Abstract: Rich Penix identifies threats to corporate worship and its role in our discipleship. These threats include unbelieving hearts, Pharisaical hearts, experience-hungry hearts, performance-oriented hearts, distracted hearts, uninformed hearts, passive hearts, and naïve hearts. By God’s grace, we should seek to worship him in spirit and truth while recognizing that corporate worship is a spiritual […]
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Corporate worship is not peripheral to God’s people but woven into the very purpose of creation and the goal of redemption.
If the Chief Shepherd took the lowest seat, how can his under-shepherds reach for the highest?
Because our God is so incredibly faithful, he continues to teach me through the painful process of healing. He is too good to waste even an ounce of our suffering.
If it's crucial to make sure the right people have the keys to your house, Jesus takes the question no less seriously for his own kingdom.
The hardest part is helping others fight for faith during their own trials by pointing them to promises that you are praying for yourself—promises that seem unanswered thus far.
The lack of growth may be God’s mercy to help you focus on the flock he has given you right now. Diligently shepherd the sheep God has given you today instead of dreaming about the sheep you wish you had.
Fundamentally, there isn’t a tiered system of greater elders and lesser elders—just elders!
Many congregations weep bitterly as those whom they have excommunicated never show signs of repentance. Rather, we exercise church discipline because the Bible commands it for the purity and witness of the church, and for the eternal good of those who are excommunicated.
The ordinary posture of a pastor towards his church should not be to run just because things get difficult. We preach, pray, love, and stay.
Pastors also should consider whether their mission field includes jails and prisons in their state. Across the security fencing and behind the walls are men and women who may never experience the privilege of a healthy church if you do not plant one there.
Union with Christ is a profoundly personal doctrine. But it is not merely a personal doctrine. God has united all his people together with Christ.
Through a right understanding of the gospel which comes through preaching, the Lord’s Supper becomes a tangible, visible illustration of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ—a visual sermon in itself.
