Overwhelmingly, the pattern provided in God’s Word shows us that good theology moves our hearts to Doxology. Lets say that differently; our understanding of who God is moves our hearts to praise Him. On the whole, worship without meaning is simply emotionalism and as such will be short lived. But worship which begins with understanding is, in some sense, complete. C.S. Lewis draws this out well; Read more
When I was in the 7th grade, my science class covered certain characteristics that determined organisms to be alive—they would respond to stimuli, respiration, and a bunch of other things I honestly can’t remember. The idea was to be able to classify whether or not a mushroom, for example, was a living organism.
I often have people come and speak to me in regard to spiritual life. If you’ve been a Christian for any amount of time you’ve probably experienced the same doubts; “Christians shouldn’t continue to struggle with the sins that I struggle with”, we say to ourselves. A nagging sense of doubt lingers within us as we try to reconcile the practical reality of our struggling experience–complete with new temptations and greater awareness of old failures–with the promises of the scripture. Words that haunt us are passages like 1 John 2:3—“by this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.” Read more
Tom De’lea lived in my neighborhood as a kid. Everyone knew that Tom was the best soccer player in our school. Not only that, he was incredibly cool. I distinctly remember walking past Tom’s house on a sunny summer afternoon and recognized that he was pretty gifted individual—not only was he a great athlete, he was funny, and most everyone seemed to really like Tom. The next thought that popped into my 8 year old head was “I wonder what I’m best at?”
You’re there on a Sunday morning, enjoying the time of corporate worship and suddenly it hits you; you remember the sin you had performed yesterday. “It wasn’t even 24 hours ago” you say to yourself. And suddenly, in that moment, you feel less capable of worship. There is now an obstacle—even though the sin has been confessed (often times more than once). You still find yourself plagued with guilt and you look forward to that time, a few days from now perhaps, when the wound won’t quite be so …fresh.
I get it. We talk a lot about the importance of the body at Grace. We push membership pretty hard. We emphasize the body gathered (Sunday morning worship) and the body scattered (LIFEgroups). Like Paul, we think that the body of Christ is a pretty big deal.
I wanted to give you a bit of a different perspective today; that of the church counseling room. I just want to step out on a limb and say that most of the counseling I do could likely be handled by the body of Christ. Ideally, I wouldn’t have my job
The longer I work in music ministry, the more I realize how confused people are in regard to difference between the Old and New Testaments. It was just recently that someone confessed in a counseling session that they don’t read the Old Testament. Honestly, I didn’t even follow up (though, I should have); I’ve heard the same arguments for years—its too bloody, too hard to understand, or too far removed from where we are in our more “civilized” society.
I admit it; we use obscure songs for our corporate worship time. Personally, I love some of the thematic content and Biblical richness that some (albeit lesser known) artists have to offer.
So, here is how I intend to help you; I’ve looked over our song usage for the last year (April 2014 to April 2015) and I’ve identified the songs we’ve used most during that time. Not only that, I’ve provided the artists name and the album you can find it on so the you can go to iTunes or Amazon.com (or spotify) and be an informed consumer.
This morning at The EDGE, we watched C.J. Mahaney’s message titled, “Don’t Waste Your Sports.” C.J. starts out by looking at 1 Corinthians 10:31, “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” He explains that sports are a gift from God and as such should be played to His glory.
Don’t Waste Your Sports is for athletes, parents, and coaches. It provides a biblical worldview of sports so that we don’t waste this gift. “I had the opportunity to glorify God in my sports,” C.J. writes, “and I fumbled it. I wasted my sports. You have the opportunity, by the grace of God, not to waste yours.”
If you were not able to be with us this morning, wish to view it again or share with other athletes, coaches and parents, we have provided the video below.
Don’t Waste Your Sports from Sovereign Grace Ministries on Vimeo.
To all those contemplating ministry,
In the first installment of this study there were many lessons to be learned about being personally involved in reaching a lost world during our time. The church of Jesus Christ of each generation has responsibility for reaching its own generation. The present church is struggling by not knowing what is going on in the world. The present church in the US is struggling to reach the world because we are not beseeching our Father to send forth laborers into His harvest, not praying for our missionaries, and not praying for open doors to reach the lost. We have not confessed our sins and drunk deeply of the Word of God. We are not reaching our generation, because we aren’t prepared or developing a plan. When there is a plan we usually don’t include ourselves in that plan. Also, much like Jerusalem of old, our churches lie waste and we are a reproach for failing to fulfill the ministry to our own generation.
