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How to deal with your non-perfect church

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How to deal with your non-perfect church

People get disgruntled. I’ve had a number of conversations in the last few weeks with people from different churches. All of them appreciated their church, but all were struggling with deficiencies. Some of the folk were in leadership positions and others weren’t.

At one level, dealing with this kind of thing is a no-brainer. As the old saying goes, if you ever find a perfect church, you’ll ruin it as soon as you join it.

But we need to start asking ourselves a number of questions when doubts arise as to whether we’re in the right place.

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Why no revelation about Revelation is dangerous to our faith

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Why no revelation about Revelation is dangerous to our faith

This summer I’ve been teaching a post-graduate course on Revelation. My students are great learners and hopefully will be great teachers. Each of them in their own way is getting it.

But this thought has often come to me: why is it that so many Christians badly misunderstand the last book of the Bible?

And if it doesn’t make sense to us, what do we do? We throw our hands up in the air, make a joke of it (uneasily perhaps), and walk away.

What if we tried that with the Gospels or Romans? It wouldn’t leave us with much understanding of our faith, would it? What we need to understand is that our lack of understanding of Revelation affects our ability to understand the Christian faith far more deeply than we think.

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The power of faith

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The power of faith

Sometimes you have to throw caution to the winds and just step out in faith. That was a topic of conversation the other day between a successful young church planter in Toronto and myself.

One of the enemy’s cleverest tricks is to keep our focus on what we can achieve by our own efforts.

I was taught a lot about faith as a young leader. The example of several men I personally knew who had taken extraordinary steps of faith in their walk with God took hold of me and challenged me to the core.

We can do a lot by our own efforts, but the kingdom will only really move ahead when we start doing what can only be accomplished by divine intervention.

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A teaching moment

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A teaching moment

The other evening Elaine and I were at a small group we joined at the church. The leader was planning to show a teaching video, but there were problems with the sound, and in the end he (being my age) declared, “I’m just going to teach this myself!” And I was glad he did, because he was outstanding. 

It seems to me there are three critical elements in the health of a local church: teaching, worship and community. Evangelism is of course essential, but what’s the point of evangelizing in order to bring people into a church where there is poor teaching, questionable worship and no sense of relationship? The best thing that could happen is for the convert to go in one door and out the other into a church in better shape.

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The genius of marriage

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The genius of marriage

The Old Testament often pictures the relationship between God and his people as a marriage. God is shown as a husband seeking out a wife who has gone astray, but whom he still loves and seeks: “For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name…. for the Lord has called you like a wife deserted and grieved in spirit, like a wife of youth when she is cast off, says your God. For a brief moment I deserted you, but with great compassion I will gather you. In overflowing anger for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you, says the Lord, your Redeemer” (Isa. 54:5-8). 

Jesus took over this teaching and with boldness referred to himself as the Bridegroom. Within the context of a wedding he said, “Can the wedding guests fast when the bridegroom is with them?… the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day” (Mk. 2:19-20).