All posts in Church Life

Wycliffe Bible Translators “Son of God” Controversy Explained

There is a growing controversy over Wycliffe Bible Translators and how they are dealing with some tricky concepts in their translations into Islamic languages and cultures.  I believe that most of the problems have to do with ignorance over how language works in different cultures, and how translation works in general.

I’m coming across an awful lot of rumor mill alarmists that are sharing things on Facebook and Twitter without really understanding what they are sharing.  What this amounts to is gossip.  Facebook and Twitter make gossip easy.  You can do it with the click of one “Like” button.

My concern is that in the end, all of this RT’ing and Liking will only result in delaying the Scripture getting to these people groups that so desperately need it.

The above article is an abridged version of this one, which is longer but more detailed.  Please share these articles whenever, wherever, you can.

Unabridged Article Shorter, Abridged Article More Resources

2 days ago /  Tagged: , , , 0
worship signals infographic

Worship Signals Infographic – Tim Hawkins Explains Various Worship Styles

This is hilarious to me.  I like to alternate between “hold my baby” and “Rocky”.  I’ll go to a relaxed “carry the tv” when my arms get tired.

Which position is your default?

6 days ago 1

The Bride of Christ: Ready or Not

Church, we are more than we have been told.  We are more than brick and mortar, more than saccharine lyrics to re-run melodies.  We are more than religious self-help, whose greatest hope is to survive.  We are more than dreamers in pursuit of dreams that are bound to our small imaginations.  We are more than an institution that has lost its relevancy and is struggling to rebuild its tower of Babel.

We are the Bride of Christ.  Loved beyond measure, with no borders to His patience, forgiveness, and grace.  We are never beyond repair. Never out of the reach of His transformation.

I believe the Church in America is being romanced by Jesus.  We are being redefined as His Bride, and only His Bride.  We are being ravished by Him – called by name.

This spoken word poem/skit reminds me of who I am as a friend of God.  I hope it does the same for you.

17 days ago 0
From Recruiting Volunteers to Releasing Trusted Rulers

A thousand time YES to this!  I don’t think I could have said it better myself.

This is what my heart as a pastor beats for.  Pointing people into their destiny to shape and transform the culture that exists beyond the sacred walls of the church.  We do not exist to feed the church building, the programs that fill it, or the budget that pays for it.  We exist to be loved by God and to be unrestricted conduits of that love to a world that is dying to be rescued.

What would church life be like in this world that Alan Scott proposes?  I think it would look and feel a lot more like the book Acts than what we typically experience right now.

22 days ago 0
sterilized-toilet

DayQuil Sermons

One of my favorite, and most daunting, responsibilities as a pastor is weekly preaching. I take it pretty seriously as a part of my life’s calling. And most of the time it goes really well. It’s one of the few things that I do that I feel like I’m somewhat good at.

But that’s not to say it ALWAYS goes well. Sometimes I have to take DayQuil because a cold has hit me before it’s too late to call in reinforcements. That’s what happened this past week.

When I started the morning on Sunday I had no idea that the day would eventually end with me inspecting the inside of my toilet at home with the kind of scrutiny that only health inspectors and ecoli should endure.

I got out of bed with a dull headache from the cold I had come down with, but was generally feeling better.

Knowing that I would have to be focused for my message in a few hours, I dropped a couple shots of DayQuil. I should have remembered what this unholy elixir does to my tender brain cells, but still I threw caution to the wind and dropped those shots like a Pepto on Bingo night. Had I read the label, I’m now sure it would have read “DayQuil: Meth Formula — for those mornings when that snuffy head, fever, cough, runny nose, achy, sneezy, sinus disease you have can only be dealt with by an over-the-counter methamphetamine”.

I never lost consciousness, but I do vaguely recall the following events in a kind of dreamy, subconsious, chuck-norris-whispering-in-The-Octagon kind of way:

Read more…

31 days ago 2
light bulb over a head

Innovation: Learning From Facebook and Diaspora

Pete Cashmore of Mashable wrote an interesting column at CNN this week.  He talks about the new “Facebook killer” on the block, Diaspora.  Specifically, Cashmore says that Diaspora will be no threat to Facebook for one simple reason: it is foundationally an improved Facebook clone, not an innovation.  I think he is right, but even if you don’t care about such things, there is a huge lesson to be learned here for the Church.

The Christian Church has always been good at mimicry.  We can take just about any successful technology, idea, method, or style and create a Christianized version of it.  Ever hear of GodTube?  Yeah.  YouTube + Jesus.  Christian search engines? Wouldn’t want to come across any sinners, right?  The problem is that as long as we are mimicing and not innovating, the Church will be an obscure, parasitic sub-culture instead of becoming the transformative counterculture that Jesus called it to be.

Read more…

431 days ago /  Tagged: , , , 0

Where Are the Miracles?

We have good doctrine.  We have modern, God centered worship.  We have a website and a twitter account.  We love Jesus and He loves us.

But where are the works of God that I see in this film?  I believe in miracles, but I do not see them like this.

Why is this not happening here?


Direct Link

[box]Let’s ask the hard questions. Saying that God simply doesn’t do these things anymore is a cop out, is it not? Clearly it’s happening. The hard question is why isn’t it happening in most of our churches. Is this really “normal” Christianity?[/box]

463 days ago /  Tagged: , , 1
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