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The title of this post is the question that Felicity from “Simply Church” is asking in her post “The financial cost of starting a church.” Her post is short (as most of her posts are) and very good (as most of her posts are). Common wisdom (in America at least) states that you must have a full-time staff, a nice meeting location, and a marketing fund. But, are these things actually necessar...

Rob Bell recently announced that he is leaving his position at his church “in order to devote his full energy to sharing the message of God’s love with a broader audience.” We now know a bit more about what that involves. Christianity Today reports that Bell is now working on a TV show with the screenwriter from the hit series Lost. According to the article: The show will be loosely based on Bell’s life story as a musician an...

In this pseudo-series, I’ve said that life in Christ is synonymous with life in the Spirit (which is the same as being given the Spirit, being indwelled by the Spirit, or being baptized by the Spirit). (See my post “Life in Christ is Life in the Spirit.”) Next, I said that a person who is indwelled by the Spirit can be filled with the Spirit or can grieve or quench the work of the Spirit. (See my...

There’s a deep desire in me to continue how learn how to be more and more creative in my work, family and life in general. The other day I stumbled across THIS POST entitled  “10 Proven Ways To Be More Creative.”  Here’s the 10 they listed. My thoughts are in parenthesis. 1. Get on a plane. Travel, moving and exposure to other cultures improve creativity. (No doubt) 2. Don’t surround yourself with the color red, st...

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. Lately, we’ve been looking at Inerrancy and especially at the statement from the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy. Tonight, I’m going to be looking at the second article. It reads as follows: We affirm that the Scriptures are the supreme written norm by which God binds the conscience, and that the authority of the Church is subordi...

Bobby at “Deconstructing Neverland” has written a wonderful post called “Showing our faith by works.” In this post, he looks at the connection between faith and works and, in particular, asks what kind of works are connected to our trust in God. As you might expect, Bobby uses James 2:18 as a point of reference to consider the faith and works intersection. While there is a tremendous amount...

Several years back I experienced one of those “ah-ha” moments. My wife and I were hanging out together and seemed to be quite enjoying some time of conversation. Then she lovingly hit me with this forearm shiver: “Did you ever notice that you are always the hero of your stories?” It knocked me off of my feet. My wife was saying that I routinely made myself out to be the hero in all of our talking about life, family, and ev...

In my post “Life in Christ is Life in the Spirit,” I suggested that to be in Christ (i.e., to be a disciple of Christ, or a believer, or born again, or any of the other terms used to describe God’s children) is the same as having received the Holy Spirit (to be indwelled with the Spirit, to be baptized by the Spirit). I came to this conclusion beginning with Paul’s focus on receiving the Ho...

    I’m really excited to tell you about a new movie premiering this October. It’s called 58 and it’s  the inspiring true story of the global Church in action. Witness bravery and determined faith in a journey from the slums of Kenya to the streets of New York. Confront the brutality of extreme poverty and meet those who live out the True Fast of Isaiah 58 and create stunning new possibilities for the future. Tr...

Good old Chris Tomlin. I originally avoided this song to introduce to our congregation because it was kind of in a hard key to sing. However, I’ve found that Chris Tomlin writes music that is actually quite singable for most. I happen to have a higher voice, but not quite to the extent of Chris. I can usually manage to get most of his vocals down. This is a song currently on rotation at our gatherings. Sing Sing Sing Chris Tomlin | D...