The minute the church and pastors start saying what do people want and then giving it to them, we betray our calling. We're called to have people follow Jesus. We're called to have people learn how to forgive their enemies.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Those outside the church expect followers of Christ to live differently, yet today many in church are chasing after the world - not to win them, but to be like them.
When you are giving people the gospel, you are giving them something to believe, and you have to set the stage for that. You don't just drive up and dump the truck and drive off.
When pastors don't have rich spiritual lives with Christ, they become victimized by other models of success - models conveyed to them by their training, by their experience in the church, or just by our culture.
Ruthless trust ultimately comes down to this: faith in the person of Jesus and hope in his promise.
I discipline churchgoers with godly lessons and sharp words if they do not change their ways. My goal is to open their hearts so that they seek forgiveness.
Most Evangelicals have the church to thank for the Sunday-school classes that taught us what the Bible says and paved the way for our eventual decisions to commit our lives to Christ.
Despite the slowness, the infidelity, the errors and sins it committed and might still commit against its members, the Church, trust me, has no other meaning and goal but to live and witness Jesus.
The Gospel offers forgiveness for the past, new life for the present, and hope for the future.
Christians - whether as a priest, a nun, a minister, whatever - have just been stereotyped to death. You try to be a model of kindness and love and forgiveness to all those around you, because you have received kindness and love and forgiveness from God through Christ. That's what Christianity is.
Society can overlook murder, adultery or swindling; it never forgives preaching of a new gospel.