How a Worship Format is Destroying the Evangelical Church

During my lifetime, many evangelical churches in American have moved from Bible-oriented gatherings to music-dominated meetings. Interestingly, both sets of religious gatherings typically bore the title, “Worship Service.”

When the evangelical church was Bible-oriented, this “worship” paradigm was in place:

(1) Not all elements of the service were considered equally important; the exposition of Scripture was clearly the first and foremost priority. All other competitors vied for a distant second place.

(2) When the term “worship” was used, it was the equivalent of our modern casual expression, “doing church.” It is important to note that the preaching of the Word was considered part of worship, as were announcements, testimonies, communion, prayer, singing, the offering, and special music. This was the typical structure of a “worship service” before 1980.

(3) Many evangelicals viewed music as a “warm up for the sermon.” In this regard, many leaders did not seem to often respect music ministry as actual ministry but many others did. Continue Reading>>>

Keeping Christ in the Holidays Takes Little Effort

A number of America’s holidays have Christian overtones, particularly Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. Because these holidays originated as times to celebrate God’s graciousness to us, it is not all that difficult to restore their original spiritual meaning. This will happen only if we value doing so and are willing to expend a bit of energy. I would like to share some considerations and suggestions.

My first consideration is that we become comfortable with the secular. As followers of Jesus Christ, we find ourselves in the world, though we are not of the world. This means we must walk the tightrope of participating in our society and its decent (good or neutral) ways, while at the same time refraining from its wrong ways.

Gift-giving, decorations, Christmas cards, rich treats, a Christmas tree, touring light displays, or gorging oneself with a Christmas meal are all part of the fun. Secular is not necessarily evil, but secular is not enough.

My second consideration is that we remind ourselves that we are not enslaved to traditions that may negate a truly blessed Christmas. We need not incur amazing debts or keep up with our siblings by matching extravagant gifts. Although most of us want Christmas to be a family time, we are free to dissent from family customs when those customs are offensive or counterproductive to our own families. Continue Reading>>>

Women in the Life and Ministry of Jesus

The popularity of The Da Vinci Code has forced Christians to realize that their beliefs are open to challenge. As a result, many Christians are interested in subjects that used to draw yawns. A few years ago, no one wanted to hear about the Gnostic Gospels and why we reject them, for example. One issue raised by The Da Vinci Code is Jesus’ relationship to women. We can easily surmise that the Mary Magdalene nonsense of The Da Vinci Code is bogus, but what was Jesus’ real attitude toward women?
On the one hand, He established the church by training her basic leaders, the apostles. Only men were chosen as apostles, and the concept of male leadership in the church is consistent throughout Scripture: the Old Testament priests had to be male (according to Moses) and Paul teaches that church leaders who teach doctrine or Bible to men must be male, as must elders (1 Tim. 2:9-15, 3:1-2).
On the other hand, God used prophetesses as a channel of divine communication (e.g., Miriam, Deborah, in the Old Testament and the daughters of Agabus in the New), and both men and women were encouraged to prophesy in the early church (1 Cor. 11:3-11).
Most of us understand that the reasons for these restrictions on leadership have nothing to do with competence or ability. Most of us know strong, capable godly women who have mastered the Word, as well as not-so-godly Christian men who have not. Continue Reading>>>