'Church' Tagged Posts (Page 3)
BEHAVIOURAL CHANGE – be careful who you point your finger at
Our Pastor has made it a high priority that we actively pursue and create opportunities to tell others about Jesus. He has taken the focus off us and redirected it to the proclamation of the good news about Jesus to those not now part of our church – to friends, working colleagues, neighbours, and…
Evangelism
We normally don’t require any strategy for talking about things about which we are passionate. Most of us could go on infinitum about our favorite sports team. We are not trying to land a ‘knock-out punch’ here, or close the sale. That’s God’s job. So why not simply tell others, “One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”? (John 9:25). There is nothing as…
Gospel Priorities
Photo Credit: © Andy Dean – Fotolia.com OK, it’s true. I’m having a gripe. It’s grumpy pastor time. But if you want to know what your pastor is really thinking… read on! Now on the one hand it’s true, we have much for which we can give thanks to God. At Hills Bible Church God has done amazing things. He has worked in our lives to save us from our sins and…
Moulding God into what we want Him to be
Like many people at the moment, I have been watching the Australian Open tennis and reading associated articles. In doing so I came across an article that is not directly about the tennis, but relates to Margaret Court, arguably Australia’s greatest tennis player ever, and now a pastor in Western Australia. Given the recent push for homosexual marriage in Australia to be…
The Modern Church and Sin
“The fundamental fault of the modern church is that she is busily engaged in an absolutely impossible task – she is busily engaged in calling the righteous to repentance. Modern preachers are trying to bring men into the Church without requiring them to relinquish their pride; they are trying to help men avoid the conviction of sin.” – J. Gresham Machen,…
Lite’n’easy Church
“Persuading people to visit and then remain at our churches in itself amounts to little. Some of the world’s largest churches numerically are among its most disgracefully distorted and heretical. The end goal is not ‘bums on pews’. The end goal is to see people transferred from darkness into the kingdom of God’s Son through the powerful work of his word and…
Church Membership
We live in a society that has, by and large, rejected church membership. I came across this by [1]John R. Muether; “A child without a family is an orphan to be pitied. A man without a country is a refugee to be welcomed. A Christian without a church is, well, a typical American evangelical.” (I suspect this is even more true of Australian evangelicals.) In…
When Evangelism Turns into Deception
People should be under no illusions what the church stands for. If some people don’t agree with it, then that’s fine. They don’t have to stay. But when people choose to stay it’s more likely because they want to be a part of a unified body of people with a clear vision – to glorify Jesus in all we do and see people come to faith in, and mature in their relationship with…
Not Every Man Will Stray
Godly men have a fantastic opportunity in a society rightly jaded by the failures of so-called “great men”–actors, athletes, politicians, celebrities–to demonstrate the transformative power of the gospel in a man’s life.
“Going to Church”
We get used to going to church week in and week out; it becomes a routine, almost a rut–the tendency is to get used to it.