"Christians are routinely taught, by example and word, that it’s more important to be right than it is to be Christlike—than it is to be loving" - Dallas Willard
The longer I’m a pastor, the more I believe that the road to heresy doesn’t begin with questioning God.
The road to heresy begins with being unquestionably certain that no one knows God better than you do and believing that everyone else is a heretic but you.
Every Caesar (King, President, Governor) since Constantine has offered Christians some level of privilege and protection if they just bowed down to their leadership.
This gutted the soul of Christianity every time. History repeats itself.
One lesson that we Christians have not learned in the last +2,000 years is that Jesus had no political control over the Roman Empire and he still changed the world.
We keep trying to change the world the way the Roman Empire did, instead of the way Jesus did.
My biggest regret in 53 years of ministry is that I didn’t do my own personal exegesis sooner on the 4 passages used to restrict women. Shame on me.
I wasted those 4 yrs of Greek in college & seminary. When I finally did my proper “due diligence”, laying aside 50 years of
This supports what I have long been saying. Large churches are flourishing in areas more hostile to the Gospel (eg W coast, NE, etc.) because they 1) are fortresses for the faithful, 2) are areas of high innovation, and of course, 3) more urban. Not necessarily good, but reality.
Let's get even more granular now.
You can see the center of the Bible Belt, for sure. But there's also this really interesting strip running from Texas to North Dakota with lots of churches.
The coasts have very high ratios, though. East and West Coast. And Florida, too!