Baptist churches and Membership Covenants
This post was developed with Derek Radney What is a church covenant? “What is the purpose of a membership covenant and why is it so important to the local church?” This is a great starting point. Membership covenants function to promote church health and bolster the reputation and witness of the local church within the body and in the community. Within the church body, the importance of a membership covenant seems pretty obvious. Professor Chuck Lawless concluded after researching church membership patterns, that many church leaders f

Uncovering Idols (Part 3): Beauty Magazines and the Idol of Image Projection
Note: This is the last  post taken from the manuscripts of a series I preached titled “Uncovering Idols.” Human beings were created to “image” God. Because of sin we cannot properly “image” God. But the Spirit conforms us to the ‘Image of Christ’ and we are enabled to do what we were created for. Introduction Idolatry is difficult to uncover in our society because it is so subtle, so covert. We don’t necessarily worship idols formed from wood and stone. Our idolatry is hidden in our hearts. Remember that “an idol is anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more

Uncovering Idols (Part 2): Grandfather’s Work Ethic and the Idol of Self Righteousness
Note: Over the next few weeks I will be posting the manuscripts from a series I am preaching titled “Uncovering Idols.” Introduction “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.” – Galatians 1:6-7 You can imagine the listeners as being just as astonished at Paul’s charge against them. “Turning to a different gospel? Seriously Paul? Were a Christian church Paul! That’s a serious charge your making.R

Uncovering Idols (Part 1): Meteorology and the Idol of Future Control
Note: Over the next few weeks I will be posting the manuscripts from a series I am preaching titled “Uncovering Idols.” Introduction Last week Laura and left for Nashville, Tennessee late afternoon for a conference that was beginning the next day. It was about dinner time so we stopped in a small town in Western North Carolina named Canton. We began to notice a strange stench; to us it was a horrible smell- a smell we could not get away from (in other words it wasn’t inside coming from insider the car) For those of you who know the area, Canton is the home of Blue Ridge Paper Products- a paper mill, and paper mills s

Reflections on ‘Together for Adoption 09′
This past weekend Laura and I traveled to the “Together for Adoption” conference at Christ Community Church in Tennessee. We joined 600 others in a weekend of reflecting on the gospel of Jesus Christ and how it empowers the church for orphan care. In reflecting over the weekend I am thoroughly refreshed and encouraged that the central theme of the weekend was the gospel of Jesus Christ- not that I expected anything less, but often times the gospel message is assumed at Christian conferences. The gospel was proclaimed an