It's time for Men of the faith.

The Gospel is perhaps the most controversial message of all time. It is not because Christians hate anyone. It is not because Christians are bigots. In fact, if a Christian I truly a Christian, they will speak out against hatred and bigotry. The Gospel is offensive because it puts people at odds with themselves. It shows people that they are helpless to save themselves. When people are placed in this position of facing their own state of helplessness, they react one of two ways- surrender to Christ or try to kill the messenger. A Christian must stand for Biblical truth despite public opinion. That is why I respect the pastor of FBC Dallas. He has stood on the teachings of sound doctrine. It should be no secret that, as a Christian, I believe in God's design for marriage--not this "marriage 2.0" that the world tries to persuade me is right. I do not hate homosexuals, live-in unmarried couples, or no-cause divorcees...I simply stand upon the Biblical truth of God's design. After all, HE designed marriage. I must admit that I am a little disheartened by the pragmatism that Tim Tebow displayed in choosing to bow out of speaking at FBC Dallas. Let me make this bold claim--the Word of God is the WORD OF GOD. This means that God inspired as he wanted it written. We must be bold in proclaiming it with love and not be overcome with fear of what the world may say about us. Watch this...

Church Business

The facebook status read something like this, “My Church family is better than yours.” The person’s heart was not in the wrong place. The person was simply saying that they loved their church family, and that is great. I love seeing enthusiasm for church family. However, if you have ever read my blog posts before, you know that if I see or hear a statement, my mind immediately begins chasing rabbit trails. So, I read, “My Church family is better than yours,” and I thought to myself, “You know…Churches really don’t work together that often. In fact, it is like we are rivals or competition to one another.” This then ushered in thoughts of how Churches begin to reflect business. We rarely call the people in our church 'family' anymore (which I loved about the particular post). What do we call them? Church members. What do we call people who want to potentially become a part of our church families? Prospective Members. Funny, that’s what country clubs call them too. Think about how the church is set up. At many churches, mostly Baptist, there are committees for EVERYTHING. I am, quite frankly, surprised that there is a not a ‘restroom committee’ that monitors the frequency of members bathroom usage during the service. There is even a Committee on Committees that is a committee that oversees all of the other committees. Then, with all these positions of ‘power’ available, people begin to search for means of promotion within the church. Not only is this business mind-set ruining relationships within our respective churches, it is ruining our relationships with our brothers and sisters at other churches. Just like in business, our churches have developed mindsets and strategies aimed at destroying the competition through flashy promotion, the latest trends, and of course, dousing the competition with underhanded comments and gossip. So, here’s the truth. According to scripture, we are not a business but a family. That, by the way, is not limited to your particular church, but every Scripture-affirming, Bible-believing, Christ honoring, and disciple making church in your area and around the world. This means that we should love each other as family.  We should care for each other as family. How is the world to know that we follow Christ? By how we love each other! So, let’s silence the nonsense of church rivalry. Let’s not let the fear of losing a church family member to another church stop us from working together. Let’s stop church hopping to find a church to fit our needs. Let’s get back to basics. Our job is to spread the message of the Gospel and the love of Christ to our neighbors (within and outside the church) so that they can glorify our Father. This is our purpose. We are family. Yes. That did get that song stuck in my head.

-Heath