Powerless?
Have you ever stopped to recognize that the New Testament Church was birthed with power (Acts 1:8), experienced exponential growth by demonstrations of power (Acts 2:41), and kept on course through demonstrations of power (Acts 5:1-11)? It was only through the Holy Spirit's power that the Church was the Church. (I'm using an upper case "c" to refer to the body of Christ and not a building.) Is this a reflection of today's Church? Let me answer this question by sharing a quote from one of my heroes, the great missionary to China, Hudson Taylor. "Since the days of Pentecost, has the whole...
Man Your Battle Stations
This past weekend, we took our Junior Bible Quiz teams up to central Florida for the season-ending district finals. We actually left a day early so that we could reward the teams by taking them to an indoor theme park in Orlando. At the end of the time at the park, we were to meet in the store at the exit of the park. While we were waiting on the final few boys and girls to arrive, several of the boys began to play with some of the swords and toy guns. For several minutes, it was fun watching toy swords swishing through the air and toy guns blasting away at the pirates, that is until it...
Consider This …
Do you ever wonder why we have church auditoriums filled with youth and adults who have no relationship with the Holy Spirit? Before you throw stones at the Pastor or Youth Pastor, you might want to consider these facts. 1. In a calendar year, few if any children are baptized in the Holy Spirit in any of the children's ministries provided by the local church. It is extremely rare to find reports of children being filled with the Holy Spirit in a Sunday school class, children's church service, or mid-week Bible club in the local church. Am I right? 2. In a calendar year, those children who...
The Tale of Grandma Klepto
Many years ago, our girl's ministry took on a project of cleaning the home of an elderly lady in our church. Upon arriving at her home, our suspicions were confirmed. The lady was a kleptomaniac and a horrific hoarder. Not only did Vickie and the girls find piles of things from the church including church hymnals (you do remember what hymnals are, don't you?) they discovered mounds of garbage. The sad thing was that Grandma Klepto (that was my affectionate name for the lady) was comfortable in her lifestyle and pigsty. Like Grandma Klepto, it is easy for those of us in ministry to become so,...
Change Your Church!
I know that this isn't a characteristic of your church, but I will share it anyways. I've found that when a family becomes dissatisfied with a church, they quietly just disappear. Maybe in their estimation, the church wasn't demonstrative enough in worship or perhaps too emotional and demonstrative. Some leave because ... I'll stop with just one reason. It would be pointless to even try to give an exhaustive list of the many, many reasons for people leaving a church to go find the "perfect" church. If I could just have five minutes with these people, I would give this one piece of advice....
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