Oct

23

Zombie Church: Breathing Life Back into the Body of Christ

October 23, 2011 | 5 Comments

Tyler Edwards, pastor of Cornerstone Christian Church in Joplin, MO, says there is something missing in the church today. Stuck in a rut of routines and rituals, he claims the church is caught up in doing what it is “supposed to do” but is lacking the true essence of what it is supposed to provide: [...]

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Jun

25

Creating Other People

June 25, 2010 | Comments Off

I’ve been reading a great book called SuperCoach: 10 Secrets to Transform Anyone’s Life by Michael Neil. The book is full of  helpful hints for successful living. I especially liked his chapter on “Listening” in relation to my interest in challenging people. He says, We’ll nearly always hear what we’re listening for. This creates a [...]

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May

13

American “Millennials” Are Spiritually Diverse (Part 2)

May 13, 2010 | 1 Comment

Today we’re presenting the second part August 2009 LifeWay Research study of a national, demographically representative survey of 1,200 Millennials in the United States.  The first part of the study is reviewed here: Here is how Millennials respond to a series of doctrinal statements: God, Satan, sin and salvation * “God is a real being, [...]

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May

11

American “Millennials” Are Spiritually Diverse (Part 1)

May 11, 2010 | 1 Comment

Two-thirds of American “Millennials” – those born between 1980 and 1991 – call themselves Christian, but far fewer pray or read the Bible daily, attend weekly worship services, or hold to historical positions on the Bible and its teachings. These findings, which will affect how we lead our churches and small groups, are from a [...]

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May

6

The Gift of Dignity

May 6, 2010 | 1 Comment

When dealing with challenging people, I’ve found that simply treating them like human beings makes a huge difference. Very often, a challenging person in your church or group is a challenging person everywhere. And because of this, they are often shunned or ostracized. For many, this has happened all their lives. What we consider challenging [...]

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Oct

26

Care for the Fragile During This Season

October 26, 2009 | Comments Off

If you have challenging people in your group or church, this could be a difficult couple of weeks for them. Most Christians don’t understand the spiritual realities of the Halloween season and therefore, don’t understand how fragile some wounded people can be.  There is a definite correlation between how severely a person was wounded in [...]

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Nov

15

Missing: Human Affection

November 15, 2007 | Comments Off

I just received a fascinating article, which almost appeared to be real. Turns out that it was from The Onion, which is a parody newspaper. They write in a style that is so close to real that it makes you look deeper, think twice. I did that with this article, and was struck by how [...]

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Jun

23

The Present Future-Part 7

June 23, 2007 | Comments Off

For an introduction to this series, go to here New Reality Number Six: the Rise of Apostolic Leadership Wrong Question: How Do We Develop Leaders for Church Work? “If church work is not getting the job done, why do we continue to train leaders to do it better?” Apostolic leaders in the first and twenty-first [...]

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Jun

21

The Present Future-Part 6

June 21, 2007 | Comments Off

For an introduction to this series, go to here New Reality Number Five: The Shift from Planning to Preparation Most of what has ultimate effect on the church happens outside of it and outside of its control. Wrong Question: How Do We Plan for the Future? “Incrementalism as an anticipatory strategy is dead…. The better [...]

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Jun

19

The Present Future-Part 5

June 19, 2007 | Comments Off

For an introduction to this series, go to here New Reality Number Four: The Return to Spiritual Formation “We have turned our churches into groups of people who are studying God as though they were taking a course at school or attending a business seminar. We aim at the head. We don’t deal in relationships. [...]

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