Dr Paul Allen

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) If Mrs. Thatcher was correct how do we reach people and families with the gospel?  It is so easy to fill our time with the activity and fellowship of Christian life . Block out time for prayer, quiet time, worship, Sunday school , small group, committee meetings, accountability partners, Christian entertainment, political action and socializing with your best friends with whom you just so happen to also attend church and, well, there really isn’t much margin left for, let’s say, evangelism. Separation from the world isn’t really so hard. One could suggest it is a preferred and more comfortable course than engagement with it, especially if your love of God is strong. It is easier in many ways to be not of the world than it is to be in it and not of it. The Two Block Mission Field A pastor challenged us at the holidays to pray for our neighbors by name, take them some baked goods, and then seek o...

English: Sunday school area within Christ Church, Gosport (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) In the pastorate you have to master the seemingly impossible art of having, at the same time, thick and thin skin . How can you possibly pull off such a feat? And why would such a chameleon-like skill even be desirable? First, why do you need thick skin ? In a word, as pastor you will receive your fair share of criticism . The lion’s share of criticism should be placed into the “ignore this stuff” category. People often complain about the silliest things: the time of the worship service , how frequently the church holds activities, the types of illustrations you use in your sermons, the fact that you pick the same hymn too frequently, the color of your tie, or the kind of beverage you drink (for the record, I’ve personally had all of these complaints). I have to say with great glee, that I simply smile, note the complaint, and then move on. I let the words flow off my back like water off a duc...

Caricature of Dwight Lyman Moody. Caption read "Prayer and Praise". (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Dwight L. Moody didn't attend school beyond the fifth grade; he couldn't spell, and his grammar was awful. His manners were often brash and crude, and he never became an ordained minister. Once, before his conversion, he so outraged an Italian shoe salesmen with a prank, that the man chased him with a sharp knife, clearly intending to kill him. Yet, Dwight L. Moody was used by God to lead thousands of people to Christ . Moody's life of Christian service began with his conversion  on this day, April 21, 1855 . Dwight came to Boston as a teenager from Northfield, Massachusetts , and he felt all alone in the big city. The boy was desperate for work. An uncle took him on as a shoe salesman--on condition that he be obedient and that he attend Mt. Vernon Congregational Church. The young man had been raised in a Unitarian church which denied the full divinity of Christ...

Over the years I watched a number of people come and go through the doors of the church . In our mobile, vagabond, anchorless time, people move from job to job, city to city, and church to church. Given the mobility of a culture, say in comparison with a generation ago when a person might work for one company in the same city and live in the same house for his entire life, people move around. So there were some who left the church because of job transfers. In fact, I had a stretch where more than a dozen families relocated because of job transfers over a two-year period. Most of the time I could understand the job relocation. The situation, for the life of me, that I simply have never understood were the families that left the church because their children were not happy. I can remember sitting before a number of families over the years who would come to me, “Pastor, we really love the church and find the preaching to be edifying . . .” On the heels of such a statement, I could hear...

English: Jesus entering Jerusalem on a donkey (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) If there were a Guinness Book of World Records record for "amount of times having asked Jesus into your heart," I'm pretty sure I would hold it. By the time I reached the age of 18 I had probably "asked Jesus into my heart" 5,000 times. I started somewhere around age 4 when I approached my parents one Saturday morning asking how someone could know that they were going to heaven. They carefully led me down the "Romans Road to Salvation ," and I gave Jesus his first invitation into my heart. Both my parents and my pastor felt confident of my sincerity and my grasp on the details, and so I was baptized. We wrote the date in my Bible and I lived in peace about the matter for nearly a decade. One Friday night during my 9th grade year, however, my Sunday school teacher told us that according to Matthew 7:21 -23, many people who think they know Jesus will awaken on that f...

Image via Wikipedia Image via Wikipedia Image via Wikipedia Image via Wikipedia Image via Wikipedia Too often, it’s easy to make life’s “big decisions” just like a non-Christian would, giving no regard to how it will impact our membership in our local churches . We consider a job offer in another city with scant regard for whether that city has a healthy church. We consider a possible marriage partner without asking whether the person has a track record of loving and serving Christ ’s body. Let me look at the matter another way. We fail, when confronted with such decisions, to seek counsel from the brothers and sisters in our congregations who know us well — often because we have not sought meaningful relationships in the first place. We don’t consider the impact our going will have on others — the children we’ve been teaching in Sunday school or the fellow people who depend on our weekly encouragement. We face many difficult decisions about how to raise our children: Am I disci...

Image via Wikipedia The reality of a human raised from the dead is hard enough for adults to understand, much less kids. But here are some approaches I've taken. Author:  Amy Julia Becker I don’t know how to explain Easter to my children — Penny , 5, and William, 2. I’ve tried two approaches so far. I’ve talked about it directly: “Some people killed Jesus and he died and God made him alive again.” When I said that, William asked, “What does  died  mean?” I tried to explain death as something that takes people away forever. Penny asked, “Where is Jesus now?” and when I said, “Jesus is in heaven and all around us,” she responded, “But where is Jesus now?” Then Penny went to Sunday school last week, where her teachers decided to reenact the Passion of Jesus . I was sitting in church when, halfway through the sermon, one of the teachers brought Penny to me.  She sat by my side, coloring, for the rest of the service. Her teacher later explained that w...