Question of the day

This is paraphrased from a message by C. J. Mahaney, given at the recent Resolved Conference: Are you prone to identify evidences of grace in your church family more than criticisms of your church? What are those evidences of God’s grace in your church? It is worth taking a few minutes today to write down […]

Questions about spiritual gifts

In most Bible-believing and Bible-teaching churches, we are well-acquainted with the Biblical teaching on spiritual gifts (e.g., 1 Corinthians 12). We understand that there are various gifts and various results from those gifts (vv. 4-5) and that God is sovereign over both the giving of the gifts and the effectiveness of the gifts (vv. 6-7). […]

Principles of building

For the third time in five years, today we are receiving new flooring in our kitchen and hallways. The first time, we laid new wood floors over some old, tired laminate. We were thrilled with the way it turned out and loved it. Then one Saturday night at 9:00 I went to get a drink […]

Sunday Leftovers — Resources for Elders

For the last four weeks, we’ve been studying the role of elders in the church and the qualifications of elders. In addition to the commentaries I read weekly, here are some resources I’ve found helpful in my study: Alexander Strauch, Biblical Eldership: This is an excellent book; it is extensive and detailed in its analysis […]

Sunday Leftovers — elder qualifications

The New Testament provides a clear picture of the kinds of men who are to lead the church as elders. Both Titus (1:5-9) and Timothy (3:1-7) are given numerous qualifications for these men, as the following chart summarizes (download the PDF): There is close overlap in topics between the two lists, though not many repeated […]

Sunday Leftovers — How an Elder Leads

Elders are the gift of God to the church to lead the church to spiritual maturity (Eph. 4:11-13ff). But what do elders do to lead the church? The New Testament provides many functions for the elder. Here are some of the basics. He teaches. This is emphasized in Titus 1:9; 1 Tim. 3:2; 4:6, 11, […]

Sunday Leftovers — you and your ministry

What we do in ministry, we do so that God is glorified, and not us (1 Pt. 4:11). Everything we do in service of Him, we do so that He is glorified. Now the term, “God is glorified” is used commonly but is often not carefully defined. By working for God’s glory, we mean two […]

Church is not that complicated

There are many ideas about how to do ministry (I receive new ideas on postcards and flyers virtually everyday in my mailbox and inbox). There have always been many diverse and divergent ideas about the priorities of ministry. The temptation is often to take a pragmatic approach to “make the church grow.” Now having dancing […]

John Stott tribute

This morning, John R. W. Stott was taken into the presence of the Lord. I have repeatedly used and been helped by his work, The Cross of Christ. I did not always agree with his conclusions (I am puzzled by his belief in annihilationism, for instance), but I repeatedly found him to be an insightful […]

Grab bag

This week I counted the number of open tabs in my web browser. It was over 40. Time for a Grab Bag, me thinks. Many more churches are being proactive in providing biblical counseling for their people and the community (check out the GBCM webpage and the GBC biblical counselor training page as examples). Capitol […]

Reflections on “the wedding”

I did not get up earlier than usual on Friday morning to watch the Royal Wedding. I had a full schedule for the day and wanted to prepare myself for it with a full night of sleep. And further, I was uninterested in the whole hoopla in general (though certain female teen-aged members of my […]

The clueless church

Paul Levy, over at the Reformation 21 blog, has noticed the various “niche” churches and has decided, after searching Scripture, to start his own church and ministry: I am about to start a new ministry of which I will be President called ‘Clueless church’ or ‘4:27’. The strap line is ”he does not know how”. […]

Grab Bag

Believers live in a place that is not their home. It is often all-to-clear that this is not our permanent abode. And yet there are also so many manifestations of God’s grace and kindness even while living amidst fallenness: Wrestling is to Iowa as football is to Texas. So when high school student Joel Northrup […]

Grab Bag

A few things I’ve spotted around the Internet recently: The end of the year means the inevitable “year in review” lists. Here is a list of “Top 10 Theology and Church Stories” (with many supporting links) from Colin Hansen. Accordance recounts a brief (and recent) history of the study Bible. [Accordance is my Bible study […]

Reflections on Twenty Years of Ministry: Faithful Co-Laborers

This is the sixth of a series of reflections of gratitude on 20 years of ministry at GBC. We are part of a lineage that reaches back to Christ and reaches ahead into eternity. But we also are part of each other’s stories. We share life together. So in our church body there are two […]