If the TV game show Jeopardy had a category entitled Biblical Concepts Gone Awry, one of the “answers” would be “A way of life”, and I’m convinced the right question would be “What is worship?” 

Jesus’ way of living is about much, much more than going to church for “worship services.”  Like the biblical concept of church, worship somehow has lost its original meaning over the centuries, and we are feeling the burden to redefine it in biblical terms. 

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Categories: the why
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One thing I’ve discovered about myself is my fear of putting the bible in new believers’ hands and trusting God’s Spirit to reveal something to them as they read it. 

Or perhaps the fear is more that they’ll read the same passages and conclude something different than I have.  Wouldn’t it be better to just tell them what the bible means and what to do in response?  But then what am I teaching that person to put their trust in – God’s word or my commentary about it?     

I’m challenged again by this statement in David Garrison’s book Church Planting Movements: How God Is Redeeming A Lost World:

“When modern day practitioners of Church Planting Movements refuse to counsel their converts with words of wisdom or time honored doctrines, but instead direct them to God’s word, they are living out the New Testament model initiated by Jesus and transmitted through the apostles” (2004:206). 

God’s Word interpreted by average people.  How scary.  How wonderful!

Categories: the why
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In April I attended the Pepperdine Bible Lectures where urban missionary Ben Cheek, who was invited to speak at a panel on church planting, was asked the following question: “The people you’re targeting in the New York City Metro area – would you say more of them are unchurched or dechurched?”

As a missionary I’m familiar with these terms.  Up until now I had been using them myself.  The idea is that the term “unchurched” describes those individuals who have never attended a church (or at least have not done so over a significant amount of time, say, within the last year).  The term “dechurched” is meant to describe those individuals who have a religious past but have become so turned off by their experiences with Christians and church-as-they-know-it that they are not ‘coming back.’  The problem with putting people neatly into these categories is that life is never that tidy.

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