Welcoming Christian Kids Into Secular Republic

"The Challenge to the church is a Stark one: we must form a Christian mind in our young people so they become confident the orthodox Christian faith is true, relevant and good. If we do not persuade the next generation of the truth, relevance and goodness of the Kingdom of God, the secularists can be confident that they will capture that generation's hearts and minds and welcome our children to their secular Republic."
- Richard Cunningham . WinningHearts and Minds

If your church, and you as a preacher are not speaking about the Biblical teachings on these issues, while showing great care for the lost, you are preaching the gospel into irrelevance in the face of the fires teens and young adults are facing in our culture, that we've never given them an answer to, so they are never able to respond with an answer. We hang them out to dry.

"...Christian parents with children in secondary school are acutely aware that orthodox Christian faith is variously ignored and attacked in both science 
and humanities lesson, leaving Christian pupils feeling like 'flat-earthers'. How do 
Christian teenagers survive in this corrosive and toxic atmosphere, in which they are implicated in crimes of homophobia, transphobia and general intolerance simply for believing the Bible?...Is it any wonder that so many Christian young people fall away 
during their teenage years? It is patently obvious to them that Christian leaders 
need either to step up and defend the Bible to a watching world and commend 
Christianity as true, relevant and beautiful or (if they cannot do this) stop 
demanding that young people should embrace an outmoded dogma that is 
increasingly toxic to their friends..."

Words Of Healthy Church

The words of healthy, unified church body.
One rich in saying;

I love you.
Please forgive me.
I forgive you.
Please forgive me.
Let's eat together.
Please forgive me. 

Maximum Way To Racism.

Racism is man's gravest threat to man - the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason.c

- Abraham J. Heschel -

(Jewish theologian and philosopher, 1907-1972)

Dragon Killers?

"But when the Bible--that ancient instruction book on how to kill a dragon--tells us to love our neighbors, it is in the context of loving God, who does not give us carte blanche on love but tells us that part of loving is rebuking one another when there is sin and challenging the established order when others are not seeking the glory of the kingdom. If you think you are loving your neighbor by some nebulous act of acceptance, you are wrong; if you think you are loving your neighbor by treating the government officials making COVID laws as inerrantists, you are wrong. You love your neighbor by leading him to join the forces that believe killing serpents is not a hobby but a way of life. Serve, do good, but in the end, you are either making someone twice a son of Belial, or you are pushing them to kill Belial. Next to 'Christian' in the 1625 Lexicon should have: Belial-killers from birth."

Uriesou Brito, Brazilian Belial-killer

What Is Overlooked Most?

"It's the simple things

that are often overlooked

and then are gone."

Thomas Cary Marshall

Upside-down Leadership

"To be a Leader
you have to have followers.

To be an Elder
you have to have
people to love."

- Andy Rayner

Tectonic Culture Values Shift

"..... whether or not we regard ourselves as Christians or in any way religious, we cannot altogether escape the tectonic shift of cultural values that was set in motion by those small and obscure

beginnings."

- Larry W. Hurtado. Destroyer of the gods: Early Christian Distinctiveness In The Roman World

Christian Kind Of Different

"..... the Christian concept of an exclusive veneration of God,

the trans-ethnic and trans-local religious identity,

the central role of books and learning and distinctive and challenging forms of behavior within their ancient context.

The glimpses into the first three centuries may even inspire

contemporary Christians to find their identity and negotiate

between social assimilation and difference."

-Jörg Frey, Chair of New Testament Studies.

University ofZiirich

Blend In Christianity?

"...... the origin of Christianity and its remarkable success has more to do with it's ability to distinguish itself from other religions than to be one with them."

-April D. Demonic, Chair of the Department of Religion, Rice University.

Go Unfrightened

In the words of a prayer from Bede Jarrett (1881-1934), English Dominican friar, priest, and founder of the modern Blackfriars Order of Preachers:

"May [God] give us all the courage that we need to go the way He shepherds us. That when He calls, we may go unfrightened. If He bids us come to Him across the waters, that unfrightened we may go. And if He bids us climb the hill, may we not notice that it is a hill, mindful only of the happiness of His company. Even if He calls us to a last desolation, though He seem absent, He will be there. If He calls us to bitter agony, that too would be an honor and a privilege, since our agony would be still only a sharing of His agony; He would have lifted the coverlet of suffering and brought us in to lie by His side. He made us for Himself, that we should travel with Him and see Him at last in His unveiled beauty in the abiding city where He is light and happiness and endless home."

(From Leonard Sweet, Preach the Story Community)

Compare Religions

"It is absurd to have a discussion on Comparative Religions if you don't compare them."

- G. K. Chesterton

"The special mark of the modern world is not that it is skeptical, but that it is dogmatic without knowing it."

G. K. Chesterton

The Savage Found

"The definition of the true savage

is that he laughs when he hurts you;

and howls when you hurt him."

G. K. Chesterton

What Government Never Does

"Abolish religion if you like. Throw everything on secular government if you like. But do not be surprised if a machinery that was never meant to do anything but secure external decency and order fails to secure internal honesty and peace."

- G. K. Chesterton

A Yacht Fix

"A poor man has much more interest

in good government than a rich man.

A poor man must stay and be misgoverned;

a rich man has a yacht."

- G. K. Chesterton

Hurt Feelings

"I would congratulate you on your return, but your last job has loose ends, yes?" (Yuri)

"Well my government lied to me, and then tried to kill me,

if that's what you mean." (Will Smith)

"In Russia we call that Tuesday. But Americans, that hurts your feelings." (Yuri)

- Movie Gemini Man

Lord Of Not Much!

"If children are taught by parental example, that attendance at worship is one option among many for Sunday (such as sports, shopping, recreation, and so on), God, in their minds, will eventually be numbered among the options. It is impossible, though, to understand God as both Lord and option. If He isn't Lord of the Lord's Day (Sunday), He will unlikely be accepted as Lord of much else.

Yes, church attendance matters, and we cannot "be just as good Christians apart from church attendance."

- Scott Jacobsen.