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When you talk with someone about church today, it’s hard to keep the conversation from shifting to the church gathering (i.e., “worship service”). This is true even among people who admit that the church is people (that is, people who are following Jesus). Still, people often equate (or at least closely associate) church with a specific gathering of people. Similarly, when discussing gathering wi...

For the last two days, I’ve been trying to decide what to do with Art’s latest comment on my post “Replay: How do we edify others?” First, I think the comment is a well-articulated comment and a necessary component of our discussion of edifying one another when we gather with the church. Second, Art’s comment is another indicator that he should be writing this stuff for his own blog&...

Josh at “Called to Rebuild” has written another excellent post. This one is called “Missing the church.” He begins by explaining that many close friends have been transitioning out of his life lately. Josh feels the loss… and that along is an amazing thought. In a time when “church” has become just another activity, it is a real family for Josh. Next, he describes a time w...

My friend Chris blogs over at “Simple Thoughts“… and thus the title of this post. I want to point you to a post he recently wrote called “Normal.” Chris shares some of the things his family has been going through recently – specifically related to wife’s ongoing health issues. However, he also gives a brief description of our church gatherings. You see, a few weeks ago, Ch...

Everybody is worried about the teenagers and twenty-somethings, especially those who are growing up “in the church.” Why are they worried? Because they are not staying “in the church.” Survey after survey, poll after poll, count after count returns the same result and asks the same question: Young people are “leaving the church” and “Why?” The latest article that I&#...

Have you ever heard of a “Watchnight Service” where people read through the entire Bible on New Year’s Eve / New Year’s Day? Yeah? Well, we didn’t do that. (Now, I know there are other kinds of “Watchnight” services. But, that’s the kind I always heard about growing up.) But, we did get together with the church on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day to read...

When we gather together with the church, we often read and discuss Scripture together. Typically, we will read at least a chapter of Scripture together; sometimes we will read even more. If we’re studying through a shorter book, we’ll read that book in its entirety each time we discuss it. We’ve done this with Philippians, Colossians, and Ruth (and perhaps others). In each case, we studied each b...

My good friend Eric at “A Pilgrim’s Progress” is asking a very good question in his post “What Size Should a Church Family Be?” (If you haven’t met Eric yet, he and I have known each other for about 9 years. Recently, he resigned from his job as a vocational pastor because of some convictions based on his study of Scripture.) Eric begins where my previous post stopped: the purp...

If you peruse the posts (old and new) on this blog, you’ll find that I write often on the subjects of church gatherings and mutual edification. Why? Well, for one thing, for my PhD dissertation I am studying mutual edification as the purpose of the church gathering together from the perspective of Scripture. For another thing, well, I think the church should all work together to build up one another in matur...

Hamo at “Backyardmissionary” is doing some reflection in his post “Get Sunday right and the rest will take care of itself.” In fact, he’s reflecting back 9 years to his very first blog post that had the same title: “Get Sunday right and the rest will take care of itself.” Now… he’s not so sure. He says that way of thinking was naive, foolish, absurd. There are ...