Can We Really Trust what We Have Been Taught?

“Pastor, I need to ask you a question.” Can we talk privately, please? The next few steps from the public to the privacy of my office are the most agonizing ever. Thoughts flood my mind. “What did I do? I wonder what they are upset about? I know I didn’t do anything.” Questions tend to…

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How to Turn a Book into a Sunday School Series

Introduction Teaching a Sunday school class, especially one for teens or adults, can be tough. Prefabricated curriculum can feel a bit canned. People aren’t looking for another sermon knowing they’ll get one right after class. They want to participate in something that’s engaging and practical. One method Sunday school classes use to attempt this is…

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Bring it Back!

Is there something you wish you could bring back from past? Everybody has something they miss. Whether you find yourself reminiscing of dear people from days gone by or treasured memories when your children were small like family vacations, ball games, and Christmas morning. Or what about stuff they just don’t make anymore? I miss…

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Does the Bible Emphasize Doctrine?

An Important Question to Consider I put the theme of this article in question form: does the Bible emphasize doctrine? If you have read the Bible carefully, and especially if you have read it carefully many times, you know that it does emphasize doctrine. In fact, the word “doctrine” occurs many times in the Bible.…

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Why Do We Have a Sunday Night Service?

This post is part 3 of a 4 part series on why you should consider attending more than one church service each week. Part 1 offered five foundational reasons we should be as involved in the life of the church as possible. Pastor Kris followed with part 2, which detailed why we offer Sunday school…

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Using a Blog in Ministry

  Platforms for Written Communication In the fourteenth century BC, neighboring statesmen and Egyptian pharaohs used clay tablets to exchange messages. We call these the Amarna Letters. Today people continue to exchange written messages but use different platforms. We’ve moved from clay tablets to scrolls to parchments to bound books to newspapers to e-readers. The…

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Christmas Cookies in an Empty Coffee Can

Volker Stoeckmann I sat listening intently as a middle-aged widow, the mother of four, taught us Bible stories in her broken English. She made the Bible come to life for my impressionable young mind as she pulled figures of Moses, Daniel, Ruth, John the Baptist, and the Christ-child out from the pages of her Bible…

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The Difference Between Preaching and Teaching

Thomas Overmiller A couple of years ago, a missionary on the field sent me two questions: (1) What is preaching? (2) How does preaching differ from teaching? He didn’t ask because he didn’t know the answers. He was preparing lecture notes for an upcoming homiletics class and wanted outside input. In this article, I’d like…

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