Exclusivity
Author: Rustin Rawlings, Kaleo Church
Personally, what amazes me most about Jesus (second only to his death, burial, and resurrection for our sins) is how counter-cultural he was and still is. If ever asked why Jesus were executed, beyond the theology, an answer as simple as those two words would suffice. Even more amazingly, 2,000 years later he is as untamable and causes as much controversy as ever.
Jesus' most recent counter-cultural moment hit me as I was looking over the results of a study done by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life of over 35,000 adults who were surveyed about their faith and eternal life. Most notably, the study found that 57 percent of evangelical church attendees said that many religions could lead to eternal life. Of that 57 percent, 82 percent were what the study labeled “mainline Protestants." (In Scripture, it is made clear that Jesus is the only way to attain salvation and is our only hope for Heaven. Acts 4:12, John 14:6).
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Category: Culture
Getting Back "On Mission"
Author: Tim Birdwell, Student/DTS
"Missional Church" is definitely a buzz-phrase that is all over the place these days. The fact that we need to label a church, "missional", has always been a little odd to me. I mean, shouldn't all churches be missional in their very nature? Shouldn't a church, at it's very core, desire to engage their culture and community with the gospel as a missionary would in a foreign country? Isn't that what the church is commanded to do in the great commission in Matthew 28:19?
As believers, we are not called to isolation, but to be missional people who are actively going out and meeting people right where they are with the gospel. We have seen this throughout history: God sends Abraham on a mission to leave his country and his people and go to the land that God would show him (Gen. 12:1), God sends Moses on a mission to rescue an enslaved people and lead them to freedom (Exodus 3:8-10), God sends Jesus on a mission to earth to reconcile all things to Himself through the cross (Colossians 1:20). And now... God is sending us on a mission to engage communities, cities, people groups, and even nations with the gospel (Matt. 28:19 Mark 6:7 Luke 10:1 John 20:21 Acts 1:8). If we resist this call and continue to treat the church like a "members only" country club - demanding that people clean up their act, pay their dues, and come to our building... God will continue His mission without us. So the question is... Will we get on board or will we miss out?
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Category: Church
The Formula for Self-Improvement
Author: Rustin Rawlings, Kaleo Church
The Formula for Self-Improvement is easy and you don't have to read every self-help book to figure it out. I sure haven't read them all, as a matter of fact, I haven't read any. Why waste my time? Based on interviews with the authors and book reviews, you get a clear picture of what they're going to say. When it comes to books like these, the trick is not what you say but how you say it.
This all started by my stumbling upon a FOX News article titled "Is Oprah Starting Her Own Cult?" Given my deep rooted dislike for Oprah Winfrey (the subject for a future post) plus my fascination with cults, I was immediately intrigued. Come to find out, though, it's only another scheme to dupe people out of their dough by dressing up the old formula for self-improvement.
For this newest scheme, Winfrey is the pusher and an author named Eckhart Tolle is the costume designer, dressing up the self-improvement formula in an outfit that would make any effeminate, pretentious, New York fashion nut drool so much that it would become the latest trend.
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Category: Culture
