Mar 08, 2012
Why I am “Religious”
Posted by Pastor Todd Murphy
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What if I said, “I am religious.” What would that say to you? What would that conjure in your mind? How would that change your opinion of me? It has gotten pretty popular today for the new wave of preachers to suggest that religion and the Gospel are two different things, that they are at odds. I get that. But are they really? Or is this a new way for us as a church to accommodate a modern inwardly focused spiritualizing that has become so widespread?
How many times have you heard someone say, “I consider myself
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Mar 05, 2012
Creating the Passive Christian: When the Church Follows Those Who Won’t Follow Jesus
Posted by Pastor Todd Murphy
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The modern Church tends to run in cycles. A key cycle is every so often, we realize we are getting stagnant, maybe losing membership and numbers. This comes as a sudden wake-up call and we realize that we need place the focus on evangelism and mission again. The last 30 years or so has been such a time. We have seen the Church growth movement, the Seeker-sensitive movement, and now the missional movement. To be fair, each of these have generally seen themselves as something different. I guess to one degree or another they are, at least in
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Mar 01, 2012
Are You a “Real” Friend
Posted by Pastor Todd Murphy
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I think we have a perverted view of what it means to be a friend in the modern world. I would say on the whole, we see friendship as somewhat progressive. By this I mean that the longer we “know” someone, the better friends we assume them to be. Of course this often comes crashing down when someone you have known for a large part of your life suddenly and hatefully turns their back on you showing utter disregard for the relational capital.
As Christians, we are called to be friends not
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Feb 27, 2012
How to get “Counsel” without Gossiping
Posted by Pastor Todd Murphy
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Gossip is one of those sins that does not get a lot of press these days. We all have a strong inclination to gossip. There is a certain lure to drama in our relationships. I think the key motivator behind gossip is self justification. Here is what I mean. We have some sort of relational conflict, somebody does something to offend us, or at the very least, someone does something in a way we do not prefer. What is our tendency? It is to criticize and disassemble it. But when this conversation only gets as far as
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