Category: Uncategorized

Build up the Church

On By BrianIn Uncategorized

David desired to build a temple for the Lord, and God was pleased (2 Chronicles 6:7-8).  Today the the temple of the Lord is his church (the people, not the buildings).  Do we desire to build up his church?  Not just attend services.  Not just come to be fed.  But do we desire to build up Christ’s church?

Jesus loved the church so much he gave his life for her (Ephesians 5:25).  He clearly cares about the church.  Do we?  Enough to do our part to build it up?  The Old Testament temple was built of stone and mortar.  How do we build up the church today?  We find the answer in Ephesians 4.

First, we strive for unity.  That is the first six verses.  Nothing can tear a church down faster than division and strife.  And nothing builds it up like peace, unity, oneness.  Indeed in Christ we are one – so we must strive to live out this oneness.  Humility (v2) is key.  We need humility to agree to disagree on minor doctrinal or interpretation issues.  We need humility to agree to disagree on matters of opinion and preference.  No, not everything will happen in our churches like we think it should.  And we will never find a church that will do things exactly like we want.  So we stay.  We practice some humility, and support our churches anyway.  We need humility and patience to bear with one another in love (also v2).  Put any two people together for a length of time and they will offend one another.  Can we bear with each other’s offenses, forgiving when needed.  Being offended is not a reason to leave; it is an opportunity to practice humility, forgiveness, and reconciliation.  God calls us to peace.  Strive for unity to build up the church.

Second, serve in ministry.  The pastor’s job is to equip the people to do ministry so that together the body might build itself up (v11-16).  God has given each person gifts of ministry (see Romans 12:6-8) to use to build up the church.  I once heard Warren Wiersbe say there are two types of Christians – the caterpillars who walk in before the service and out after the service, and the pillars who serve in the church.  Don’t be a caterpillar – be a pillar.  Serve in ministry to build up the church.

Jesus cares about his church.  Do we?  If so let us strive for unity and serve in ministry that his church might be built up.

Ministry Today

On By BrianIn Uncategorized

On Monday, I attended a conference about doing ministry in a postmodern world.  To say that we no longer live in a world where Christian values and morals are generally embraced would be an understatement.  How do we reach out to a world that objects to our claim that Jesus is the only way to God?  The answer that was suggested is simply to do what Jesus told us to do in Matthew 5:16 – “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”  How do we let our light shine?  By doing good works – helping and caring for people.  Jesus calls us to love people.  And it is that love of Jesus that will attract people to consider the message of Jesus.  We need to get out of our “holy huddles” and reach out with love into our communities.

To think further about this, I invite you to check out a couple of posts from one of the presenters – here and here.  To listen to the three presentations from the conference, click here.

Lack of Compassion

On By BrianIn Uncategorized

In my last post I mentioned our president’s rash words comparing his bowling to the Special Olympics.  Many, starting with our president, have condemned these words – and rightly so.  Yet is there a sense of glee coming from conservative voices?  Why did I smile rather than mourn at our president’s mistake?  How is that we can respond to a lack of compassion with our own lack of compassion?  Truly we are flawed beings in need of a Savior!

Faithfulness

On By BrianIn Uncategorized2 Comments

I have been thinking about the question I left yesterday – “How does God’s faithfulness spur us on to love God more?”  I think it has to do in part with trust.  The more I see God’s faithfulness, the more I trust him, and the stronger our loving relationship becomes.  It is similar to marriage.  Unfaithfulness of one spouse (in any number of ways), will make it more difficult for the other spouse to trust and hence hurts the relationship.  But faithfulness lived out day by day by one spouse makes it easier for the other to trust and hence stregthens the relationship.  There is something attractive and delightful about people who are trustworthy.  We want to be around them.   Our great need is to recognize God’s daily faithfulness so that we might trust him more, delight in him more, and so love him more. That is my stab at the question.  What do you think?