Can There Be Change Without Pain?
Leaders have to help their churches hurt for the things that Scripture tells us God hurts for. The body of Christ has to ache for those things that the Spirit of God leads them to, not the things they are told to hurt over by American culture and personal preference.
It’s time for the Church to get back on mission. The final command Jesus gave was not “get every nuance of theology right,” it was “go, make disciples of all nations.” We serve the same God, are saved by the same Christ, and were given the same Commission. Instead of focusing on our differences, we should focus on the One who makes us the same.
You Are Not Your Church Members
One of the biggest mistakes pastors make is thinking the people in the church are like them. You’re reading a Tim Keller commentary on Galatians for your next message series, but the people in your church are catching up on royal baby news via People Magazine online. And that’s not the only difference.
There’s a Pedophile In My Church: What Now?
If others in the church can forgive an offender, they should never equate forgiveness with trust. They are two different things altogether. And the one who can forgive (especially a non-victim) should never expect a victim to forgive just because he was able to. To do so will only lead to revictimization.
What do you do when a convicted sex offender comes to your church?
We also have to tell new members, for liability sake, about Matt. Actually, this has become a positive. Every couple of weeks, we have a conversation with potential members in a session we call, Tell Me About Shiloh. There, we recount Matt’s story and give them a DVD of the worship service. Typically, the response we receive sounds like this, “I want to be a part of a church that welcomes people in this way.”
Oh, and about the seven year old. He is my grandson and he is in a family of faith, so the question was more curious than anything else. And he is doing well, but the answer is still yes he will die someday. As we all will. The real question is how we feel about it.
Whether you’re in the financial services or insurance industry, technology or health care, education or a cutting edge B2B offering, if you’re going to be a leader with influence and impact, and if you want to sell your product or service, it’s incumbent upon you to take what is obvious to you and turn it into something easily graspable to others.
Living to 120 and Beyond: Americans’ Views on Aging, Medical Advances and Radical Life Extension
Yet many Americans do not look happily on the prospect of living much longer lives. They see peril as well as promise in biomedical advances, and more think it would be a bad thing than a good thing for society if people lived decades longer than is possible today, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center.