Even If i Walk Alone

Instructing and encouraging you to live your life as a disciple of Jesus

mission

Bringing an End to Poverty

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Homeless man sleeping on the street

I recently had the privilege of attending a screening of the documentary “58:”, a film commissioned by Compassion International with support from several other ministries. The movie detailed stories of people living in poverty and enslavement around the world. The documentary was very well done and I highly encourage you to check out the film and the accompanying website and book. The premise is that we can end extreme poverty in our lifetime if we would simply have the will. We have the resources and the technology and have in fact made great strides in the last 20 years. However, we can do better and put an end to poverty sooner rather than later.

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Wanted: Followers of Jesus

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People praying together

I have a strange dichotomy; I am a big proponent of small groups within churches, yet I have never found one where I fit in. Perhaps you struggle in the same way. Here’s my problem with the small groups in which I have been a part: they always seem to morph into glorified social cliques over time, with little to no movement towards doing the things that carry out the mission of Christ. It’s good to get together and fellowship with each other, it’s good to study the Bible, and it’s good to break out of the anonymity of the larger congregation to share our lives with a few others. But if all we are doing is a mini version of our Sunday church – without doing the work of the church – then I submit that there is little value in continuing the practice.

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Should Christians Attend Church? (Part II)

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Fancy Church

To sum up part 1 of this post from last week (See “Should Christians Attend Church? Part I”), I do not believe attending a large building once a week is mandatory for followers of Christ. We as a body are the church, not any building, and I find that small groups and house churches more closely resemble the New Testament church than do the monolithic structures we commonly refer to as the Western “church”. From a financial standpoint then, if the church then is not a particular congregation but rather the body at large, what becomes of the tithe?

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Will You Let Them Starve?

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World Vision

Regular readers know that I rarely write time-sensitive pieces, but today I must make an exception. A situation has been developing in the horn of Africa that requires action from those of us who claim to be followers of Jesus. With a severe famine plaguing the land, over 13 million people face dire food shortages. Making matters worse, food prices have been dramatically rising, making it impossible for these impoverished people to be able to purchase what they can no longer grow. World Vision estimates that 35% of all children in the area are already malnourished. Crops and livestock have been wiped out. Disease is running rampant. These dear people, loved by God and worth infinitely much to Him, need our assistance immediately.

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Should Christians Attend Church? (Part I)

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Church

Our modern churches look very different from the early church in the New Testament. This is particularly true in the West. In America, our landscapes are dotted with mega-churches on sprawling plots of land where thousands of people gather to worship freely each week. Contrast this with the house churches in Asia where believers gather in small spaces under cover of the night in fear of torture and imprisonment if caught.  The Asian churches much more closely resemble the early New Testament churches in virtually every way. With that in mind, does that make attending the safe, luxurious churches in America wrong for the follower of Jesus?

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