Trending Topics | August
Last Sunday, I had the privilege to preach on the Doctrine of Ecclesiology- the study of the church. Below are a few great blog post I have read in the last couple of weeks as I have been studying this topic. I hope they continue to grow your love for Christ’s church.
Churchless Christians?
It is important for Christians to be members of a local church because the New Testament apostles can’t conceive of anything called a Christian that’s not connected to Christ’s body. Sometimes people spiritualize that reality and only talk about the universal church, but everywhere the idea of the universal church appears in the New Testament, there’s a connection to a visible, local church. Keep reading…
Doesn’t teaching doctrine kill a church?
A new study just unearthed a remarkable finding: conservative doctrine grows churches.
This isn’t necessarily what we’ve heard in recent years. Whether it’s the music, the attractive facility, or the feeling of community, we need something to keep the church growing—something besides biblical teaching. How surprising, then, that David Millard Haskell, Kevin N. Flatt, and Stephanie Burgoyne have found that doctrine grows churches. In their peer-reviewed scholarly article for the Review of Religious Research, a prestigious journal, the trio present findings among mainstream Canadian churches showing that—contra the stereotypes—doctrinally conservative churches that reach out aggressively often grow. Churches that soften biblical teachings and de-emphasize evangelism often shrink.
What might these findings mean for the future of evangelicalism? Here are four quick takeaways. Keep reading…
Every Christian needs the church
When you become a disciple of Jesus, you are not the only disciple in this world. There are others whom Jesus has also called, and we all belong to one another. Christianity is not a religion for those who would like to walk alone. We may need to make an individual decision to believe the gospel, but once we do, it is no longer “I who live but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 3:20). Christ has a visible body, and he calls it his “church.”
Christians were never meant to live apart from other Christians—we were made to be part of the same community. Here are several reasons why every Christian needs the local church. Keep reading...