LFF Blog
The more that you understand the ins and outs of English grammar, the more you’re going to be able to understand the ins and outs of the preserved word of God in English. Yes, you can understand great doctrines without being able to identify a prepositional phrase. But you can also get yourself into doctrinal trouble by misunderstanding how words in a sentence fit together.
As a newbie to Mission Focus, I wasn’t sure what to expect. The reality is that it was exactly what I needed as a pastor to bring the totality of the Mission into clear Focus. I was able to witness firsthand the culmination of evangelism, discipleship, ministry training, and church planting. I heard personal testimonies of people who were won to Christ through evangelistic Bible studies. People were open and excited about being involved in discipleship. We celebrated those graduating from LFBI. Andew Ong was ordained into the pastoral ministry. Missionaries from all over the world were prayed over and supported. And many surrendered their lives completely to the Mission.
Whether your church implements an explicit directory of members or not, God calls you to the highest devotion to your local church body and its individual members. Implementing a definitive church membership appears to be both biblically sound in light of scripture’s teachings for the church and practically effective to the needs of our people.
studying the Bible with others is one of the greatest gifts we have as believers. It is a privilege that we get to open God’s Word together, speak and cry out to the Father together, grow in love together, and look for ways to seek out the lost together. But we can only do this rightly if our groups are biblically healthy and mature.
While the Cost of Discipleship process at MBT has improved our overall discipleship quality, it’s not fail proof by any means. With enough ministry experience, we all learn that some people hear what they want to hear, not what is actually being taught. In COD, we try to paint a very clear biblical picture of discipleship and what people should expect. Despite doing that as clearly as we know how, some will move forward into a formal discipleship relationship to only struggle with the biblical expectations of discipleship.
Much more could be said about the impact of Emperor Constantine on the world from his day to the present. Totalitarian church-state societies and false bibles have plagued Christianity from his time onward. So, if we are going to learn from history, we must examine this man’s life and what he brought to the world.
In the first part of the 4th century, under the newly installed Emperor Constantine, the Tower of Babel religion simply changed into a new, mysterious garment. This was when PAGAN Rome became PAPAL Rome, the Roman Empire became the so-called Holy Roman Empire, and the Tower of Babel religion simply took on a new name and a new form.
I expected everything about my life to change for the better after I got saved. I wasn’t expecting sunbeams or warm and fuzzy feelings… But I wanted my life to matter. I wanted a girlfriend. I wanted a reason to smile. I wanted to have confidence in myself. I wanted to move somewhere exciting. I wanted to be rock star. I wanted to know what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted Jesus to give me everything I wanted.
Storms come in all different shapes and sizes, and they happen to all different kinds of people. They aren’t fun to go through, and often, we are much more interested in the destination than the journey. But what matters most is, when you come out on the other side, are you the same person you were when you stepped on the boat, or did you allow Christ to further mold you into his image?
