Helpful articles and encouragement for church leaders and lay members along with information on church activity and circumstances the world over.
A letter is being circulated among Catholic and Evangelical Christian leaders demanding Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton immediately apologize for high-level campaign staffers’ anti-Christian bigotry as revealed by a WikiLeaks email Tuesday.
For decades, Christian missiologists have strategized about the “10-40 Window” – the countries of North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia most unreached by and hostile to the Gospel message. Christians have mourned the difficulty of getting missionaries into these regions and churches have earnestly prayed for breakthroughs.
Persecution. The word conjures up images of torture and the Spanish Inquisition, burnings, hangings, and disfigurements. But in the developed world, mostly anyway, persecution is more subtle.
Pastors and Christians who read their Bibles daily are confronted with both extremely positive verses and horribly negative verses. You simply can’t get around that fact. Yet the average megachurch has not only been able to dance around the negative aspects of the Bible, they have managed to build massive followings by cultivating an atmosphere of total positivity that for some has become as addictive as any controlled substance, adrenaline rush, concert or sporting event. Church for the average Christian has become synonymous with any other culturally accepted fantasy based “escapism.”
I was a committed skeptic and atheist until the age of thirty-five. I was also a detective and a thoughtful evidentialist. The vast majority of my co-workers were non-Christians, but I did know a few committed believers who worked as detectives at my agency. When I poked fun at their beliefs and challenged them to give me just a few reasons why I should trust the New Testament or believe in the supernatural, they were woefully inept and unable to make an evidential case for what they believed.
A humorous look at a Sunday School lesson on God creating Eve from Adam’s rib.
One of the great strengths of the Christian faith has been its ability to endure, accommodate, and use the cultural shifts across the centuries without losing its essence. Even in its most misguided forms, the Christian religion has continued to pass along its central message about Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection.
Are we really being honest with ourselves about who influences our views about the Bible?
Your church is using social media to be visible in your community and to engage church members, right? Either way, you’ll get a chuckle out of this video.
Why did people fall all over themselves to get a glimpse of Jesus? Climb trees to see him? Hang on his every word? It was the beauty of the kingdom of God that Jesus exhibited in his personality and actions.
A facial recognition software specifically for churches called Churchix is used to keep up with who is attending and who is skipping church worship, classes or other events.
“I caution against the idea that the way to get young people into church is to be hip and cool and have a pastor who wears skinny jeans.”
This may be news to some believers, but the church is to be self-critical. It is to actually assess, discern and judge what is happening in its midst and in its name. We Christians are to be constantly tending to the condition of our own camp. Not to do so is to invite trouble.
Take this survey about churches of Christ whether you’re a member, former member, or nonmember.
Somewhere in the last 2000 years we’ve missed the point. Church is a solemn and depressing place in many denominational parishes. The quiet “reverence” of the buildings misses the point. Masses in latin, canticles in old English or the more modern service books all emphasise the necessity to be quiet in God’s presence.