So maybe you have been hearing and seeing of the news now 2 weeks after the earthquake in Haiti and you’ve thought “I should do something. I should send money. I should donate something.” Maybe you have spoken about it with someone close to you about the best way you could help. But then maybe life got busy again for you. Maybe your desire to think-through the best way to help has led you to do nothing because you’re just not sure if it will do any good. Afterall, you can’t give enough to make the pain all go away - so then why do anything at all?
We want to welcome anyone who might be logging on to our blog and website after listening to Servetus the Evangelical on “The Line of Fire.” We want to welcome you to engage with us and check out our resources. Please check out Christian Monotheism a site with hundreds of resources - video, audio & articles - on this subject.
Sean Finnegan’s Truth Matters Radio Show interview with Kermit Zarley can be found here.
Here are some good thoughts from John Piper’s wife, Noel:
Over the years, we have chosen not to include Santa Claus in our Christmas stories and decorations. There are several reasons.
First, fairy tales are fun and we enjoy them, but we don’t ask our children to believe them.
Second, we want our children to understand God as fully as they’re able at whatever age they are. So we try to avoid anything that would delay or distort that understanding. It seems to us that celebrating with a mixture of Santa and manger will postpone a child’s clear understanding of what the real truth of God is. It’s very difficult for a young child to pick through a marble cake of part-truth and part-imagination to find the crumbs of reality.
In New England, we battle the hard hearts of skeptics while enjoy the open-mindedness of those searching. Engaging our neighbors and communities is important - and there is a way to do it right. Forget the marketing strategies or membership drives, get into conversations with the people you’re around. I think that the challenge facing New England in regards to evangelism and outreach is not in the people who need the gospel, its found in the people who supposedly don’t.
Best line of the article - “That means outreach must be deliberate and personal.” And those reaching out need to move out of the comfort of our church building’s four walls and away from the safety have having our pastors teach those who don’t know the gospel.
Sean and I attended a church service this past Sunday night which got me thinking about the role and function of the church. Certainly we know that biblically, “the church” is not the building, but the people who gather together, be it in a building, a home or on the street who are joining together to worship God, encourage each other and take time to read Scripture, share a message, sing, pray, etc. Different people have different experiences and what they consider the church and I’m not writing this to talk about which version is best, what should be included, removed etc.
In light of last week’s post, consider the following:
Luke 13:6-9 - And He began telling this parable: “A man had a fig tree which had been planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and did not find any. And he said to the vineyard-keeper, ‘Behold, for three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree without finding any. Cut it down! Why does it even use up the ground?’ And he answered and said to him, ‘Let it alone, sir, for this year too, until I dig around it and put in fertilizer; and if it bears fruit next year, fine; but if not, cut it down.’”
Going to church doesn’t make you a follower of Jesus. Neither does reading the entire Bible. Neither does taking a class about Christian doctrine. Knowing the teachings of Jesus doesn’t make you his disciple. Volunteering to help your church doesn’t prove that you are a Christian either.
If we take these and other similar tests to prove whether or not we are Christians we may find ourselves to be surprised on judgement day. It is scary to think that we might be attending a church service our entire life, yet not know the leader of that Church. A modern day take on Matthew 7:21-23 might sound like this:
I thought this article had some interesting insight. What do you think?
Ideas on what to do when your “quiet time” goes silent.
Most of us know we’re “supposed” to do devotions every day. And so we slog along, crack open our Bible every day and hope to pick something up by osmosis before we forget what we’ve read. Why do devotions seem so … pointless? What do you do when you know you should be doing them, but it just feels empty and insincere to do them? Do devotions even matter?
We want to welcome anyone who might be logging on to our blog and website after listening to Servetus the Evangelical on “The Line of Fire.” We want to welcome you to engage with us and check out our resources. Please check out 
Sean and I attended a church service this past Sunday night which got me thinking about the role and function of the church. Certainly we know that biblically, “the church” is not the building, but the people who gather together, be it in a building, a home or on the street who are joining together to worship God, encourage each other and take time to read Scripture, share a message, sing, pray, etc. Different people have different experiences and what they consider the church and I’m not writing this to talk about which version is best, what should be included, removed etc.
Going to church doesn’t make you a follower of Jesus. Neither does reading the entire Bible. Neither does taking a class about Christian doctrine. Knowing the teachings of Jesus doesn’t make you his disciple. Volunteering to help your church doesn’t prove that you are a Christian either.