Category: Ecclesiology

Wine and Wineskins

In the preface to his masterful book on revivals, Dynamics of Spiritual Life, Richard Lovelace says the following:

Concentration on reformation without revival leads to skins without wine; concentration on revival without reformation soon loses the wine for want of skins.

He’s dead on. Spiritual vigor (revival) apart from the truth (reformation) isn’t spiritual. Truth (reformation) apart from spiritual vigor (revival) is dead. Even the demons believe and they tremble. (James 2:19)

I came across …

Praying for Elders

This past Sunday I spend a considerable part of my sermon teaching on the Biblical role, qualifications, and Lake Wylie Baptist’s need for elders. In the coming weeks, I’ll be authoring a series of blogs to help teach you more about this crucial need in our church, and how God’s Word teaches us to understand and establish elders in the church. For now, I simply want to recap some of my main thoughts from Sunday’s …

What is Baptism?

The following post is written to help facilitate a discussion with baptism candidates of Lake Wylie Baptist church. It is by no means an exhaustive document on baptism.

Ordained by Jesus:

The final chapter of Matthew’s gospel records Jesus commissioning his disciples following the resurrection. Read Matthew 28:16-20

16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17 And when they saw him they worshiped him, but

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Sermon Manuscript: Love Lake Wylie – Week One

Love Lake Wylie

Yesterday we kicked off a three week series on church membership and ministry we’re calling “Love Lake Wylie.” We’re taking seriously— the teaching of the Bible— that we cannot become who God has called us to be without the church. We’re countering the individualism of our culture and declaring something bold: we need one another. We need our church. We don’t just need to be served by the church. In order for us to become …

RECOMMENDED RESOURCE: Dynamics of Spiritual Life by Richard Loveless

4158UwZNr8L._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_Having experienced the Jesus Movement first hand, Richard Loveless set out to fill a gap in evangelical scholarship, a theology of spirituality; specifically, an historical and theological analysis of renewal and spiritual dynamics. Loveless’s historical overview of renewal movements in the evangelical church, and his section on the primary elements of renewal are invaluable.

Lovelace, Richard F. Dynamics of Spiritual Life: An Evangelical Theology of Renewal. Downers Grove, Ill.: Inter-Varsity Press, ©1979.

I’ll be …

Preparing for Communion

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This coming Sunday our church will observe one of the two ordinances of the church: Communion, or The Lord’s Supper. Paul tells us about the night that our Lord instituted this ordinance for his church:

23 For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is

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Worship Away From Church: An Encouragement to Members and Pastors

Capture

We live in a week to week world, especially when it comes to the spiritual life. My guess is that the spiritual EKG of the average church member spikes once every 7 days. We receive a boost of spiritual life through meeting with the body of Christ only to descend from Monday onward. How can you as a church member become a better worshiper in between worship services, and how can pastors help you?

Church

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How Should We Define and Discuss the Church?

A chasm stretches between the words “is” and “does”. Unfortunately, we live in a culture far more interested in “does” than “is”, and this interest negatively affects the way we think about the church. If I were to ask the average church member to tell me about the church I would get hundreds of “does” answers.

  • The church is where we worship.
  • The church is where we have small groups/bible studies.
  • The church is where
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