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A Unified America, Gullible Skeptics, & God Wants You to Get More Sleep

03/02/2017 0 Comment

Your weekly installment of what we’ve been reading (and watching) around the web.

Articles of the Week

Caring for Refugees, J.D. Greear. Over the past week, the news has been dominated by the question of how our country—and the church—should best care for refugees. Pastor J.D.’s response points to several other useful resources, and shows what we, at the Summit, are doing to minister to refugees.

Don’t Be a Gullible Skeptic, Trevin Wax. Too many people in our current society are what Trevin c..

Planting a Church? Plant a Teaching Hospital

03/02/2017 0 Comment

That phrase – “teaching hospital” – jumped out at me during a conversation with Geoff Surratt, then Pastor of Church Planting at Saddleback Church. As we discussed the vision of Grace Hills Church over lunch, Geoff helped me put words to the burden I kept feeling to plant more than a church – to plant a multiplying movement of reproducing churches.

I believe in church planting. I believe that the local church is supposed to multiply itself, birthing daughter churches, and that this is not only ..

We Won’t Know Until We Get to Heaven: A Snapshot of By The Hand Ministry

02/02/2017 0 Comment

Faith-based after-school program takes kids from inner-city Chicago by the hand.

It was bitterly cold, typical for Chicago during the December holidays. It was also Christmas in the City, when By The Hand takes kids into downtown Chicago to see the Christmas lights, shop at the flagship Old Navy store, and eat at a nearby McDonald’s.

As the children bustled into the store, I stood on the first floor, far enough from the entrance to escape the cold snap of swirling wind with each turn of the re..

One of the Most Haunting Paragraphs I Have Read

02/02/2017 0 Comment

Since Frederick Douglass is in the news these days—with President Trump calling him “an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is getting recognized more and more, I notice”—I thought I’d share a haunting paragraph from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, written in 1845, sixteen years before the Civil War began.

It is a beautiful expression of the horrific hypocrisy of some antebellum churches:

I . . . hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, crad..

A La Carte (February 2)

02/02/2017 0 Comment

Today’s Kindle deals include a couple of family devotional books, as well as one by John MacArthur.

Did Old Testament Men Treat Their Wives Like Property?
Amy Hall: “Every once in a while, I’ll hear someone throw out the idea that men in the Old Testament treated their wives like property as if it’s an obvious, accepted fact. I’m not convinced it’s true.”

To Be A Diaper Changer
Nick Batzig engages an important idea: “One doesn’t have to look far these days to see how ready the better part of y..

What President Trump could mean for mainline Christianity

02/02/2017 0 Comment

What President Trump could mean for mainline Christianity

By
Erik Parker
ChristianWeek Columnist
|
February 1, 2017

Since that fateful early morning announcement on November 9 that Donald Trump had been elected president, I have felt like we have been living in the opening scenes of one of those movies. You know, the ones where oblivious and unassuming people are living in a world that is about to be completely changed for the worse, but no one believes it. You know..

What Should You Look For In A Church?

01/02/2017 0 Comment

What characteristics should you look for in a biblically solid church?
Expositional PreachingIf you are at a church that does not preach from the Word of God, then you are at nothing more than a social gathering like a country club, because if they are not preaching the Word, they are not feeding the flock, and they are being disobedient to Christ’s commands to feed His sheep (John 21:17). The Apostle Paul tells Timothy to “preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, ..

5 Ways to Engage with News Media

01/02/2017 0 Comment

Of all things to read, why read the news?

C. S. Lewis asked this question in both An Experiment in Criticism and Surprised by Joy. He described the person who reads only the news as “the most unliterary reader of all,” one step below the reader of the “lowest kinds of fiction.” As for news writers, Lewis deemed them unreliable because they tend to focus on stories of “vulgarity and sensationalism,” and rarely put facts in their proper context.

Lewis is onto something here. As a journalist, I h..

Why the search for a church that meets your needs is futile

01/02/2017 0 Comment

Why the search for a church that meets your needs is futile

By
Carey Nieuwhof
ChristianWeek Columnist
|
January 31, 2017

Any church leader who’s been in ministry for more than a few months has heard different variations of it:

I’m looking for a church that meets my needs.

What are you going to do to better meet my needs?

I’m leaving this church to find one that better suits my needs.

The longer a Christian has been in church, the more likely it is that they’ve u..

Preaching as a Means of Survival

31/01/2017 0 Comment

Article January 31, 2017

Preaching as a Means of Survival

Preaching, doctrinally robust and exegetically rich preaching, is the only mechanism for the church’s survival in a secular age.

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This post is the last of three in a series on Preaching in a Secular Age.

With our cultural analysis behind us, I would like to consider the role of preaching in a secular age, particularly preaching as a survival strategy for the church. Many today are reconsidering the role and ..