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Sermon & Worship Packages: Time to Remember
How do you have a loving church? A survey of 8,600 people from congregations in 39 different denominations measured their `love quotient’. The conclusion - growing churches are more loving to each other and to visitors than declining churches. Loving churches attract more people regardless of their theology, denomination or location.
Carlyle Fielding Ste, How Long Will You Limp?: "Too many churches today are devoid of the Spirit of Pentecost because they are dry and stale, where people are in a stupor; where worship services are wooden and so scripted that they are hollow; where the preaching is dull and flat; where the singing is Geritol-tired and without the vim and vigor which speaks of a crucified, died and risen Lord; where if anyone taps his foot and says, "Amen", he is stared into silence, and if anyone shouts, "Thank you, Jesus" the people call the EMS or 911! Too many churches have become mausoleums for the dead rather than coliseums of praise for a living God. They have lost the spirit of Pentecost! They have lost their enthusiasm. They have lost their joy for Jesus and find themselves suffering from what William Willimon calls "Institutional and Spiritual Dry Rot." If the Church is to survive the next millennium it must recapture some of the praise and enthusiasm it had two millennia ago."
Have you ever been to someone’s home for an evening party thinking that dinner was going to be served and you were mistaken? You arrive hungry only to realize it’s an open house with only a few finger foods or desserts on the table. You try to fill up on the finger foods, but they don’t satisfy. You walk away hungry and say to yourself, I need to stop at McDonald’s and get a burger!
*Do you know what is really sad? Many people leave churches all over our city feeling empty every week. They come hungry for the Word of God, but when they aren’t fed, they go empty, hungry, and frustrated. Eventually, unless all they want out of church is the security of tradition (and listen many people are very comfortable at that level) or if they just want an entertainment fix, they will drift away in an effort to find a place that’s offering some substance.
During the time of the Second Great Awakening in America, Charles Finney was the foremost among the great evangelists. Many people know him. However few know the name, Daniel Nash.
Nash was a lackluster pastor in upper New York State who, at the age of 48, dedicated his life to prayer. Long before Finney would arrive in a town Nash would be there in an empty cellar or boarding house room praying for the power of God to enter the city. Finney relates:
“When I got to town to start a revival a lady contacted me who ran a boarding house. She said, ‘Brother Finney, do you know a Father Nash? He and two other men have been at my boardinghouse for the last three days, but they haven’t eaten a bite of food. I opened the door and peeped in at them because I could hear them groaning, and I saw them down on their faces. They have been this way for three days, lying prostrate on the floor and groaning. I thought something awful must have happened to them. I was afraid to go in and I didn’t know what to do. Would you please come see about them?’”
“No, it isn’t necessary,” I replied. “They just have a spirit of travail in prayer.”
Within four months of Nash’s death, Finney...
Theologians tell a story to illustrate how Christ?s triumph presently benefits our lives:
Imagine a city under siege. The enemy that surrounds the city will not let anyone or anything leave. Supplies are running low, and the citizens are fearful. But in the dark of the night, a spy sneaks through the enemy lines. He has rushed to the city to tell the people that in another place the main enemy force has been defeated; the leaders have already surrendered. The people do not need to be afraid. It is only a matter of time until the besieging troops receive the news and lay down their weapons.
Similarly, we may seem now to be surrounded by the forces of evil?disease, injustice, oppression, death. But the enemy has actually been defeated at Calvary. Things are not the way they seem to be. It is only a matter of time until it becomes clear to all that the battle is really over.
Richard J. Mouw, Uncommon Decency, pp. 149-150.
BIBLICAL FELLOWSHIP
If the local church is going to develop the kind of beauty that God says is possible, that which will attract others to Christ, we much commit to becoming together, the kind of church Christ calls us to
be. A church that is a biblical fellowship.
In his book, Rediscovering Church, Bill Hybels tells of a message by Dr. Gilbert Bilezikian, who said, "The only kind of fellowship many know in church is after a service when men stand around and ask each other superficial questions. Then they find their wives who are having similar conversations, and go home.
But biblical fellowship has the power to revolutionize lives. Masks come off, conversations get deep, hearts get vulnerable, lives are shared, accountability is invited, and tenderness flows. People really do become like brothers and sisters. They shoulder each other’s burdens - and unfortunately, that was something that few of the people today experience growing up in church in America."
(From a sermon by Dave McFadden, A Golden Lampstand, 6/8/2010)
Power can be used in at least 2 ways. It can be unleashed or it can be harnessed. Drop an atomic bomb and just watch as raw power is unleashed or harness the power of the atom and it will produce energy to make enough electricity for entire states. On the Day of Pentecost, and on the day you were filled, the burst of power was evident by the tongues of fire, but the controlled release of that power has caused the people of God to go great distances and effect many lives as the Power was manifest in them.
C. Peter Wagner, an authority on church growth, has this to say, “The more deeply I dig beneath the surface of the church growth principles, the more thoroughly convinced I become that the real batt...
TOP TEN WAYS YOU KNOW YOU’RE IN A BAD CHURCH
10. The church bus has gun racks.
9. The church staff consists of Senior Pastor, Associate Pastor and Socio-pastor.
8. The Bible they use is the "Dr. Seuss Version."
7. There’s an ATM in the lobby.
6. The choir wears leather robes.
5. Worship services are B.Y.O.S.: "Bring Your Own Snake."
4. No cover charge, but communion is a two-drink minimum.
3. Karaoke Worship Time.
2. Ushers ask, "Smoking or Non-smoking?"
1. The only song the organist knows is "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida."
SOURCE: http://www.MikeysFunnies.com
A farmer noticed a highway department truck pulling over on the shoulder of the road. A man got out and dug a hole, then got back into the truck. Then the other occupant got out, filled up the hole and got back in the truck. Every fifty yards this amazing process was repeated. “What are you doing?” the farmer asked. The driver replied, “We’re on a highway beautification project, and the guy who plants the trees is home sick today.”
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