Here are some of the highlights from the past week from Transformed and around the blogosphere.
Featured Articles on Trans·formed This Week
Turn Your Homes into Heaven (Stephen Leckvold): St. John Chrysostom preached many sermons throughout his ministry and covered a vast array of passages and topics. When I first decided to spend time gleaning from some of them, his treatment of marriage and family life caught my attention. Newly married and perhaps and (Lord willing) a prospective father some day, I wondered what would this powerful voice from the past have to say about raising children. ……………… …………….. …………… …………. ………….
5 Things to Avoid at Your Next Conference (Chad Hall): So what’s wrong with going to conferences? While there is nothing inherently wrong with attending conferences, some cautions are in order. Here are five things to avoid at your next conference (or five reasons to avoid the conference altogether).
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Know Your Own Limits (Bev Hislop): As the familiar biblical text Luke 10:25-37 informs us, neighborly care will involve more than one person. The Samaritan did what he could the first day. Then the second day, just before he left for his pre-planned (business?) trip, he paid the inn keeper to give follow-up care—which would likely be two months or more (given the amount he paid). This tells us the Samaritan knew his limits and continued with his originally intended trip, but with the expressed intention of returning.
Changed People Live Changed Lives (Bill Mounce): If our conversion sermons are full of nothing but bliss and glory, we take the dangerous chance of misguiding people. Yes, forgiveness of sins, regeneration, adoption — all the things we talk about last week — are true bliss and glory. But I am deeply convinced that the new Christian needs to know that they were changed at the gate, and eventually the path of discipleship will lead them down a road that Jesus says is hard and difficult. ……….. …………… …………
Ministering to Those Diamonds in the Rough (John Johnson): I’m not sure where all of it is going, but I am certain God, who superintends over all, has an interesting set of chapters ahead. It is a reminder, as well, that God has made us all very different, and a very big part of the pastoral task is to slow down before making assumptions, avoiding any tendency to marginalize those who are different, writing off those who just might have unique skills essential to the work of the kingdom.
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Other Articles on Transformed This Week
Other Posts of Interest from around the Web
- 7 Tips for Talking to Your Neighbors about Jesus: For whatever reason, it’s easy for Christians to clam up and get weird when talking about their faith in the day-to-day. Here are a few tips to make bridge those inhibitions and get the conversation going.
- Eat Your Veggies: 3 Ways to Grow Up Spiritually: Sometimes in the church we encounter the curious case of the well-churched immature believer.
- Is There Enough Teaching in the Church?: I know this sounds like a crazy notion. I’m not 100% convinced myself. But I’ve begun to wonder if there might not be enough public teaching in today’s church.
- How the Physical Form of a Bible Shapes Us: Will the digital Scriptures speed the decline of family spirituality once fostered by family Bibles?
- Making Necessary Distinctions: The Call to Discernment: Our problem today is more often the erosion—or even ignorance—of crucial distinctions and categories.
- How to Build Unity in Your Church: You need to plant yourself in a local church. Why? Because you need the gifts of the Christians there and they need your gifts. There is a church that is incomplete without you and you are incomplete without that church.
- The Power of Asking the Right Question: Questions are powerful tools. They can ignite hope and lead to new insights. They can also destroy hope and keep us struck in bad assumptions
About Marc Cortez
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