Category: ecclesiology
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Weigh in: Formal church membership – yea or nay?
Are you an “official” member of your local church? Why or why not? I am curious to know what your experience has been. Researcher and teacher Ed Stetzer offers three reasons here why believers should go through a formal membership process with their local church. Pastor Matt Chandler makes his case here why he believes…
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Practicing Privilege In The Local Church
My friend B. had been a pastor for years before he stepped into the leadership of a parachurch ministry. During his work week, he worked and prayed with dozens of pastors and church leaders interested in transforming their congregations and communities. But on Sundays, he and his wife were invisible members of their own home…
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Farewelling Well
Many Evangelicals were shocked to hear that one of their own, broadcaster Hank Hanegraff, host of The Bible Answer Man syndicated radio program, had joined the Orthodox Church. Hanegraff’s faith shift is another account of a former Evangelical moving to a different stream of the Church. When former Evangelical Theological Society president Francis Beckwith joined…
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The Relationship Between Bloggers And The Local Church
I watched a cyclone of furor erupt online last week in response to Tish Harrison Warren’s CT Women piece entitled Who’s In Charge of the Christian Blogosphere? in which she called for greater accountability between Christian bloggers and their local churches and/or denominations. Though she was writing to a female audience, the message of her post…
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What Do Your Kids Know About Communion?
I taught Sunday School for years. The experience taught me a few things. One essential lesson was to avoid any craft project involving glitter. I found glitter in my clothes, hair, and Bible for days after creating sparkly Noah’s Ark rainbows with my class of first-and second-graders. A word to the wise: no matter how…
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Touch Not God’s Anointed
Those who’ve attended a spiritually-abusive church have more than likely heard some version of a warning drawn from the pages of Scripture about not challenging a leader’s authority: “Touch not God’s anointed.” There are a couple of big problems with this kind of talk. First, in an authoritarian church system, challenging a leader’s authority might…