Messengers
As disciples of Jesus, we are his messengers, and our mission is to communicate the belief that we have in Christ. Service based on performance, pride, and self-image can be manipulative and harmful, but service based on who we are in Christ allows us to rejoice in what God does in our lives and in the lives of others.
Witness
In Isaiah, we are reminded of the promise of God’s everlasting covenant for those who truly encounter him. When you allow him to change your heart, you receive a new mission: to give testimony and witness to others. This is a sign of conversion in your life, and God gives us the power and motivation to share the message of his unconditional love and promise of new life.
Blueprint for Revival, Introduction 1
Revivals have spanned nations and denominations. Distorted views of revival, such as heterodoxy, dead orthodoxy and emotionalism, become obstacles to an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. When a church has an assurance of God’s love, reflects a theological and intellectual balance, exemplifies understanding, participates in anointed worship, exhibits compassion, and reaches out through evangelism, it can become spiritually dynamic and inspire revival.
Blueprint for Revival, Introduction 2
Five key components – vibrant worship, doctrinal teaching, theological depth, devoted fellowship, and evangelism — can keep a church balanced and healthy, ready for revival. Accompanied by prayer, these characteristics sustain the church as a living body, rather than just an organization.
Why Plant Churches?
A crucial strategy for dynamic church renewal and growth in a city is through church planting. Following in the footsteps of Paul and Titus, church planting is mandated in the Bible according to the Great Commission. It fosters a kingdom mindset as well as concern and commitment to renew, not displace, existing churches. As neighborhoods change, a planted church can effectively respond to new communities and new generations of people.
Christianity and the Creative Age
Tim Keller addresses questions facing those in professions, including whether creative work is becoming more valued by society; whether the creative class gets too much credit; and what current changes in creative jobs means for Christian artists. As Christians, we should embrace those like us and unlike us in order to humble ourselves, to push ourselves towards developing our gifts, and to build one another up.
Writing from a Christian Worldview
You can’t make sense from facts without using them to create a story, and you can’t make sense of a story without putting it in context of a macro-level worldview. All the stories we tell as Christians fall into the gospel worldview of creational good, fallenness, and redemption.
The Song of Creation
Genesis tells the why of creation, not the how. It’s a poem, a song about a historical event. The Christian doctrine of creation is that this world is good and the purpose of nature is to be a community. We can take joy in cultivating and enjoying the physical world.
Money; The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Only in Christianity is the world intentionally created by God. The world is not created by accident and then ruled by God. Therefore, all of God’s creation — including wealth — should be enjoyed. However, if our worldly wealth becomes our identity, we will remain in unfulfilling jobs; we will overwork to gain financial prestige; and we may become emotionally bipolar. This kind of wealth-based identity causes us to dangerously seal off work life from personal life.
What is (Christian) Cultural Renewal?
hristians commonly think we can change the culture around us through evangelism or through great individuals. However, culture is primarily changed through communities. Dualism, the separation of the personal and public spheres — the way we often separate our faith from other areas of our lives — prevents us from having a stronger impact upon culture.
Made for Stewardship
We are called to work because God also worked – He created the world! We can work for God by using our gifts for others. We also need rest from our work, which comes from our security in God through Christ.
Generosity in Scarcity
Habbakuk tells us how to deal with evil times and maintain joy when everything is going wrong. There are three principles to giving: give sacrificially, joyfully, and graciously. We must recognize that everything is a gift from God, so we’re giving back from his gifts. Habbakuk points to Jesus as the true source of our strength.
Radical Generosity
When we realize that everything that we have is a gift from God, it becomes possible for us to give in a radical way. As we realize God’s grace, we also understand that our earthly possessions are expendable. We are also fed physically and spiritually when we engage in this kind of Christ-like generosity.
The Gospel and Your Wealth
Money will always reveal what you truly worship. As God’s money managers, we are called to share the money he has provided to us with those who do not have as much. However, money exercises great power over us and we are often oblivious to this power. If you feel unable to part with your wealth, meditate upon the radical generosity of Christ on the cross and he will become the treasure of your heart.
Treasure vs. Money
Greed is a particularly dangerous sin because it hides in our hearts while binding us to our materialistic desires. Money has tremendous power over us: for some it is our significance, for others it is our security. We can break free from our slavery to money by treasuring Jesus, who was willing to pay the ultimate price so that we may be his ultimate treasure.
Blessed are the Poor
One of the clearest commands Jesus gives us in the Gospels is to give to the poor. Jesus became poor for us, and we must also love the poor with radical generosity.
Blueprint for Revival: Social Concern
The parable of the Good Samaritan demonstrates a biblical model of social work and compassion. The Samaritan meets the physical, financial, emotional, and material needs of the man in his path. This parable reminds us that real faith is expressed in deeds as well as sentiments and words.
Justice
The biblical concept of justice emphasizes restoring the wholeness of the world. However, we contribute to the breakdown of the society when we put ourselves first. In Isaiah, we are shown some of the ways that God identifies with the poor, calls us to change our self-centered hearts, and works towards restoring the shalom of the world.
The Cost of Mission
The reality of meeting God changes you into a person of mission: one who is willing to leave what is comfortable in order to love and serve others. As you take risks to bless others, you will find yourself receiving not only the gifts and resources necessary to do so, but the greatest blessing of all – His presence in your life.
Real Friendship and the Pleading Priest
Abraham, in his intercessory prayer for Sodom, engages in the first priestly action of the Bible. His intercession implies a corporate responsibility in which righteousness as well as sin can be ascribed to a people, and his actions point to Christ, the great priest, and our role as the royal priesthood
The Steward Leader: A Biblical Model for Leadership
The Bible offers a model of leadership based on service, viewing ourselves as servants of Jesus Christ and stewards of what we have been given. Through unconditional relationships with God and our brothers in Christ, we learn how to love and minister effectively, and how to wisely utilize our gifts.