Eleven signs you are becoming a church consumer instead of a committed church member
We are all in danger of adopting this attitude in the church. We need to stop heading down this route when we catch ourselves adopting these sorts of attitudes. Here are eleven things we might think or do that suggest we are becoming unbiblical church consumers.
God chose your daughter-in-law
‘Whatever your summer plans for your family, know that God is doing something bigger and more glorious than you can imagine. Through prayer, God gives a mother-in-law the great privilege of participating in his plans.’
Manly in Babylon
‘The deep, deep irony of our proudly diverse modern Western culture is that its diversity only goes skin deep. We love those ethnic groups for their amazing food and beautiful dances, but if they think for a minute that we will celebrate communal thinking over individualism, or traditional religious sexual practices over “you do you and you do whoever”, then they’re going to come up short of the try line. And here’s the other thing: despite the fact they’re wearing jumpers that have alcohol and betting on them, there’s every chance that they’re not the ones from the club getting hammered in the off-season and blowing all their eye-watering levels of cash at the poker table. They’re not the ones bringing shame to the NRL clubs over sex and drug scandals.’
Particular Baptists and the calvinistic methodists on the covenant of grace
I liked this historical comparison of the Savoy Declaration, the Second London Baptist Confession and the confession of faith of the calvinistic methodists.
Don’t (always) be efficient
This is a good and important word for such people as me.
Recycling and making it hard for people to do what we expect of them
This starts off with some inexplicably complicated recycling news of the most local nature, but the point it draws out it helpful.
From the archive: Solutions to the problem of comfort
‘In the previous session, I tried to lay out the problem of comfort. We looked at where the church has failed to go and who we’ve failed to reach. We considered why that has come about. Then, we had some Biblical reflection on it. In this session, I want to start pressing into some possible solutions to the problem. The basic question I want to ask is this: How are we going to reach the poor and deprived who we have largely overlooked?’