Church Planting And Why Basic Training Is Very Important

An assessment of the Hispanic Church Planting Report reveals the necessity of training.

Brendan Jones

Earlier this year, the Send Institute at the Billy Graham Center commissioned a study on Hispanic Church Planting. It was a joint sponsored project between 12 denominations with an advisory team of 8 Hispanic church planting leaders. Members of the Church Planting Leadership Fellowship provided lists of new Hispanic church works, and LifeWay Research fielded the study.

Send Institute Director Daniel Yang provided an overview of what church planting organizations can learn from the survey. Then, Robert Guerrero shared on what we can learn about grit and faith. Today, Ramón Osorio, Ethnic Relations Director at the North American Mission Board, talks about why basic training is critical for church planters.


According to the Hispanic Church Planting Report, church planting basic training plays a major role when it comes to the number of new commitments to Jesus Christ in Hispanic congregations during the first four years of existence.

Typically, church plants grow when members from other churches transfer membership or when believers move to the area and are looking for a church.

While there is nothing inherently wrong with those methods of church growth, the goal of church planting is to expand the Kingdom of God through new believers who will also present the gospel to those who do not have a relationship with Christ.

Planters who received basic training in church planting prior to launching a new congregation saw more new commitments to Jesus than those who did not. Clearly, we have a case for investing time in church planters before they start working on the field.

One can argue that a church planter’s training should continue even after they have launched the church. From the survey, we see that regardless of the type and duration of the instruction, basic training positively impacts the success rate of church planters and the expansion of the kingdom, equipping planters to better understand essential factors in the church planting process.

This knowledge allows new churches to start healthier and be more evangelistic.

Any kind of training that church planters receive needs to establish the biblical foundations for the mission and the Christian character of the planter. Besides those key elements, basic training should address four main factors: calling, motivation, team development and leadership, and community exegesis and engagement.

First, when planters arrive at the basic training meeting, they have usually gone through a selection process, but it is always important to make sure they have a clear calling from God to church planting and to the area where they will serve.

Even though over 80 percent of church plants persist, two out of ten do not. One of the reasons church plants fail is a leader to whom God never asked to start a congregation in that specific place. God calls people to all sorts of ministry, but the type of challenges facing church planters require the planter and his family to be certain of God’s calling. This is the case for 76 percent of the Hispanic planters in the survey.

Second, planters should know their motivation for starting a new church before they move into the field.

Church planting is difficult, and at times the only reason to continue is the certainty of the calling and the conviction of pure motivation. Basic training should lead planters to discover and discard from their hearts wrong motivations like the lack of other ministry opportunities, the desire to ‘show them how it should be done,’ church splits, or other motivations similar to these.

Instead, in basic training, sending organizations must call planters to find their motivation in their love for God, their love for the lost, and their commitment to Christ’s mission of making disciples.

Third, basic training ought to equip church planters in how to form and lead multiplying teams with a missional DNA.

In the New Testament, we learned that the Apostle Paul planted churches in teams. From the survey, we learned that 62 percent of the planters started the work alone. With that, it is encouraging to see that 80 percent of pastors delegate key leadership roles to volunteers, and 75 percent of pastors provide leadership training to their church members.

This team-building approach becomes more important with bi-vocational or co-vocational planters because they need to share responsibilities in order to comply with family, work, and ministry demands. Another advantage of training planters in team leadership is that the congregation starts with a multiplying culture that will facilitate planting new churches in the short term.

Fourth, a successful church plant connects the right church model with the right outreach activities with the right community.

A poorly planned service with ESL classes as a major outreach in a highly educated niche of Hispanics will probably not get enough traction. In basic training, church planters should learn how to study the geography and demography of the area that God is calling them. This becomes more important when 69 percent of attendees live within twenty minutes of the gathering place.

This study of the community begins with collecting demographic data, learning the history of the city and region, and identifying the influential leaders. This information is usually available online or at the city’s office. A point to notice here is that only 41 percent of planters pursue meetings and interviews with area leaders to understand the community. Those who train planters ought to emphasize the importance of connecting with the power brokers in the community they serve.

But the exegesis of the community goes beyond online data.

Planters must know how to understand the culture of the community in general and of the different groups that compose it.

This is true even for first-generation Hispanic pastors because Hispanics in the United States come from different countries, diverse religious, social, educational, and economic backgrounds and, in addition, have adopted values and forms from the host nation and from other people in their immediate context.

With everything they learn from the community, planters will establish the vision, decide the model, and plan the strategy for the new church.

The fact that only 30 percent of the respondents indicated they received training that incorporated dynamics of the Latino/Hispanic context shows how much work we need to do in this area. The exegesis of the people where the church will start is vital, especially when only 35 percent of church plants selected the location because of those they are trying to reach. The rest of the church plants chose their place of gathering based on availability or convenience.

Finally, those in charge of training planters should emphasize that serving the community is not a tool to get people to know you or your church or one that you can use in the infant years of the congregation and abandon once they gather a good group of attendees.

Serving the community is a way of showing the love of God to our neighbors, regardless of their decision about the church or about Christ. The new church plant needs to think in terms of how to bless her community and motivate and teach the members to get involved. It is interesting to notice how 75 percent of adults serve in the church and only 25 percent serve in the community.

If we want to see church start-ups that grow through new commitments to Jesus Christ, mother churches, denominations, or sending networks must provide church planters with basic church planting training before they start planting. To be effective, that training needs to lead the planters towards self-awareness with regards to calling and motivation, equip the planter in working as a team catalyst and guide the planter in how to understand and connect with the community where the new church will flourish.


Written by RAMÓN OSORIO and was first published on Christianity Today

Shock Missionary Move Announced Francis Chan

Moving to Asia to be a missionary

Pastor and author Francis Chan delivers remarks as part of the Q Commons event, broadcast internationally on Thursday, Oct. 24, 2019. | Courtesy of Q Ideas/Parker Young

“I’m going to come under this because I’m going to stand before Him one day and I’m going to be judged by Him, and I don’t want to be judged as a coward,” Chan concluded. “That’s the greatest joy you’re going to find in life, is when you understand you have a holy, holy judge for a Father who is rich in mercy and full of love for you and is knocking on the door.” 

Former megachurch pastor Francis Chan has announced he will be moving to Asia in order to become a full-time missionary.

Chan delivered the shocking news during a sermon at Azusa Pacific University on Wednesday, to the great surprise of those in attendance.

“A few months ago, we were in Myanmar and my wife and I and kids, we were just with a translator going from hut to hut in these slums, trying to explain to people who Jesus is,” he explained, according to the Christian Post. “These people had never even heard of Him. And the eagerness, the way they listened, seeing people get baptized — it was just like, wow, what do we do on a normal day that even compares to this?”

Chan went on to describe the moment that he and his wife knew they had to go. “As we got on the plane home, I was like, ‘Honey, I think it’s time to move,’” Francis explained, noting that he felt he had “been fishing in the same pond my whole life and now there’s like thousands of other fishermen at the same pond, and our lines are getting tangled and everyone’s fighting over stupid things.”

The pastor continued: “What if I heard of a lake that’s like a five-mile hike away, and no one’s fishing it. And they’re saying, ‘Man, the fish are biting — just throw a hook in there and they’ll go for it!’ Man, I’ll make that five-mile hike if I love fishing.”



Continuing with the same analogy, Chan went on to note that there were many things keeping him in the United States. “I’ll tell you what would keep me at the pond is. I built a house on the pond, and all my friends have houses on the pond. And we don’t even fish that much, we just go out, and we hang out, and we talk, and we play, and I don’t want to leave my friends.”


“But if my calling is to go fish, and there’s no one fishing over there, why wouldn’t I go?”

Chan, the best-selling author of “Crazy Love,” hit the headlines back in 2010 after announcing that he would be resigning from his position as senior pastor of Cornerstone Church — a 6,000 member congregation in California which he himself founded.

Speaking to the Relevant Podcast in September 2018, Chan said he “got tired of hearing [his] own voice,” and felt as if the congregation was relying on him too much instead of seeking God for themselves.

Chan and his family are set to move to Asia in February of next year.

The Kingdom of God

Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Matthew 6:10 

The kingdom of God is a central theme of the Gospels as well as other New Testament books. It is the message that John the Baptist declared in preparation for Jesus (Mt 3:2Mk 1:14-15), what Jesus taught the disciples in the 40 days between his resurrection and ascension (Ac 1:3), and what Paul is recorded as proclaiming at the conclusion of the book of Acts (Ac 28:31).

A kingdom is a place where someone has a rule or governance. The same is true of the kingdom of God. Jesus said in his prayer: “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Mt 6:10). The kingdom of God is where God’s will is carried out.

The Old Testament theme of Yahweh’s rule and reign is another way of describing the kingdom of God. The psalmist speaks of Yahweh’s kingdom as an everlasting realm that endures throughout all generations (Ps 145:13). Isaiah declares that Yahweh will save (Isa 33:22) and speaks of a time when God will be worshiped in all the earth (Isa 2).

During the first century AD, many Jews believed that the Messiah would initiate this reign, which is based on passages like Malachi 3:1-5; Zechariah 9:9-10; Isaiah 9:1-7; and Isaiah 52:13-53:12. They also believed that the kingdom would be established through political or military means (compare Mt 26:51-53; Lk 22:47-53) - but Jesus ushered in the kingdom in a radically unexpected way. He announced that the kingdom had come upon those whom he freed from demons (Mt 12:28); he taught that the kingdom should be received like a child (Mk 10:15) and explained that it belongs to the impoverished (Lk 6:20). Jesus declared the kingdom of God as a present reality that could be experienced by those he taught and to whom he ministered.

Jesus’ teaching also assumed the kingdom was a future reality. While his disciples expected the kingdom to appear immediately, Jesus changed their expectations by telling them a parable about a ruler who had to leave before he could return to his kingdom (Lk 19:11-27). He described what good and faithful servants could do in the meantime. Paul spoke of the kingdom as something that could be inherited (1 Co 6:9-10) and that does not perish (1 Co 15:50). These examples testify to the kingdom of God as a future reality.

To borrow the phrase made popular by George Eldon Ladd, the kingdom of God is “already/not yet.” God’s kingdom has a dual dimension. Jesus initiated the kingdom of earth, and wherever God’s will is carried out, the kingdom is a reality. The kingdom, however, had not been fully manifested in Jesus’ day - nor has it in ours. We do not yet live in a world where God’s will is a complete reality. We feel the tension of experiencing God’s kingdom in our lives and communities before it is fully realized. We still see unbelief, brokenness, and sin, telling us God’s will is not yet fully expressed.

Many believers neglect to focus on the kingdom as a present reality. Their concern centers on the future reality of getting to heaven - but this focus can easily sever the relationship between the Christian life and the life here and now. When Jesus prayed, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Mt 6:10), he asked that God would bring the experience of heaven to earth. Through Jesus, God’s reign, rule, and power are available to us today, not just in the distant future. The present reality of the kingdom of God should prompt us to examine our lives and ask what areas we have not yet surrendered to God’s rule.

On a larger level, the notion of God’s kingdom should lead us to examine both our neighborhoods and the global community and ask what lies outside of God’s desires. Where are people not being treated with the dignity and honor they deserve as God’s image-bearers?

As we anticipate the time when all things will be made fully new (Rev. 21:4-5), we can actively participate in the kingdom of God now (Mt 4:17). As we surrender to the reign of God, we will begin to experience the kingdom of God now - as God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven (Mt 6:10).

What questions does the present reality of God’s kingdom prompt you to ask about your community?





Cred: Bible Connection News

We Were Not Alone

We Were Not Alone

Her nerves are stretched to where she feels she can stand this no more. She slams on the brakes of the car in the parking lot and sits staring at nothing as the motor idles. Her mind seems to have gone on hold. No thoughts, no feelings, no nothing. It’s been too much.

Finally, shaking her head as though to awaken from a deep sleep, she turns the ignition off and takes a long agonizingly deep breath and steps out of the car.

Walking into the building she walks to the elevator and rises to the third floor. Slowly she opens a door and enters into a plush waiting room with a fake palm tree in one corner, enticing comfortable chairs, and carpet so thick she feels she could curl up on it like a cosy warm bed.

She signs the sheet on the clipboard and takes a seat. Glancing at the stack of magazines she ignores a Man sitting across the room. Then her name is called.

For thirty minutes she sits with her hands folded tightly in her lap and tells her counsellor about a horrifying memory of her childhood. Tears stream, she wants to scream but takes a deep breath and fights to maintain control.

He’s sympathetic and asks several questions. She replies as best she can. One question arises that throws her into a tizzy. “Where was Jesus when this happened?”

She bolts out of the chair and paces.

The Doctor waits.

Unbeknownst to her, the Man has entered the room.

He waits.

She stomps across the room and with fists tightly clenched at her sides, she stares out the window at the parking lot below. Tears stream down her face. She fights to subdue her anger.

“Where was Jesus?” the Doctor asks again and she spins around facing him. “I don’t know!” she almost screams.

She runs her hands through her hair in a frantic, hopeless and frustrated gesture, and plops down on the couch. She closes her eyes trying to fight the flood of tears that want to rush down her cheeks, and before the Doctor can say anything a vision appears before her.

The vision is so clear of Jesus on His knees with tears streaming down His face and begging His Father to stop what is happening to this child. His pain is so evident and His agony is even greater than the child’s that He’s praying for, her!

On the couch, she is shaking violently and sobbing. Now she knows the answer.


Luke 22:42 – “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”

Even Jesus asked His Father to not let this happen, and yet He suffered greatly, even unto death. Children do not have the physical or emotional ability to stop the abuse that is being inflicted upon them; be it emotional, physical, or sexual. They cry out in many instances to deaf ears and blind eyes begging for it to stop.

The hurt goes so deep it becomes anger and many times that anger is directed straight at God. “Why didn’t You stop it!?” “He did nothing!” is how many deals with those issues. As in the story above, the great I Am was there. He can’t reach down and stop the torment being inflicted, but He is praying fervently for the child. He knows our suffering. He knows our tears, His heart is being ripped out at seeing what we are going through, then and now. He is with us through it all.

We can blame God, or we can reach out to Him to help us overcome all that was done. If the suffering is continuing through your thoughts and memories, reach out to Christ. Invite Him into your suffering. He’s waiting to take you in His arms and heal your heart.

Reflecting on the Names of Jesus

Long before there was a Baby in a manger, the prophet Isaiah depicted Him with some powerfully descriptive words. In Isaiah 9:6, we read that Jesus was to be called:

Wonderful 

Over time, we’ve watered down this word to just be a synonym for “good.” We use it to describe everything from tacos to tires to television shows. But something that is truly wonderful inspires wonder. It stops you in your tracks and makes you consider just how astonishing it is. It fringes on the borderline of disbelief. A God who loves so deeply that He would become one of us? That’s wonderful. Why do we not stop more often to wonder, to worship, to wait in amazement?

Counsellor

That’s not just a take-it-or-leave-it advice giver. He’s a confidant and friend. He guides us and walks beside us in our darkest of times. He is trustworthy, and He knows the answer. When we don’t know what to do, He does—and always has. His counsel is steadfast and wise and pure. It is wholeheartedly in our best interest. Why do we not immediately go to Him with every decision, every concern, every thought—to learn His counsel?

Mighty God

How do you wrap the Creator of the universe in swaddling clothes? How do you fit Omnipotence itself into a manger? Jesus is the Almighty God, with the power to do anything—even to fit His deity into a tiny human embryo. Even to conquer death and the grave. Even to redeem a race that is too far gone. Why do we not plug into that power daily?

Everlasting Father

We should address Him as “Sir.” We should call Him “Your Highness.” We should refer to Him as “Your Honor.” But He invites us to call Him “Father.” He is a loving and caring and providing Dad who knows us intimately as sons and daughters—and loves us anyway. He has been since the beginning, and He shall always be, a Daddy who rejoices in a relationship with His kids. Why do we not spend every spare moment in the presence of our kind and loving Father?

Prince of Peace 

Our lives are fraught with conflict and combat. With competition and contention and collision. Even our deepest and most intimate relationships have their times of tension and strife. Our lives are filled with howling winds and raging seas. But we are in the presence of the One who can proclaim ‘Peace, be still” and put all of our anxieties at rest. He has not only the power to calm the storm, but the patience to walk through the storm with us. Why do we not give rule and reign to the Prince of Peace in the circumstances of our lives?

I hope you are finding time this season to reflect on the indescribable gift we have been given in Jesus Christ! God bless you.



By
Arnie Cole
BackToTheBible

Our Victory in Christ

What do we think of when we hear the word victory? For the serviceman, it means winning a war, often with bloodshed as a trophy. For the addict, it means conquering the desire to hurt themselves physically, morally, and spiritually. For the policeman, it means that a crime has been solved and the criminal is punished. For the fireman, it means that the flames are extinguished and lives are saved.

But, as noble and important as these things are, to those of us who are convicted of our sins and desire peace with God, victory is when we surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and death, hell, and the grave hold no place for us for eternity.

We are made free from the grip of the devil and have an ever-present Friend who will guide and protect us from the wiles of the enemy. Romans 10: 9-10 says: “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”(KJV) We can ask Him to save, cleanse, and forgive us by the blood He shed on our behalf on the cross.


We can sing with the redeemed the old hymn:

“Oh Victory in Jesus, my Savior forever, He sought me and bought me with His redeeming blood. He loved me ere I knew Him, and all my love is due Him. He plunged me to victory, beneath the cleansing flood.” (Public Domain)

Victory for the child of God is based upon the fact of salvation found only in Christ.

-Jesus is promised victory over death, hell, and the grave (Isaiah 53:12)

-Through Jesus, we overcome the world and all its sins (John 16:33)

-Jesus will deliver the kingdom to the Father at the end of time, with His work of redemption concluded (1 Corinthians 15:24)

-Jesus has victory over the events of the world and will bring all things under His rule (Revelation 5:5)

-He will be victorious over the evil of the world and usher in a time of peace for all time (Isaiah 9:6-7; 11:1-10).


When we see the terrible things happening on the earth and within the souls of people, we can get discouraged and somewhat frightened for our lives. We see that the clock is ticking and the forces of Antichrist are soon coming upon this world, enveloping all who take his mark into a future of absolute hell on earth and eternal hell forever.

This is why, against all the odds, we must continue to be faithful and effective witnesses for Jesus. Our loved one’s lives are in the balance. God’s calendar does not need to be corrected or hurried. Even in this seemingly chaotic world, everything is going according to His plan, even if we can’t see the “big picture”.

Remember, we are victorious in Christ and we have become one of His children by trusting Him for salvation. He will have the last word and nothing will stop Him from accomplishing His triumphal mission. Remember that when you feel overwhelmed or discouraged. It’s going to be all right. We are on the winning side! Amen!




By Dr Donald Whitchard

Not of the world, though in the world

My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. -John 17:15-16

How are God’s people supposed to engage the broader culture around them? There is much confusion about the topic of cultural engagement. Whereas some Christians choose to ignore culture, others rail against it. And others are seduced by it.

The Bible calls us to engage the broader society while retaining a distinctive Christian identity and purpose. We need to think deeply and clearly about what it means to engage secular, pluralistic culture, especially in our work.

Many Christians are confused about how and to what extent they should engage the world. For this reason, discussing cultural engagement requires humility and submission to God. We need to realize that if we do not think carefully about how to engage the culture, we may succumb to the ways of the culture that are not pleasing to God when we decide to engage it. Pastor and theologian Tim Keller explain:

“The reality is that if the church does not think much about culture - about what parts are good, bad, or indifferent according to the Bible - its members will begin to uncritically imbibe the values of the culture. They will become assimilated to culture, despite intentions to the contrary. Culture is complex, subtle, and inescapable…. And if we are not deliberately thinking about our culture, we will simply be conformed to it without ever knowing it is happening.”

Keller then reviews four different models of cultural engagement:

-Being relevant to the culture to live winsomely (joyfully)
-Transforming culture into the decrees of Christ when possible
-Living counter-culturally to shine the light of Christ
-Recognizing that there are two kingdoms- the kingdom of the world and the kingdom of God

According to Keller, each of these four Christian approaches to cultural engagement can help us discern how to engage the world in a fruitful and faithful way. There is not one uniform approach that should dictate how a Christian engages the world. Rather, there is a need for significant spiritual discernment in the difficult balance of being in the world, but not of it.

Every day we are faced with decisions about how we should engage the world in our work. For example, many of us have to make decisions about which clients to take on, whose lead to follow and what causes to stand for. And our decision-making inevitably entails all sorts of trade-offs, compromises and ambiguity. We often find ourselves living and working in gray areas, questioning how intentional or effective we are with respect to engaging the world distinctly as Christian.

How do we know where we can and should be flexible for the sake of a greater good? How far is too far before we lose our distinctiveness as Christians? The answers to questions like these will need to be considered case by case, with the wisdom of Scripture and other Christians. But the four approaches provided by Keller above are a good starting point. We must realize, with humility, that different situations require different approaches. Nevertheless, as Christ’s disciples we are called to engage the world so that we might win some to Christ and see his kingdom advance on earth.

How can you engage culture distinctly as a Christian in your day-to-day life?




Cred: Bible Connection News

Why Should I Go to Church?

Prayer Team

When you decide to follow Jesus, you are not following a religion, but beginning a personal relationship with God through Christ. However, your faith isn’t just a personal thing that has no implications for connection with other people.


Scripture gives six reasons why the Church—the worldwide body of Christians—is important in your faith journey.

1. Church Was God’s Idea

God wanted to have a people for himself: “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God” (Revelation 21:3). Jesus, too, spoke of the church. He made it clear that establishing the church was one of his primary missions and that, despite opposition, nothing would stop it: “….on this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell will not overcome it” (Matthew 16:18).

2. You’re Already Part of Church

In God’s family, no one is an only child. You are part of a huge multinational, multicultural, multiethnic enterprise. The metaphor often used in Scripture is that of a body. This speaks of how utterly important each member is, including you. Each Christian needs the other parts of the body—those that are totally unlike each other—in order to see the full picture of who God is and to serve him effectively in this world. Check out I Corinthians 12 and Romans 12 for more.

3. You Have Spiritual Gifts to Offer

All believers are given spiritual gifts. These gifts are intended to be used to build other believers up. Again, Romans 12 and I Corinthians 12 have something to say about gifts, but also look at 1 Corinthians 14 and I Peter 4. The church should be a place to discover and develop your spiritual gifts. It can enable you to exercise your spiritual gifts through serving in different areas of mission and ministry in and through the church.

4. It Teaches You about Community

The Bible is filled with verses like “bear one another’s burdens” and “love one another” (read John 13:34, Romans 12:16, Galatians 5:13 and Colossians 3:13 for just a few). And the church is where you can learn to live out all these “one another” verses. You were never intended to do life alone, but rather in the company of brothers and sisters. Your transformation in Christ will start showing up in your relationships with others.

5. Church Gives You Role Models

As you interact with people across generational lines, you’ll learn what healthy, biblically-rooted relationships look like. You can find models of vitalized marriages. You can receive kindness from an older woman who fills the void your own mom was never able to fill. You can reprogram your concept of “father” (which is important for how to relate to God, your heavenly Father) when you have healthy relationships with men of integrity and purity.

6. Church is Ultimately about God

Last but not least, the primary reason the church gathers is to give God the praise he deserves. Unfortunately, that’s not always how it goes: In the same way people rate restaurants for service, presentation, and taste, they sometimes come to church with a “consumer mentality.” People wind up appraising the preacher or the band, either positively or negatively. Nonetheless, you and the rest of the church are called to “Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; bring an offering and come before him. Worship the LORD in the splendor of his holiness” (1 Chronicles 16:29).


What about you? If you’ve started going to church, have you seen any of these six reasons become a reality in your life yet?


by Mindy Meier

Original Source Link

What it mean to be forgiven

FORGIVEN? WHAT DOES IT MEAN 

Nearly every religion in the world is based on the idea that forgiveness must be earned. The one exception is Christianity. The heart of the Christian message is that sin must be punished, and there’s no way people can earn their own forgiveness. However, Jesus came to earth, lived the perfect life we could not live and died the death we deserved to die so that he could pay the penalty for our sins. So you are forgiven. Period. When you know you are forgiven, your past can stay in the past and your future can be totally different because you’ve been set free from guilt and shame over what you’ve done.

Think you’re such a world-class sinner that not even almighty God can rescue you? Don’t flatter yourself. Nothing you could ever do is more significant than what Jesus has already done for you on the cross. When Jesus declared, “It is finished” (John 19:30), he meant that the full price for sin had been paid-no matter what you’ve done. He’ll forgive you if you just ask him to(see 1 John 1:9-10).

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.

And once you’ve confessed to him, any accusations you keep hearing won’t be from him-because he won’t bring up your past sin once it’s been forgiven.(see Psalm 103:12).

as far as the east is from the west,
    so far has he removed our transgressions from us




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Expressions of God's goodness

EXPRESSIONS OF GOD’S GOODNESS-LOVE & GRACE 

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. -2 Corinthians 13:14 NIV

The God of biblical revelation is no impersonal absolute. The living God is the God of love and grace. But what do such terms mean? It is in Scripture that big terms such as “love” and “grace” are embodied in stories as well as in direct affirmations. In particular it is Jesus Christ and his story that provides the lens through which to view what the big biblical ideas are about.

What does divine love look like? 

Love is manifested in action, as the story of Jesus exemplifies. Jesus embodies the divine love in his coming and his cross. As John 3:16 famously affirms, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son.” Paul elaborates, “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). John adds to this testimony: “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him” (1 John 4:9). As in the OT, in the NT practical consequences follow. Jesus exhibits a new paradigm for loving others (John 13:1-7). This love serves. This love shows hospitality. This love washes the feet of others. We are to love like that. Love is the new commandment (John 13:34). It is new because it is informed by the story of Christ.

This newness carries over into the Christian household. As in the OT, the NT presents no mere duty-ethic. This love is an answering love to the divine love as experienced in Christ: “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). This love is not manufactured by us; it is the fruit of the Spirit of Christ living within us (Gal 5:22). This love cannot possibly claim to love God while hating other believers (1 John 4:20). Some things - like knowledge and prophecy - fade away (1 Cor 13:8). But love remains (1 Cor 13:13). It never fades.

What does grace look like? 

Divine grace is undeserved favor of a superior bestowed on an inferior. The Israelites experienced God’s grace when he delivered them from Egyptian oppression. God proclaims to Moses on Mount Sinai, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God” (Exodus 34:6). The exodus event also shows that when God acts graciously, it means salvation for some (Israel) but often judgement for others (Egypt and its gods as in Exodus 12:12-13). In Jesus the divine grace comes into view in the most personal of ways, as John points out in his prologue (John 1:17). By coming among humankind and dying on the cross, Jesus Christ did what he was not obliged to do, and he did so not for his own sake but for ours, undeserving though we are.

The nature of this undeserved favor removes any grounds for our boasting before God about our meritorious works. As Paul tells the Ephesians, “It is be grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast” (Eph 2:8-9).

Even though the accent on grace in Scripture focuses repeatedly on God or Christ as the gracious one, those who have received such grace must be gracious themselves. This graciousness must show itself especially in Christian generosity (2 Cor 8:9) and speech: “Let your conversation be always full of grace” (Col 4:6). Unsurprisingly such gracious speech characterized Jesus Himself (Luke 4:22).

Grace and love occur together in the Bible, and both express his goodness. We deserve neither God’s love nor his grace. Church leader Irenaeus rightly said in the second century, “[Jesus] became what we are that we might become what he is.” Such is grace. Such is love.

How does the grace and love you receive from Jesus Christ affect the way you treat others?





Cred: Bible Connection News


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Ministry through Business

 Ministry and Sharing Jesus through Business

To an average person, the word ministry refers exclusively to the Pastors and Preachers of the gospel; it does not apply to anyone who does not fall directly or indirectly under these two individual categories. Well, that may seem like a popular opinion held by the majority, but it does not in any way make it a fact. Biblically, ministry as a word and the engaging of ministry as an act does to apply to Preachers or Pastors alone. Instead, it refers to every Christian who desires to carry out God's commandment through their lives and in whatever they do.

The earlier that Christians understand that in whatever area or field of life they find themselves, that God expects them to do the work of ministry, affect people’s lives positively and bring glory and honour to His name, the better and easier it will be to affect the cooperate world for God. Be it in business, politics, government appointment or multinational companies.

For Christians who go into business, beyond the sales and the profit made from the business, one thing must always be on their mind, and that is transforming nations through business. When Christians develop this kind of mindset, even in the marketplace, it helps a great deal in spreading the gospel of the Kingdom of God to all the corners of the universe. As Matthew 28:19 said, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” The truth that must be told is that the Preachers alone within the walls of the church cannot fulfil this task, there is, therefore, need for every hand especially businessmen and women to be on deck in winning souls in the business world and other fields of life.

Changing Lives beyond the Church Walls

A fact that cannot be denied is that every Christian (Preacher or not) have been called by calling into a full-time life of Christian service. This service extends beyond our various church walls and mission fields. It goes right into the cooperate world where we live and make daily communications with people.

In fact, a majority of Christians are not working in the church as Preachers or Missionaries. They are working in common spheres of life such as the civil service business, healthcare, academics, skilled craftsmen and the rest. This so means that the greater tasks of changing the lives of people as Gods representatives lie not within the four walls of any church but outside it which is in the cooperate society.

When Jesus spoke in Matthew 9:37 that “…the harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few”, h was simply implying that the Pastors and church workers along are not enough to get the job done. This is because a large number of person out there in the cooperate world who are yet to experience a change and accept Christ as their saviour. One factor that must also be noted is that a lot of these unsaved or unchanged lives will not come any closer to the church building. Not to talk of being spoken to by the Pastor, so this is leaving them practically to the mercies of those Christians in the common spheres of life who understand their ministerial assignment even outside the church and are faithfully keeping to it.

Effectively Impacting People through Business

Having established that business is supposed to be a ministry for Christians; an avenue to spread the kingdom of God to the entire nation, another truth that needs to be established from now on is that the aim of ministry in business is not just to show up every morning in your marketplace.

A business with a bible and trying to convince people to believe in God, the aim is to establish changing lives business, a business that through its operation and reputation, the lives of people around is transformed and imparted on positively. If that is the aim, it, therefore, means that every Christian in business should understand and appreciate the fact that business and soul winning can be inter-related in so many ways.

To adequately fulfil these ministry aims of changing lives and effectively impacting the lives of people, this ministry business needs to, first of all, be instituted using basic foundations. As well as procedures for establishing an excellent and profitable business, but then after that, there are key points that must be considered seriously which are of uttermost importance. They exhibit great value to the business of which integrity, stewardship responsibilities, fairness, and uprightness are practised.

other points worth noting, which enables a business to have a transforming impact on people are;
1. Serving people rather than just business for profit
2. God-centered business, not self-centred business
3. Business as Christ’s ambassador


You can see also Business Ethics and Christian Faith

Run with the three Ps

The Three Ps: Passion, Purpose and Perspective

Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.” ?-Hebrews 12:1-3

Hebrews 12 develops the theme of endurance. The first three verses teach us that the key to persistence is passion.

All the men and women of faith in Hebrews 11 “made it” because they felt passionate about their cause. The writer compares our lives to a race and tries to convince us that we must run with endurance if we plan to finish well.

The text also suggests that if the key to persistence is passion, then the key to passion is purpose. We must run with purpose, not aimlessly.

And the key to purpose? Perspective. The writer of Hebrews admonishes us to consider three things that will help us to finish well:
1. Consider them (12:1) ?Since a great cloud of witnesses has gone before us, we must get serious about finishing well.
2. Consider ourselves (12:1) ?It is now our turn to run the race and watch for pitfalls. We must lay aside every encumbrance that would prevent us from finishing well.
3. Consider Jesus (12:2-3) ?Jesus ran His own race and endured hardship by fixing his eyes on the rewards; we must follow His example.





Cred: Bible Connection News

Iran Cracks Down on Christian Converts

Iran Cracks Down on Christian Converts, Sentences Believers to 10-Years in Prison

Authorities in Iran are increasingly targeting Christian converts with arrests and imprisonments, according to the New York-based Center for Human Rights In Iran.

"In less than two months, since June 2017, Judge Mashallah Ahmadzadeh of Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran has issued long prison sentences to at least 11 Christian converts and the former leader of the Assyrian Pentecostal Church in Iran," CHRI said in a report.

"Christians are recognized as an official religious minority in Iran's Constitution, but the state continues to persecute members of the faith, especially converts," said CHRI's executive director Hadi Ghaemi. "The state must respect its own laws and international obligations and allow Christians and all religious minorities full freedom of worship."

On July 6, the judge sentenced four Protestant Christian converts to 10 years in prison each "in a trial completely lacking due process," the group said, quoting Mansour Borji, the advocacy director of a London-based group, Article 18, which defends Christians in Iran.

The four converts - Yusif Farhadov, Eldar Gurbanov and Bahram Nasibov from Baku in the Republic of Azerbaijan, and Iranian national Nasser Navard Goltapeh - were arrested at a reception hosted by their Christian friends in Andisheh last June.

Prosecutors couldn't produce any evidence to show the converts had acted against national security, Borji said. Yet they were convicted of being "Zionist Christians" who "acted against national security with the intention of overthrowing the state in a soft war."

Iran Court Confirms 5-Year Prison Sentence for Christian Convert
Two weeks earlier, the same judge had given Christian converts Yousef Nadarkhani, Mohammadreza Omidi, Yasser Mossayebzadeh and Saheb Fadaie 10-year prison sentences for propagating house churches and promoting "Zionist Christianity."

The lawyers of these four Christians are preparing to appeal the verdict.

A ruling is still overdue for a decision on an appeal by Omidi, Mossayebzadeh and Fadaie against a sentence of 80 lashes each for drinking wine during a communion service.

The Christians were arrested May 13 during a series of raids by security service agents on Christian homes in Rasht.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was recently reelected largely due to his promises to improve civil and political rights in Iran, Ghaemi said. "Yet we're seeing an increasing number of arrests of religious minorities, as well as activists, by the Intelligence Ministry, which is supposed to operate under him. … Rouhani must use all his authority to reign in the ministry and ensure it stops its trampling of citizens' rights."

The U.K.-based Christian Solidarity Worldwide has also criticized the government of Iran for persecuting converts.

"We are deeply disappointed by these excessive sentences, which are based on spurious charges and are clearly part of an intensified campaign of judicial harassment aimed at intimidating members of minority faiths," CSW's Chief Executive Mervyn Thomas said in a statement.

Thomas added: "We reiterate that the national security charges leveled in all of these cases amount to the criminalization of the Christian community for exercising the right to freedom of religion or belief, and that this is occurring despite the fact that the Iranian constitution recognizes Christianity. We urge members of the international community to extend the sanctions still in place against Iranian individuals to include members of the judiciary who are implicated in ongoing and severe harassment and persecution of religious minority communities."

Christians face severe persecution in the Shia Muslim country, including regular crackdowns and jail sentences due to their faith.

House churches are not permitted, and Christian converts are beaten and arrested for gathering to worship.






Cred: Christian Post

Chinese Provinces Seek to Eradicate Sunday Schools

Chinese Provinces Seek to Eradicate Sunday Schools, Christian Summer Camps

HANGZHOU, Zhejiang (China Aid) - As China clamps down on the freedoms of its state-run churches, officials in the country’s eastern Zhejiang province have recently issued orders aimed at closing Sunday schools and keeping children from Christian events over the summer months.

“For a long time, teenagers and students have not been allowed to participate in religious activities,” a local Christian surnamed Zhang said, referencing a Chinese law that seeks to control religion among children by forbidding them from attending religious events.

“However, the Three-Self Churches and house churches would usually hold summer camps during the summer vacation. The government then emphasized … that even the Sunday schools would be closed down. The government’s major intention is to shut down the Sunday schools.This crackdown comes in the wake of a recent order from the Henan Provincial Three-Self Patriotic Committee and the Henan Provincial China Christian Council arbitrarily forbidding churches from organizing summer camps for minors and students, citing high temperatures as a possible health risk.

A Christian from Henan said the government’s behavior is atypical, since such camps have been allowed in previous summers, and the government would originally only interfere if they received a tip-off about the event.

Likewise, Zhang argued, “The government is trying to control ideology. During [Chinese Presidents] Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao’s time, the government was tolerant toward preaching and missionary work. After Xi Jinping came into power, the government’s grip on religion has strengthened.”

In order to further their control, the Nanyang Municipal Religious Affairs Bureau, located in Henan, ordered all 20,000 registered house church members in the province to join the Three-Self Church. Many Chinese Christians disagree with the Three-Self Church based on theological discrepancies and rampant government censorship, making the forced merging of these two branches a violation of religious freedom.

Additionally, Henan has recently begun making Three-Self Churches seek approval for all large-scale religious activities.

ChinaAid reports abuses, such as those suffered by churches in Zhejiang and Henan, in order to stand in solidarity with persecuted Christians and promote religious freedom, human rights, and rule of law.







Cred: China Aid

Presidential Access: Conservative Evangelicals Revel in Their ‘Unprecedented’ Access to the President

 Conservative Evangelicals Access to the President

Squeezed among two dozen other evangelical supporters of the president, Southern Baptist Richard Land added his hand to the others reaching to pray for President Trump.

The July 10 Oval Office prayer session, which has been panned and praised, is just one example of the access Trump and his key aides have given to conservative Christian leaders - from an hourslong May dinner in the Blue Room to an all-day meeting earlier this month in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next door.

“This is unlike anything we’ve experienced in our career or ministry - unprecedented access, unprecedented solicitation of opinions and viewpoints,” said Land, president of Southern Evangelical Seminary in Matthews, N.C.,  and a veteran at the intersection of religion and politics.

But while religious conservatives are getting such intimate contact with the chief executive that they can literally “lay hands” on him, other faith leaders are being kept at arm’s length.

Steven Martin, the communications director for the National Council of Churches, a group that includes mainline Protestant, Orthodox and historically black denominations, declared: “I’d absolutely say we’re frozen out.”

Manjit Singh, a co-founder of the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, called interaction with the White House at a “very limited level to practically non-existent.”

Minhaj Hassan, a spokesman for Islamic Relief USA, said: “In the first six months of the Trump presidency, there hasn’t been any direct communication with the White House.”

Randall Balmer, chair of Dartmouth College’s religion department, calls the political shift in the White House “a whole different center of gravity religiously” from the recent past.

In the 1960s, “representatives of the National Council of Churches could pretty much knock on the door almost any time and be granted access and now you just don’t have that any longer,” he said.

Melissa Rogers, who was director of the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships under President Obama, said it was “very common” for various offices to hold briefings for a diverse range of U.S. religious communities.

“That certainly included evangelicals, Catholics, mainline Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs and others,” said Rogers, whose former position still hasn’t been filled by the Trump administration.

In the 1980s, President Reagan welcomed conservative Christian leaders Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell Sr. to the White House. But political scientist Paul Kengor called Reagan “a Protestant with a healthy respect for non-Protestant faiths, especially Catholic and Jewish faiths.” Reagan had relationships with Pope John Paul II, Mother Teresa and Cardinal Terence Cooke and “carried in his jacket a list of Soviet Jews held in prison or denied the right to emigrate.”

Today, some groups outside the fold of conservative Christianity report a limited amount of communication with the 6-month-old Trump administration. They describe connections with Cabinet-level offices, such as Hindus with the Justice Department and Baha’is with the State Department.

Officials of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops “frequently send letters to relevant departments and agencies on vital issues of the day,” said Judy Keane, spokeswoman for the bishops’ conference. Some of those letters differed with the administration on capping the number of refugees and withdrawing from the Paris climate change agreement.

Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, said leaders of the Reform movement have met with administration officials and voiced their concerns about issues such as the two-state solution and religious pluralism in Israel.

“Despite profound disagreements on issues including immigrant justice, access to health care, voting rights, and more, members of the administration have heard our concerns with respect,” he said. “Every administration is different, but we have always found a way to make the voices of Reform Judaism heard.”

There have been a few examples of interfaith approaches by the Trump White House, such as when Vice President Mike Pence praised the contributions of Sikhs in a June speech in his home state of Indiana. Days later, he traveled to Colorado to celebratethe 40th anniversary of conservative Christian organization Focus on the Family.

And turbans, habits and an array of other religious attire were seen at the National Day of Prayer ceremony and the National Prayer Service at Washington National Cathedral on the day after the inauguration.

But two very different recent administrations - those of Presidents George W. Bush and Obama - have made more particular efforts to be inclusive, especially in relation to government partnerships with faith groups on social services, said Bob Tuttle, professor of religion and government at George Washington University.

So what benefit is there for Trump to emphasize his ties to evangelical leaders? Balmer said they provide Trump with a seal of approval.

“Whenever Billy Graham showed up at the side of any politician, it provided some sense that the politician was on the right track or doing the right thing,” said Balmer.

Though he doesn’t consider Trump’s evangelical supporters to have equivalent authority as Graham, “nevertheless they do represent that constituency, a constituency that voted for Trump at 81 percent.”

And while it may not be surprising that any president would welcome those with whom he agrees more than others, the Rev. Carlos Malavé, executive director of Christian Churches Together, says Trump risks losing a channel of communication to an important constituency.

“If the President is interested in listening to the wisdom of American Christians in general he should be open to give access to a broader representation of these leaders,” said Malavé, who hasn’t been able to get a meeting for himself and other anti-poverty advocates.

Deputy press secretary Sarah Sanders, who defended the recent prayers for the president at the White House, called those who attended the July 10 gathering “his Faith Advisory Board.” She said “they meet from time to time to speak about issues that are important to that community.”

But according to Johnnie Moore, an evangelical author and advocate for persecuted Christians who was at the Oval Office gathering, the only people who attended were evangelicals.

Two days later Trump, referring to the audience of the Christian Broadcasting Network, told CBN founder Pat Robertson: “You have people that I love - evangelicals.”






Cred: Religion News

Anxious about Being Alone

Ways to Feel Less Anxious about Being Alone

In the beginning of the year, I took a month off from social media. I signed in the my accounts, deleted all of the apps, blocked the websites on my small computer, and walked back. Some buddies think it is dramatic, others empathized and expressed a wish to complete exactly the same factor, but everybody readily acknowledged that it is true how social networking and technology have grown to be obsessions within our culture today.

I required a rest not always since i desired to, speculate I understood I desired to. I used to be realizing patterns within my existence that didn’t feel healthy-- the inclination to seize my phone and mindlessly scroll whenever I'd an extra moment, the fixation around the statistics and also the supporters, the judgment and comparison-- and that i understood I did not wish to keep living this way. I had been seeking affirmation from others rather to find my worth within the Lord. I had been filling my thoughts using the words, ideas, and lies the planet stored tossing at me rather of meditating on God’s Word.

I wasn’t making room for stillness. I wasn’t creating space for solitude. I had been crowding every potentially quiet moment with noise, distractions, and stuff that only distanced me farther from my ideas, my fears, as well as my belief.

I required a rest not always since i desired to, speculate I understood I desired to. I used to be realizing patterns within my existence that didn’t feel healthy-- the inclination to seize my phone and mindlessly scroll whenever I'd an extra moment, the fixation around the statistics and also the supporters, the judgment and comparison-- and that i understood I did not wish to keep living this way. I had been seeking affirmation from others rather to find my worth within the Lord. I had been filling my thoughts using the words, ideas, and lies the planet stored tossing at me rather of meditating on God’s Word.

I wasn’t making room for stillness. I wasn’t creating space for solitude. I had been crowding every potentially quiet moment with noise, distractions, and stuff that only distanced me farther from my ideas, my fears, as well as my belief.

Molly Rigoloso lately authored articles for Gospel Taboo known as “When Being Alone Causes Us To Be Anxious” and she or he addresses the center from the matter here: we're searching for respite from hard, the uncomfortable, the uncertain, and also the frightening, and we're looking it up in lesser things.

“I choose easy, quick gratification since i don’t really think that at God’s right hands you will find pleasures forevermore (Ps. 16:11). After I spend some time alone, I’m faced with my fears. After I shouldn't feel afraid, I go to distractions.”

After I removed all of the distractions from my existence which i was most vulnerable to go to, I recognized precisely how correct that is at my existence-- I had been attempting to keep the fears away by continuing to keep myself busy and distracted and consumed by other activities, so when all that vanished, I really needed to come on with myself with God by what happening within my heart as well as in my existence. It shocked me how easily anxiety crept in when I had been truly alone.

So, so what can we all do to higher live our way of life and seek respite from the troubles of the world in healthy, God-honoring ways?

Practice prayer

It may be difficult to be still with this ideas, particularly when we’re inside a quiet conversation using the Lord who we can’t see tangibly before us. “Like most everything, spending some time in prayer takes practice,” Rigoloso writes. “We need to practice regular rhythms of prayer since it doesn’t come naturally to all of us.Inches Beginning having a prayer guide is really a useful way to produce a daily practice of prayer -- we like this 30-day prayer challenge for fighting anxiety and stress using the promises of God, which one concentrating on gratitude.

Pray having a quiet heart

The world doesn't frequently promote silence or encourage it, also it can feel disorienting to buy an area where noise doesn't overwhelm your senses. Escaping the hubbub to become still prior to the Lord is really crucial for the sake of our belief, though. “When we don’t permit stillness and solitude using the Lord, we’re not allowing our damaged, corrupted hearts a crowd using the physician who found heal them (Ps 147:3, Mark 2:7),” states Rigoloso. “It’s like getting use of an ER physician if you have a gaping wound although not sticking around for stitches. We slap bandaids on the wounds without receiving healing care.”

Run to Jesus, not distraction

Rigoloso writes that “instead of running from what’s within our hearts, we ought to run with this whole hearts to the only person who promises rest (Matt. 11:28-29).” This can be a major shift, and something which will likely feel vulnerable and intimidating at occasions, but it’s only with the Lord that people will find true rest, healing, forgiveness, and freedom. “The initial step to going after the type of love and belief that drives out fear would be to understand that the remainder we seek originates from none other (Ps. 62:5). After we realize it’s Jesus we actually need, we are able to begin to confess our necessity of him through prayer,” states Rigoloso.

Conclusion

For me personally, an extreme overhaul of my habits and actions was necessary to return to a wholesome host to frequent solitude, silence, reflection, and rest using the Lord, however i would encourage you to begin with only one small change today. Maybe create a couple of moments on your lunch time to wish, write one page inside a journal without distractions, or challenge you to ultimately leave your phone behind for any slice of time.

Ask today the Lord is needed you build healthier habits while you aim to embrace being alone together with your ideas and the presence. Ask he would ease your anxious spirit and calm your worried heart because he reminds you from the truth of his Word. Pray he is needed you “lift our gaze upward to him and outward to other people,Inches as Rigoloso writes.