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I was raised in a home where regular, frequent attendance of church services was the norm. I was in church by the time I was just a week old, and I attended faithfully from that point forward. It was just a…

It’s been a while since we had a Sunday Sermon post. Today, we have Rick McKinley sharing a vision for how the church makes the city and displays the gospel through its participation in being and building the…

In 1525, one of the first people to translate the Bible into English, William Tyndale, translated the word ekklesia as congregation. However, in 1611 the translators of the King James Version of the Bible chose to completely drop the Greek meaning of ekklesia and to…

Nothing like a little satire to point out the flaws of something. This clever little video uses the genius of satire to expose the questionable assumptions behind children’s church and/or Sunday school. Perhaps the cons of age-segregated worship outweigh…

People are no more lost now than they have ever been, and Jesus is no less Lord now than He will ever be. We dare not cower in our churches as though God has lost anything. The only decision handed…

And this is the problem with Christianity in this country. Not just inside our church buildings, but everywhere. It often has no edge, no depth. No sense of its own ancient and epic history. There is no sacredness to…

“I have never yet known the Spirit of God to work where the Lord’s people were divided.” Like D.L. Moody, neither have I. Instead, most of us probably have seen too often how disunity hinders the Spirit’s work in the church and damages…

There is a growing population of people who are “done with church.” They are appropriately known as “The Dones.” They are done with the trappings that come along with “doing church” or “playing church” these days. They are NOT…

“Whoever welcomes this little child in My name welcomes Me” (Luke 9:48). “Welcome” is a biblical word rich with a rich meaning. It is more than a smile and a handshake. It is more than what happens during the “welcome and…

In more than a decade of research, almost every article I’ve come across addressing sex offenders in church communities reveals pastors and leaders focusing exclusively on the sex offenders—the theological grounds for their presence, the church’s obligation to care…

According to Scripture, it is the parent’s responsibility to raise up their children and teach them about God, but our modern way of doing church relinquishes these things to 45 minutes on Sunday morning and Wednesday night, in a…

Pastors are under a lot of pressure. In most churches today, we employ one person (or a small team) to do the job of many. The Bible tells us that God “ordained some to be apostles, some to be…

Caesar Kalinowski offers practical tips on how the ideas of “organic” and “organized” apply to life in a community of Christians. These terms are often spoken of as binary opposites, but Caesar points out how both are needed for…

When Rome commandeered Christianity, it affixed to the faith something it was never meant to be marked by: Power. That power, and the privilege, and ease, and comfort, and influence that came with it, at once became synonymous with the Christian faith. A movement that began…

So, in the New Testament sense of the word, “heresy” was the creation of a division, a sect, a faction, or a party. For this reason, the author of Acts uses the word to describe the different sects within…

The great heresy of the church today is that we think we’re in the entertainment business. A.W. Tozer believed this to be true back in the 1950s and 60s. Church members “want to be entertained while they are edified.”…

Sometimes the world can feel overwhelming, especially among the younger people of my generation. There’s a really deep need to find our place in it. But it’s often the case that the institutions that used to broker connections—institutions like…

The dominant narrative at the moment is that, while church attendance is down across the board, men in particular are staying home on Sunday mornings. And while there has been much hand-wringing over this reality, there has, to my knowledge,…

In the video above, Brian Fikkert points out how Western notions of success are flawed and lead to a failure to promote human flourishing. In complement to the video, Joshua Butler explains in the article below that we in…

The idea of churchmanship was to be wholly unattractive. I was not in the least anticlerical, but I was deeply antiecclesiastical. It was, to begin with, a kind of collective; a wearisome “get-together” affair. I couldn’t yet see how…

According to the New Testament, there is no clergy/laity distinction. Instead, all Christians are kleros (clergy) and all Christians are laos(laity). The clergy/laity dichotomy is a tragic fault line that runs throughout the history of Christendom. The New Testament doesn’t…

Pastor Challenge 2015 — Step aside and let the living Jesus lead at least 1 Sunday morning church meeting all by Himself. Here’s how:  Begin by reading 1 Corinthians 14:26 to the congregation from a microphone on the floor…

There are many Christians who have stopped going to church. They have not given up on God, have not renounced their faith, have not denied Christ, and have not become pagans. They simply are no longer going to church.…

There comes a point in the journey of every Christian where cynicism starts to look inviting. Even mature. But there’s a difference between looking for ways to make the Church better and looking for things to complain about. Mature,…

Hey Church, you may think you know why people are leaving you, but I’m not sure you do. You think it’s because “the culture” is so lost, so perverse, so beyond help that they are all walking away. You believe that they’ve…

Jeff Vanderstelt articulates why people are disillusioned and disappointed with church these…

A very popular phrase I hear is that we are the church. So I would encourage you, if you are dissatisfied with an aspect of your church (not including faulty doctrine, of course) rather than trying to find the…

Like many in my generation, I’ve done some moving around and with each new move I’ve had to begin the difficult process of searching for a new church home. If you’re like most, a day is coming when you…

Community is core to the Christian faith. From the very beginning, fellowship and life together have characterized Christ’s disciples. But the centrality of Christian community to the church doesn’t mean that it’s easy—nor does it mean it always looks…

As followers of Jesus seek God’s renewal of the neighborhoods they inhabit, as they begin to discern how to be the church together in everyday life, it’s inevitable that myths will arise. Here are five myths I’ve already discovered…

In honor of Throwback Thursday, we are recalling a previous post that features thoughts from Frank Viola about why people are exiting institutional church structures to find The Church. A growing number of people are leaving the institutional church…

Neil Cole explains what happens when we view the Church as a living organism more than an…

During the 20th century, there have been two spiritual currents that have occurred outside the organized church in the West. The first current occurred in the late 60s and early 70s. That movement came to a peak in 1972…

Grace happened on God’s terms. Grace did not happen because of  spectacular accomplishments and achievements the Pharisee paraded before God. Grace did not happen because of  the Pharisee’s virtues. And grace did not happen because  prayer, a religious ceremony…

I think we all know what I mean by a church service. There was a lot of time devoted to singing and then the obligatory public speaking (preaching), etc. etc. All of this undoubtedly organized by a clearly planned…

What if church, the gathering of God’s people in a particular local, was supposed to be a temporary thing, a seasonal ecosystem that cycled through life and death, or a snapshot of ecclesiastical, historical, and geographical history. I know,…

Frank Viola writes and speaks extensively on the topic of church. He has compiled a lot of data on the topic and had a lot of experience interacting with people about it. Based on my experience and observation over the…

There was an early revival in China in the 1920s. Those early Christians had a vision to bring the gospel “back” from the ends of the earth (China) to Israel. They dedicated themselves to the “back to Jerusalem” movement. They felt…

The fact is undeniable: for megachurches, cars are essential. It’s probably more accurate to say that cars created the megachurch. Without them, these churches simply couldn’t exist in the form they do today. The abundance of choices and the absence…

I resigned as a staff pastor and went on a rather long journey. I was searching for the type of genuine spiritual community found in the Bible: one without unnecessary church buildings, institutional hierarchy or imaginary titles. After all, the church Paul…