
Mar
22
2010
or Desperate Housewives and Accidental Bride-icide
One Good Friday at a Baptist church we used to attend, we were treated to the creepy sight of a mannikin onstage in a wedding dress. [1] The lady speaker (who is not the pastor) told us of a dream she had in which she saw the church as a bride. In the vision, Jesus was brushing the bride’s hair. Ew.
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Comments Off | tags: Church Growth, Masculinity | posted in Biblical Theology, Christian Life
Sep
23
2009
or Suckers for Systems
God chooses certain men to do great works. Their work is duplicated and multiplied in the institutions they found. When these men are gone, those who remain tend to rely on systems. The machine must be maintained for pride’s sake, regardless of whether it is being used by God or not. This violates two basic biblical principles.
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Comments Off | tags: Church Growth, Church History, Discipleship, Ecclesiology, James Jordan, Postmillennialism, Watchman Nee | posted in Christian Life, Quotes
Apr
15
2009
(A post from my friend Matthew’s blog. I haven’t read this book.)
I recently read The Lost History of Christianity – The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa and Asia- and How It Died by Philip Jenkins (2008). It is a magisterial introduction to a rich but largely forgotten history. The lands Jenkins has in mind were well and truly the centre of the Christian world for well over a thousand years, even after the Muslim invasion of these lands from the seventh century.
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Comments Off | tags: China, Church Growth, Church History | posted in Quotes
Apr
11
2009
Chuck Lawless, Jr. writes:
I recently read a book by a mainline pastor who longs for the churches of his denomination to grow again. Comparing those churches to growing churches, he hinted throughout the book at what he could not bring himself to say forthrightly: growing churches are usually characterized by conservative theology…
Thom Rainer’s works… have shown that churches that grow by reaching non-believers have a theology that is best described as conservative and orthodox. The bottom line is this: theology really does matter if we want to grow biblical, healthy churches.
We conservatives know this truth, and we are quick to remind others of this fact. What we are not so quick to acknowledge is the focus of this blog: we do a poor job of teaching the very theology that we claim is so important.
We think that our church members understand and believe our basic doctrine, even while those same members are learning their theology from TV talk show hosts, popular television preachers, or the latest religious novel.
Do an anonymous survey of your congregation’s beliefs, and see what you learn. If the majority knows and believes basic biblical doctrine, your church is more an exception than the norm.
Read more for practical tips on teaching theology.
Comments Off | tags: Church Growth, Preaching | posted in Biblical Theology, Christian Life