Sometimes face-to-face isn’t better

This one is important for church leaders. Some assume, others insist, face-to-face is always best. This one not only disagrees, but cites Paul to the same effect.

Building churches out of other churches

I think Tim Challies’ warning and admonishment here is worth listening to and understanding, particularly when we speak about our church growth.

Avoiding heresy when explaining the Trinity

‘There are better and worse ways to explain the Trinity. We can have a pie chart idea where we split God up into parts, and this is one of the worst ways to explain the Trinity. There is something to the fact that the biblical material talks about the actions of God sometimes in ways that appropriate that action to a particular divine person.’

Going against the grain

Whether you necessarily agree fully with the specifics, it is impossible to reject and understand the key point here: ‘Paul is encouraging us to go against the grain of the culture, to not follow the patterns of this world, to not fit in with society. Indeed, we must be outcasts as Christians. We are the anomalies; we are the sojourners; we are the weird ones.’

Sin casts a long shadow

Indeed it does.

5 ways to be kind to someone with whom you disagree

‘When someone senses we have goodwill and respect for them, it enables them to lower their defenses and hear what we’re saying. Sincere kindness can therefore help us make progress in a disagreement. It unmakes caricatures and promotes understanding of what the other side is saying. Someone once said, about preaching, that unless love is felt, the message is not heard. So it is in our conversations. Here are five ways to be sincerely kind to someone you disagree with.’

From the archive: Six bad reasons to plant a church

‘How can we best grow in both quality of discipleship and spread of the gospel? This question gets us to focus on whether we are being obedient to the Great Commission. In particular, it moves the focus away from us (and building our kingdoms) to obedience (to the King of the Kingdom). I think where we tend to go wrong is when we start focusing on ourselves (and probably our pride/selfishness), especially as “church planters”. Let me suggest six bad reasons for planting, which I think focus on me rather than Jesus.’