Why do church people do . . . ? There are a lot of things that church people do that are different from the way the rest of the world lives: Church people go to a church gathering nearly every Sunday while most people in the world rarely do anything "every week" except for weekly obligations …
Why does God listen to my prayer?
I got a very interesting question on a Connect Card this past Sunday, and I'd like to interact with it here on my site. Here's what it said: With all of the prayers God hears every day - how does he hear yours? What makes me as important as everyone else in the world that I am heard? Here is …
How should Christians live out God’s ideal of justice?
Occasionally, I get really deep questions turned in on our Sunday Connect Cards, and this past Sunday, I received this one: I noticed that two of the songs played in service this morning mentioned justice as something God has and uses to demonstrate his goodness. If one of the classic arguments …
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Why do we say “Amen” at the end of prayers?
Recently, a note came to me from someone in our church with an interesting question. It said this: Why is it that sometimes your prayers do not end with "Amen"? Is there a biblical reason why we do or do not say amen after prayers? I responded personally, but I also felt my answer might …
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What if God chooses not to “elect” my children?
During the Summer, I worked through the book of Romans in my Sunday messages at Lafayette Community Church. To hear the messages, visit the Great News II page. One of the topics that Romans raises is the notion of election vs. free will. I took a rather strong position from Romans 9-11 that God …
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Is Modern Worship too Simplistic?
Earlier this week, a discussion among the worship band members at my church pointed to this article where Bill Blankschaen describes his frustration with worship songs sung in churches on Sunday mornings and tells us "Why I've stopped singing in your church." As of this writing right now, he has …
Reflections on Sin
Some Context This past week, a number of stories came out in my local newspaper reporting on and analyzing the arrest of a local pastor. He has been accused of placing and monitoring video equipment in the female bathrooms at the church. If you haven't read the articles, don't worry about not …
Harmony Not Unison
I have just finished my sermon series on gender issues in the Bible and how to understand the biblical teaching on the topic. If you want to hear the entire series, you can click here: http://lafayettecc.org/news/gatherings/080-born-this-way/ Now, I promised you that I would write some articles …
Boys and Girls Part 1
This past Sunday, I started a series of messages at Lafayette Community Church entitled "Born this Way" in which I intend to investigate the number of different Bible passages on gender issues. The biggest problem for me was that for most of the week, I was wrestling with how to tackle the message. …
He Came
Jesus came as Prophet to bring the Word of God to us. Jesus came as Priest to represent us to the Father. Jesus came as SON to bring us into God's family Jesus came as Savior to take away our sin. Jesus came as King to receive our submission. to have 1-4 without 5 is pointless mercy to have 5 …
The Church: Can you be a Christian without going to church?
This post is part of a series investigating the most important items of Christian doctrine. View all posts by clicking here or the DOGMA tag above. This past Sunday, I ended our service by taking some live questions from the congregation, but I wasn't able to address all the questions live. …
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The Church: Why Sundays?
This post is part of a series investigating the most important items of Christian doctrine. View all posts by clicking here or the DOGMA tag above. This past Sunday, I ended our service by taking some live questions from the congregation, but I wasn't able to address all the questions live. …
The Father: God’s will and human freedom
This post is part of a series investigating the most important items of Christian doctrine. View all posts by clicking here or the DOGMA tag above. At the end of our service last Sunday, I took some live questions from the congregation. An interesting pattern revealed itself. Here are all the …
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DOGMA: Understanding the Father
This post is part of a series investigating the most important items of Christian doctrine. View all posts by clicking here or the DOGMA tag above. On Sunday, we addressed the third statement from the Lafayette Community Church Statement of Faith, but before we can look at it, we need to consider …
The Bible: What about the apocrypha?
This post is part of a series investigating the most important items of Christian doctrine. View all posts by clicking here or the DOGMA tag above. On Sunday, I was asked about the apocrypha, but I later found out that the answer I gave was partially wrong. What I said was that back in the days …
The Bible: Have we found all the original manuscripts?
This post is part of a series investigating the most important items of Christian doctrine. View all posts by clicking here or the DOGMA tag above. How do we know that all of the original manuscripts have already been found? I didn't get to answer this one on Sunday, but the answer is simple. None …
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