Simply ChurchHere are two apparently contradictory statements: God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. (Acts 17:24) We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one (I John 5:19) I once asked the Lord how… Read More
Photo credit: Stef Lewandowski (Creative Commons) When we started a church in the low income housing projects, the first thing we did was to prepare the ground in prayer. In Matthew 12, Jesus gives an illustration in his defense against an attack by the Pharisees. They accused him of casting out demons by the power… Read More
Back in the early 90's, Jim Mellon was on the eldership team of a megachurch with a $1 million a year budget. One Christmas, their church didn't have the funds to help a member's family where both husband and wife had lost their jobs. As he and his wife, Cathy, discussed it, they realized that… Read More
There have been some fascinating and insightful responses to this series of posts on having a social impact. Here are some of them. Gary said: Jesus wasn't going around thinking "How can I have social impact in this town today?" Being about His Father's business included that aspect as well. My point was that if… Read More
Here is how Jesus characterized his own ministry in Luke 4: 17-21: And the book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. And He opened the book and found the place where it was written, "THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS UPON ME, BECAUSE HE ANOINTED ME TO PREACH THE GOSPEL TO THE POOR. HE HAS SENT… Read More
Wolfgang Simson has done a great video on the Kingdom of God. It’s well worth watching, especially in the light of thinking through having a social impact.
What does it mean to demonstrate the Kingdom? In the last post I gave three examples of networks of organic/house churches (and one slightly more traditional church) that are changing lives, making disciples, but more than that, they are having a social impact. They are changing their communities, so much so that their cities are… Read More
The Lord has been challenging me over the last couple of weeks. It started a couple of weeks ago when I went to Exponential–not so much the conference itself (which was good) but through some of the stories I heard. I went straight from there to a conference run by the San Antionio Baptist Association where Tony… Read More