Weekly Once-Over (2.13.2014)
Without This Your Missional Movement Will Fail: The fundamental way that we are going to see Jesus save people across the globe is through discipleship. That’s right, the good-old-fashioned, life-on-life, person-to-person, dirty, messy process of teaching people to obey all that Jesus has commanded. Showing people with our words and our lives how to follow and magnify the Risen Savior.
Nine Lies In The Not-Yet-Married Life: Tomorrow is Valentine's Day, perhaps one of the more polarizing holidays of our year. It's very fun and exciting for the love birds, too commercial and insincere for the skeptics, and sometimes especially lonely for the single...
How To Engage The Neighborhood: The basic principle behind this strategy is simple, and it's one any church can follow: engage your neighbors by taking an interest in what they care about. Building common ground is easy when you participate side-by-side in community organizations, service projects, family events, block parties, yard sales, and the like. Common interests are one of the most powerful tools for building friendships that can enable spiritual conversations to take place.
Why Are Our Kids Addicted To Social Media?: ...To an over-scheduled teen under constant parental surveillance “Turn off your phone” basically means “Go to your room and be alone.” That’s no good either. Without real, unstructured time with friends, kids can’t develop the healthy social interactions today’s adults long for them to have.
Holy Laughter: It is easy to look at what is going on in the world—wars and rumors of war, increasing hostility to biblical norms, persecution of Christians around the world, volatile elections, nuclear proliferation, terrorism, mass shootings—and to wonder what does God think of this? Doesn’t he care? Is he still on the throne? Doesn’t God see what is going on down here?
How To Create A Culture Of Evangelism: But in a culture of evangelism the work is grassroots, not top-down. In a culture of evangelism, people understand that the main task of the church is to be the church; they understand that church, just being biblical church, is a witness in and of itself. The church supports and prays for outreach and evangelistic opportunities, but the church's role is not primarily to run evangelistic programs. The members are sent out from the church to do evangelism, the church does not do evangelism.
The Gospel And Money: When God commands us to give it’s not because He wants your money. He wants your heart. When He commands us to be generous it’s not because He wants to take things from you. He wants to give you Himself. God doesn’t want the money out of your pockets. He wants the idols out of your heart.
How Can The Tired Mom Stay Connected To The Hubby: Most of the time, money is tight in this season as well, as you are trying to live off of one income and dad is trying to get his career started. Admittedly, these were tough years for us. Looking back, Grace and I did not get this right all the time. But we would offer the following suggestions as Grace thinks aloud and I type along: