…biblical Christianity without conservative idolatry…
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. …
Continue Reading about 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. …
This question was posed to me on facebook recently, so I thought I'd share my answer here as well: Thanks Jeff. Where would you place, say the apostle Paul on the political spectrum (or could you?): …
Continue Reading about Would Paul be a liberal or conservative?
Last Sunday, I did a live Question and Answer session for the second half of my message. Here are the questions I was asked along with my answers. …
For a few weeks now, I have been teaching in my church on the topic of belief and doubt, so I have been on a personal journey to understand the mind of the atheist so I can better understand the mind of the serious person who cannot cross the line of faith and possibly understand the mind of the …
Continue Reading about Thoughts on Evolution, Creation, and Adam and Eve
Okay, it's finally time for me to begin tackling this question. The problem is that I don't really know the answers so this is going to be a general musing with some of my own hunches. Therefore, I'm really interested to know your opinions on it too. Perhaps together, we can figure some of this …
Continue Reading about Why do non-Christians go to church? (postponed)
This last Fall, we took a survey in our church asking people to rank our church from "ick" to "wow" on various categories. This is a non-scientific study, of course, but the vast majority of our church attendees gave our church a "wow" on our preaching and mid to high marks on everything else. Also, …
Yesterday, I started a series of posts on why people go to church. Studies show us that large portions of the population claim to have a strong relationship with Jesus yet studies also show that large portions of the population rarely or never go to church. Today, I continue that discussion. …
This morning, my wife heard on the Christian radio station that a recent study reports 67% of Americans claim to have a personal relationship with Jesus that affects their daily lives. However, just last weekend, I heard a statistic that currently 17% of Americans go to church. I think that means …
What's the issue? The question of Biblical "inerrancy" has been raised a number of times particularly in the past 50 years or so. Before answering this question, I think it's important to simply highlight what the real issue is. …
Continue Reading about 3. Where do you stand on the inerrancy of Scripture and why?
This post is part of a series on explaining the whole bible. Exile The kingdom of Judah ended with the destruction of Jerusalem and the deportation of the brightest young people to Babylon. However, Jeremiah had predicted that the exile would last only 70 years, and Isaiah even predicted a king …
James 1:2-3 gives the standard Christian answer to this question: Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance... Of course, knowing the Sunday school answer and being okay with it are two …
For a couple weeks now, I have been dissatisfied with the modern worship songs we've been singing in our church. The music is great, the beats are fun, the lyrics are powerful, but honestly, they aren't very deep. In particular, the majority of modern rock-style worship music puts God in the second …
This morning, I was reading the first few chapters of Numbers. I have to be honest with you, and I am somewhat ashamed to admit, I wasn't expecting much. Aside from a few interesting (and confusing) stories, the book of Numbers is filled with, you guessed it, numbers! The first few chapters are all …
Continue Reading about Organizational Insights from Numbers 2
UPDATE: This film has been posted to YouTube if you want to watch it. link Tonight, our life group skipped our normal routine to watch a documentary purportedly on the relationship between homosexuality and religion called For the Bible Tells Me So However, the documentary was actually on the …
Continue Reading about “for the Bible tells me so” — documentary on homosexuality
This past week, I gained an insight into some communication skills that should be standard fare for all couples. For many years, I have been teaching some very basic principles on communication, but this past week I learned a little more and thought it was time to put it together into the following …
