Why aren’t they here???

Who are the unchurched and why aren’t they there? Here are some statistics about our mission field Group Born Attend Church Builders Born Before 1946 51% Boomers 1946 – 1964 41% Busters 1965 – 1976 34% Bridgers 1977 – 1994 29% Source: Surprising Insights from the Unchurched by Thom S. Rainer , Zondervan Press 2001    The growing ranks of the unchurched are not due to problems limited to certain geographical areas Over 80% of Americans say religious faith is very important to their lives and yet less than half go to church. Less than 30% of the New Homesteaders … Continue reading Why aren’t they here???

Country Club Christians?

    Here it is April 1 and I am going to pull a cruel joke on you. I am going to spend the next few post talking about outreach. Yes, that is that thing that we Christians seem to be deathly afraid of. But, in my mind that is the primary task for us while we are on this earth. We have to constantly be fighting off treating our church as a country club. In other words as stated by William Temple “the church is the only society in the world that exists for its nonmembers.” I think he … Continue reading Country Club Christians?

God & Money

Matt 6:24 “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. Wow, it sounds like we have to choose between God and money! How can we do without money but then again how can we do without God! This seems like an impossible choice to make. The key word here is “serve”. When we serve God we are constantly seeking his will and living our lives as he taught us. If we serve money … Continue reading God & Money

Opening His ministry

Luke 4:16-21 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoner and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”  These were some of the first proclamations that Jesus made when he started his three year ministry. Isn’t it interesting that the first group he targets are the poor and those with disabilities. It is actions like these that make it hard for some of us to try and … Continue reading Opening His ministry

Book Review – If God is Love

    Today I am going to talk a little about a book entitled “If God is Love – Rediscovering Grace in an Ungracious World” by Phillip Gulley and James Mulholland. I must admit up front that I am somewhat fascinated by the Quaker religion of which both of the authors are ministers. Although one of them came through Baptist and Methodists to get there. I greatly respect the position the Quakers have taken on non-violence going all the way back to the Revolutionary war. This is a very readable book on a very important topic. There has been an … Continue reading Book Review – If God is Love

Lifting up Christian’s Spirits…

As you can see from the last few posts I have been somewhat down the last few weeks. I have always found that reading Beatitudes is able to pull me up when I am down. I prefer Luke’s version to that Matthew’s. So, here goes: Luke 6:20-22 Looking at his disciples, he said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.  Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied.  Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name … Continue reading Lifting up Christian’s Spirits…

Kingdom People Blog Post.

I am making a rare Saturday post to give attention to Trevin Wax’s blog posting for today. Go to http://trevinwax.com/2009/03/21/how-scholarship-shields-us-from-the-bible/ .  It gives credence to my belief that today’s Christians are generally not doing a very good job of understanding what Jesus says in the Gospels. It looks like this was also not uncommon a hundred years ago. Will we ever learn that Jesus really does expect us to actually do what he says. Thanks Trevin.  I will be picking up a book or two by Soren Kierkegaard. Continue reading Kingdom People Blog Post.

Fair Weather Christians

Here is another impromptu post related to a discussion I recently had with another Christian. First of all I am a regular supporter, both with my time and money, of a local Christian shelter and soup kitchen. During my discussions with my Christian friend I mentioned that the support of our church to this mission has almost dried up in the recent months. I have tried numerous way to spur support but to no avail. My friend made the statement that maybe we should not ask people to support things like this during these tough times. My friend said many … Continue reading Fair Weather Christians

Do we reap what we sow??

I imagine everyone has heard the term “you reap what you sow”. There is a lot of reaping and sowing going on in the Bible but I have not been able to find this reference in any of them. Are some of the bad things that happen in our lives a result of our unchristian behavior? Some of the red letters around this theme are:  John 9:2-5 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the work … Continue reading Do we reap what we sow??

Coming to Faith -Presidential Style

 I don’t know how many of you have read President Obama’s talk at the National Prayer Breakfast a few weeks ago. In that talk he told us how he came to faith in spite of not being raised in the active Christian household. And , no he was never a Muslim. Yes, his estranged father was at one time a Muslim before he became an atheist. Here is his account of why he came to accept Jesus as his Lord and Savior.  I was not raised in a particularly religious household. I had a father who was born a Muslim … Continue reading Coming to Faith -Presidential Style

Couch Potato Christians???

Since I have been doing book reviews for a while I wanted to break it up with something I have been pondering lately. Is there such a thing as a “couch potato Christians”? Of course there are, so maybe I should say “should there be such a thing? A verse from Ephesians is used frequently by many denominations to show us our salvation is a total gift and has nothing to do with what we do. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God not … Continue reading Couch Potato Christians???

Basic Human Needs

                This is a follow up of a recent post about eliminating hunger in the world. I’m sure there are some, and probably many, Christian organizations who say “No, no, we must spend our money preaching the Word and not ministering to physical needs. After all our spiritual life is for eternity and hunger is only of this earth”. While I don’t totally disagree with the intent of this, I believe it is very wrong headed and off the mark. There are well known basic human needs that must be met before higher … Continue reading Basic Human Needs

What me worry??

 For those of us who grew up with MAD magazine the title of this posting is very familiar. Alfred E. Neuman the main character in the magazine was constantly captioned to say that. I know I am giving my age away with this knowledge since Mad magazine was published in the 1950’s and that was ages ago for many bloggers. I regularly spent my 35 cent weekly allowance for a copy of Mad Magazine! If you are interested in learning more about Alfred go to Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_e_newman  Little did I know then that there was a biblical basis for … Continue reading What me worry??

How fortunate we are!

It’s time to get back on to the red letters so here goes: Luke 12:48 From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. There are hard words for us in the first world countries, especially us in the United States. Some say these words only refer to spiritual matters but I don’t buy that at all! We spend more on our Starbucks coffee in a year than most third world people earn. How can so many of us ignore the needs in … Continue reading How fortunate we are!

The Faith of our Founding Fathers – continued

This is a continuation of the last post where I covered George Washington’s religious beliefs. I will conclude this topic by talking about Thomas Jefferson.  Thomas Jefferson — Jefferson was undoubtedly the strongest advocate for religious freedom of the Founding Fathers. This was quite evident when he composed the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom in 1777. Jefferson was definitely raised in a Christian household. He seemed to have also been brought up in the rituals and customs of the Anglican Church as it existed in colonial Virginia which was much less a high church institution than its England counterpart. He … Continue reading The Faith of our Founding Fathers – continued

The Faiths of our Founding Fathers

       There are a lot of different views of what the Founding Fathers of the United States believed when it came to God. Many evangelicals like to say that we were founded on Christian principles and that is what makes us so unique, some would say superior, but I definitely don’t buy into that. I found the book entitled The Faiths of Our Fathers, by Alf J. Mapp Jr. to be very helpful in discerning truth from myth about this topic. The book goes into quite some detail about 10 of the most prominent Founders and just what … Continue reading The Faiths of our Founding Fathers

Sacrifices for Lent?

 I know I promised another book review for this post but I want to slip in a personal lesson I recently learned. At the Ash Wednesday service at my church our pastor’s sermon was about some of the things we Christians do during the Lenten season. He mentioned that a common sacrifice for Catholics, he was one as a child, was to not eat meat. Other people try to give up things like chocolate, special foods, TV and such. But pastor suggested something entirely different. Why not try to live out part of the Lord’s prayer and truly forgive someone … Continue reading Sacrifices for Lent?

The Politics of Jesus

I am going to spend this post studying John Howard Yoder and particularly his book The Politics of Jesus written in 1972. Here is what Wikipedia says about him. John Howard Yoder (December 29, 1927 – December 30, 1997) was a Christian theologian, ethicist, and Biblical scholar best known for his radical Christian pacifism, his mentoring of future theologians such as Stanley Hauerwas, his loyalty to his Mennonite faith, and his 1972 magnum opus, The Politics of Jesus It is obvious from his books that Yoder is a pacifist who strongly believes that it is not God’s will for us … Continue reading The Politics of Jesus

Why I am not a Calvinist

      On the last post I let it be known that I am definitely not a Calvinist. I will give you a few more reasons on this post. Some time ago I read a book entitled Why I am not a Calvinists by Jerry L. Walls and Joseph R. Dongell that very much influenced my views of Calvinism. For those of you who need some more info about Calvinists I suggest you look up the word on Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinism.  Here is an excerpt from the book: Does God love all of us and desire our well-being? Calvinists … Continue reading Why I am not a Calvinist

RC Sproul Book Review

  I am going to spend the next few posts reviewing books that I have recently read or reread. I must admit that the emphasis of these current reviews are to generally show areas that some, if not many, Christians believe but I tend to disagree with. As always, even if as I disagree with these things I will respect your not seeing things the same way. It is not for me to judge you, God will do that to all of us in His time. This post is a book by RC Sproul entitled “Essential Truths of the Christian Faith”. … Continue reading RC Sproul Book Review

Why???

I know I promised a book review for this post but something else has been on my mind lately so the book review post will come on Friday. Is it OK to question things about your faith, your religion, your theology, or must you take everything at face value with the so called “leap of faith”?  To me, that is a very important question. I seem to be saying “Why” a lot the last few years.  That even seems to be the reoccurring theme of this blog. Some think I am reverting back to my childhood ;) . I don’t remember what age … Continue reading Why???