Tag Archives: Church

This Little Church

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“This is how God proposes his church be built up – through the careful, accurate and clear preaching and teaching of his Word. Nothing else will accomplish the task. We can tell inspiring stories, sing beautiful or peppy music, fill our calendars full of social events, professionalize our program and provide small groups for every conceivable interest, but if the Scripture is not diligently, systematically, and correctly taught, Christ’s people will not be equipped and the body will not be built up, period.”

“There are no exceptions to this mandate. The church must proclaim the ‘word of truth’ – it must be the utmost priority. Congregations which focus on techniques, programs and entertainment at the expense of the centrality of the Word, may build large followings but they will not build the church of God. Programs, drama and entertainment may amuse, soothe, inspire and stir the emotions, but they will not build Christians. Only the Word can do that.

Gary Gilley – from the book, This Little Church Stayed Home

PS – I found out our church is probably going to enter a stage of being ‘bigger’ and ‘more’ because we have a ‘big god’. Personally, if our fellowship grows or reduces, it makes no difference. God will do as He pleases (Ps 115:3), and no plan of men will change that. Come Lord Jesus, quickly, I am almost unable to cope under the strain.

Christian Quotes

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“The church has lost her testimony. She has no longer anything to say to the world. Her once robust shout of assurance has faded away to an apologetic whisper. She who one time went out to declare now goes out to inquire. Her dogmatic declaration has become a respectful suggestion, a word of religious advice, given with the understanding that it is after all only an opinion and not meant to sound bigoted.”

A.W. Tozer

Nothing new under the sun…

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After watching an eye-opening documentary from 1983 on the infiltration of New Age practices, I found some further notes worthy of consideration.  Alice Bailey, a puppet of satanic influence, wrote a ten part plan of which the key points I have listed below.  We are in the last days, the very last days.

  1. TAKE GOD AND PRAYER OUT OF THE EDUCATION SYSTEM
  2. REDUCE PARENTAL AUTHORITY OVER THE CHILDREN
  3. DESTROY THE JUDEO-CHRISTIAN FAMILY STRUCTURE OR THE TRADITIONAL CHRISTIAN FAMILY STRUCTURE
  4. IF SEX IS FREE, THEN MAKE ABORTION LEGAL AND MAKE IT EASY
  5. MAKE DIVORCE EASY AND LEGAL, FREE PEOPLE FROM THE CONCEPT OF MARRIAGE FOR LIFE
  6. MAKE HOMOSEXUALITY AN ALTERNATIVE LIFESTYLE
  7. DEBASE ART, MAKE IT RUN MAD
  8. USE MEDIA TO PROMOTE AND CHANGE MINDSET
  9. CREATE AN INTERFAITH MOVEMENT
  10. GET GOVERNMENTS TO MAKE ALL THESE LAW AND GET THE CHURCH TO ENDORSE THESE CHANGES

How many how you noticed creeping into the Church and society at large?  I see 9. I’ve got some links to documentaries I’ll be posting up shortly, so keep reading.

Preparation

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Preparation

I spent a long time mentally preparing myself to become more minimalist in my lifestyle. It was a good thing to do, and certainly I think it’s a Christian thing to do. Jesus himself owned little, and even the early church in Acts shared what they had with each other. At some point I’ll go into more depth about this, but this post is really about the mental preparation I went through and why.

It seems everyone who has turned their lives towards minimalism has some kind of ‘testimony’, and maybe you can resonate with mine, or not. Everyone’s personal experience is different.

I am, by nature a messy, lazy untidy person. Not the sort you would see on TV shows where people live in utter squalor, but I never really finished with things once I’d used them. So books would pile up, not going back on the shelf for months, or CD’s would be stacked on the desk, testament to their recent playing.

Every now and then I would tire of this kind of life, and would sort everything out, put things in their place, maybe occasionally trying a new method of arranging items so that they could easily be picked up and put back. Ikea shelving was bought, and instead of giving me space to put my stuff on in this organised fashion, it instead became a challenge to fill the shelves with books. Those books incidentally, were never read.

A few months back I was stressed in work, near a breakdown, depressed and full of utter despair. It was not a good place to be. I looked at solutions across the breadth of the Internet, and found some interesting articles on how some people approached depression.

One of the important things for depressed people is not exciting fun hyper activities to take their mind off it. No. For some depression sufferers, the important thing is a steady routine. I learned this years ago, that getting up, doing some certain things, going to work, finishing at the same time each day, going home and having a meal a certain time made life much more bearable, and gives space to think more positively.

My life was full of failed hobbies, junk and media excess. So I started to trim it down. I got rid of 75% of my books, some with incredible emotional attachment. That was nearly a year ago, and I don’t miss them. In fact, I could not even tell you a majority of their titles, whereas when I did own them I could have told you what most of them were called, and even a synopsis.  I’ve done similar with DVD’s and now doing more so across all my media and entertainment formats.

Does this reduction in media consumption change anything?  No, I don’t think it does.  I’ve not really bought a CD for years, most of the music I listen to is available for free.  My music of choice is ambient, and there are many netlabels around like Free Floating Music, Earth Mantra and many more that I can download from.

I don’t miss what I don’t have.  That is the essential thing to prepare for and something I spent about two months thinking on before I took any action.  Starting with some areas has enabled me to see a benefit, and that encourages me to tackle the others.