THROWBACK THURSDAY: ‘When Is a Church Not a Church?’ (1967)
"When is a church not a church?" an Iowa preacher wrote in 1967. "A church is no longer a church when it becomes a club. . . . A church is no longer a church when it becomes a bank." . . .
Articles for tag: Ecclesiology
May 24, 2023
Remembering Tim Keller: 6 Christian Church Leaders Discuss His Impact
Tim Keller, renowned pastor, speaker, and best-selling author, died Friday. Several Christian Church leaders shared with us how Keller impacted their lives and ministries. . . .
May 17, 2020
An Acts 2 Movement: Restoring the Dynamic Life of the First Church
By Tyler McKenzie I was born, raised, baptized, and ordained in Restoration Movement churches. I’ve served all my years in ministry in the Restoration Movement. I married a Restoration Movement girl. I got a Restoration Movement degree. I’m Restoration Movement tried and true. But that’s not why I love our movement. I love the Restoration Movement for what it stands for. It is a movement of churches aiming to restore the dynamic life of the first church in Acts. That church is worth restoring. It’s a movement marked by the pioneering grit of Jesus’ apostles trying to establish Jesus’ church
January 15, 2017
The Church”s Mission: Making Disciples
By Ethan Magness My first formal ecclesiological training came from a song: The Church is not a building, the Church is not a steeple, the Church is not a resting place, the Church is the people. It was not an especially good song, but it had hand motions (perhaps you know them). I am grateful for this song, because it provided a sufficient ecclesiology for my early years of life. I did not merely go to church; I was part of the church. We were the church, the people of God. My second round of training came from the back
January 12, 2017
Candlestick Framework
By Jeff Faull One of the most beautiful and reassuring scenes in Scripture is found in the opening pages of Revelation. It focuses on the all-holy, all-seeing, all-powerful Jesus walking among the seven candlesticks or lampstands. And with unmistakable clarity John declares, “the seven lampstands are the seven churches” (Revelation 1:20). Incredible! In all of his love, majesty, and insight, Christ has the church as his overriding concern and passion! He moves among the candlesticks. As church members and church leaders, we frequent this place of beauty””immersed in, obsessed by, and saturated with visions of the church in Scripture. Some
A Delicate, Durable Relationship
By Paul E. Boatman Feeling Strains, Baptist Colleges Cut Church Ties.” The July 22, 2006, New York Times headline drew me into a report noting “a half-dozen colleges and universities whose ties with state Baptist conventions have been severed in the last four years” and “more than a dozen Southern Baptist universities . . . have ended affiliations over the last two decades.” These partings are described as sometimes “amicable,” but often “tense, even bitter.” With no sense of smugness, I observed this just does not happen among the schools affiliated with the Christian churches. I wondered why. It would
