Church

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  Taking the Kingdom by Force (Matthew 11:12)

  Have you ever been under fire? I’m not necessarily referring to being literally shot at by an enemy, although I can attest to the fact that this is not a pleasant experience (having been in a good many “fire fights” while a gunner for a helicopter attack squadron in the Mekong Delta of South Vietnam). 
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  Connections Sustain Life

  There is an axiom in mathematics that a sum cannot be greater than its parts. While I don’t want to argue with it as a principle of mathematics, I know it doesn’t hold in relationships. And relationships can’t be reduced to formulas anyway.
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  She Sat in a Pew

  They sat on a bus while she worshiped Jesus. 
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  Ruin and Rescue

  We live in an evil age. One generation always seems to think it has a monopoly on dissipation and ugly behavior. Perhaps ours is no worse than that of the early church, or that of Gomorrah’s era. 
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  Rules of Engagement

  “Let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother’s way” (Romans 14:11).  
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  What if We’re Right?

  Growing up male in the days before clearly defined political correctness and finely tuned international sensitivity training, we boys spent much of our free time playing war. Sometimes we were equipped with reasonable facsimiles of firearms, like those carried by real soldiers and cowboys. 
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  A Return to Pentecost

  Several years ago, I heard the story of Larry Walters, a 33-year-old man who decided he wanted to see his neighborhood from a new perspective. He went down to the local army surplus store one morning and bought forty-five used weather balloons. 
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  Adorned with Proper Apparel

  I was raised in northwestern New Mexico, near the four-corners area on the Navajo Indian reservation. From the time I was about 4 or 5 years old until I graduated from high school, this vast area was my home. 
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  Murmuring Members

  We might as well be perfectly honest here and speak very frankly — virtually every congregation, whether large or small, whether “liberal,” “mainstream” or “conservative,” contains a hardened handful who seem to feel “led of God” to criticize and castigate everyone and everything around them.
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  Marshall Keeble the Evangelist of the 1940s

  Bro. Keeble was successful beyond anyone’s expectations! It was not unusual for him to baptize as many as a hundred people in a single gospel meeting.
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  Maybe It’s Like Baseball

  Okay. We’re at the halfway point of the baseball season. And the Yankees are playing more respectably. So maybe that’s why it occurred to me that a lot of our experience of religion is like baseball.
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  Legalistic Grace

  For some time now I have been concerned about “our” (perhaps only my own) understanding of the “doctrine” of grace. It is true that we, as a people of God, have sometimes not grasped the depth of grace in our preaching and teaching.
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  Why Do People Leave Church?

  After 30 plus years in full time ministry it is difficult for someone like me to not be personally offended at those who come into the fellowship of the body of Christ and then, for whatever reasons, decide to drop out. Amazingly, those often given the most attention and fussed over to a fault are the ones who might drop out faster than others.
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  How to Rescue Fallen Church Leaders

  So if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! (1 Corinthians 10:12)
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  Can’t Have it Our Way

  As we survey the terrain stretched before us, looking carefully for the best route to the Promised Land (one that avoids the dreaded swamps of extremism as well as the life-threatening bogs of mediocrity), we first examine the courses plotted by the pilgrims who have preceded us. Why stray off the beaten path?