Discipleship | TLG Christian News

Gloom or Anticipation? – Mark 16:2

24/12/2016 0 Comment

Key PassageVery early on that day, the first day of the week, the women were going to the tomb. It was very early after sunrise.
— Mark 16:2 ERV (Read Full Text)
Key ThoughtThis verse is filled with anticipation for those of us who live on this side of Jesus' resurrection. However, try to imagine what it was like for those women who had supported Jesus with their funds, had honored him with their discipleship, and were broken-hearted because of his death! Their walk to the tomb was an act o..

Miscarriage, Grief, and Tears of Joy in Target

23/12/2016 0 Comment

You never know who you’re going to meet at Target.

Since I’m usually out with my extroverted kids, we make many friends on ordinary errands. One day while browsing the dollar section, three kids in tow, I met a woman anxiously awaiting news from her daughter, who was sitting in an ultrasound room about to hear her baby’s heartbeat for the first time. It was no ordinary appointment since this was not her daughter’s first ultrasound. It was her third, and all she was hoping for was a good, steady..

When Church Discipline Goes Really Public

20/12/2016 0 Comment

This fall, a man named Jason Thomas posted to Facebook a year-old letter of discipline from his church, Watermark, in Dallas, Texas.

“We are left with no other option but to remove you from our body and treat you as we would anyone who is living out of fellowship with God,” reads the letter to Thomas, who is in a same-sex relationship. “This means that you are no longer a member of our body at Watermark.”

Thomas addressed the church in his Facebook post: “I spent years in your church battling ..

Editor’s Choice: The Best of 2016

20/12/2016 0 Comment

You know how you feel when sifting through old memorabilia or clothing? These photos and ticket stubs and trophies and T-shirts stir up cherished memories of past conquests and hopeful dreams. You give thanks to God for answered prayers, wonder why you ever thought some things were so important, and remember those moments that shaped everything else to follow.

That’s a little like sifting through more than 1,100 resources planned, produced, and published by our editorial staff in 2016. Article..

Reza Aslan: A Review (by Becky Castle Miller)

19/12/2016 0 Comment

Becky is the Discipleship Director at an international church in the Netherlands and blogs about emotionally healthy discipleship at medium.com/wholehearted. She conveys her five kids around town on bikes and studies theology in the middle of the night via the live streaming program at Northern Seminary.
The choices of Bible teachers can build or destroy a learner’s faith. One victim of poor teaching is Reza Aslan, author of #1 New York Times Bestseller Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Naz..

What Happens when Churches Read Together

19/12/2016 0 Comment

We need to read the Bible, certainly—but also history, literature, current events, and everything else under the sun.

One of the defining characteristics of the evangelical tradition is the authority we find in Scripture and the value we place on reading it. Although we may vary widely in our convictions about the role of Scripture in God’s reconciling work in creation and about how the Bible should be read and interpreted in the church, we take Scripture seriously.

We have inherited the studi..

Making room for Jesus

19/12/2016 0 Comment

Making room for Jesus
Moving Christ from the margins to the center of faith

By
Jeff K. Clarke
Senior Editor and Staff Writer
|
December 18, 2016

I've been reflecting again lately on the need for our faith in Christ to be the central and defining theme in our lives. So very often, faith can be very easily pushed to the margins. When this happens, faith becomes part of life’s periphery, rather than occupying the heart of our existence.

We all have a tenden..

7 Steps from Student to Missionary

18/12/2016 0 Comment

You’ve come to Christ through a campus ministry. You’re excited about your faith. You’ve read Radical or Don’t Waste Your Life or Let the Nations Be Glad. After some discipleship, you feel a called to serve long-term in a culture not your own. What should you do next?

My primary aim in this article is to offer guidance to college students considering missions, and to those discipling them. Yet these things could be applied to anyone desiring to serve in cross-cultural ministry.

Here are seven ..

The Cosmic Importance of Children’s Sunday School

17/12/2016 0 Comment

A friend of mine, an amazingly effective Bible teacher, once told me that he was turned down by his church to teach children’s Sunday school. The reason, he said, wasn’t that the church didn’t think he was gifted to teach but that he was too gifted. They wanted him to teach adult discipleship classes, so they didn’t want to “waste” him on children’s Sunday school.

That statement was one of the saddest and most self-destructive things I’ve ever heard from a church.

How Sunday School Transformed..

7 Tips for Effective Follow Up

15/12/2016 0 Comment

This past weekend—Saturday and Sunday evening—was our annual Christmas musical at Lancaster Baptist Church. The amount of work put into these projections is staggering—not just in the thousands of hours given by the choir, orchestra, and drama teams, but also the thousands of invitations given out all across our community in the weeks preceding the musical.

I think our church often enters this weekend a little exhausted. Yet, the exhaustion gives way to joy for all of us as we see people respon..