“Ultimately each church will be evaluated by only one thing. Its disciples. Your church is only as good as its disciples. It does not matter how good your praise, preaching, programs or property are: If your disciples are passive, needy, consumerist, and not moving in the direction of...
Listen up Sheep: The...
posted by Dean Thomas
by Neil Cole: I found this brilliant passage in an article by the late F.F. Bruce recalling a powerful teaching from E.H. Broadbent. The article by Bruce was addressing the things that went wrong with the Jerusalem church, one of which was legalism. So many of us look to the Jerusalem Church...
Contextualize, conte...
posted by Dean Thomas
Contextualize, contextualize, contextualize. I hear this word a lot. I hear it from the emerging Church movement. I hear it from the evangelical pragmatics, (that’s what Robert Webber calls them in his book ‘Young Evangelicals’). I hear it from training colleges… What...
Do I Like God?
posted by Dean Thomas
Another story which somehow had been sitting in the draft section for way too long. Can I tell you two stories, both of which occurred to me last week. I was driving home with my 4 year old daughter and my 3 year old son, when they both unexpectedly started singing this song; ‘You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when clouds are grey’. I grinned from ear to ear! I was sitting in a prayer meeting last week and I heard the story again about Abraham receiving a visit from the Lord and my Senior Pastor made this statement ‘do you like God?’ You know I have never been asked that before. I have been...
Do You Hear It?
posted by Dean Thomas
The noise is getting louder each day! The boisterous opponents of the Church are becoming increasingly vocal: ‘All the Church wants is money!’ ‘Fanatics like them cause wars!’ ‘Bunch of hypocrites!’ ‘They don’t know how to have fun! ‘The...
Play of the Day
posted by Dean Thomas
So many of us are under-estimated in life! Have you ever felt that people just can’t see what you know is inside you?… or at least what you hope is there? I had this experience this week, someone I spend time with thinks I’m a drop kick. Now I know at times I act like a drop kick, but not to the degree that person thinks I am. I remember as a young kid standing in line on the edge of the soccer field as two of my primary school mates picked the day’s lunch time soccer teams. Without fail, I was the last to be picked for soccer (not so with rugby, but soccer was a sad sad story for me). I never understood the rules,...