There's a prevailing - and I think unfounded - assumption among American Christians that church should be enjoyable. Most people approach church involvement as if they were about to attend a dinner theater production: we dress up; we leave in time so as not to be late; we expect to be greeted at the door and escorted to our choice of seating; we hope the music is to our taste and that the pastor's speaking is winsome, engaging, and delightful. Then, of course, on the way home we review the whole as if we were critics about to write a column for the "Arts & Entertainment" section of the paper. I say this perspective is unfounded and want to suggest that, sometimes, not enjoying church is an expression of genuine Christian faith.
Author
- Bob Struck
Bob is a teaching pastor at Trinity Baptist Church in Minnesota. Mild mannered pastor by day, he is a Nordic Track workout junkie and a huge fan of Mystery Science Theatre 3000!
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Quotable ...
- "If you want a strong marriage you've got to maintain it... The grass is not greener on the other side of the fence; it's greener where you water it." Rick Warren
- "Let the fires go out in the boiler room of the church and the place will still look smart and clean, but it will be cold. The Prayer Room is the boiler room for its spiritual life." Leonard Ravenhill
- "...the providence of God is ususally something you should roll with." Doug Wilson
- "Saying Yes to happiness often means saying No to yourself." Elizabeth Elliot
- "Idols are often good things turned into a god thing, which is a bad thing." Mark Driscoll
- "My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things - that I am a great sinner and that Christ is a great Savior." John Newton
- "I believe in Christianity like I believe the sun has risen. Not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." C.S. Lewis
- "If you pray well, you will live well; if you live well, you will die well; and if you die well, all will be well." St. Augustine
- "As the Lord's Prayer is the Prayer of prayers, and the Ten Commandments are the Laws of law, so the Apostles' Creed is the Creed of creeds." Philip Schaff, Creeds of Christendom
- "If people like you and me find much that we don't naturally like in the public & corporate side of Christianity all the better for us: it will teach us humility and charity towards simple low-brow people who may be better Christians than ourselves." C.S. Lewis
- "Adam and Eve were created to be one flesh, to express in bodily form the unity that exists among the persons of the Trinity." Peter Leithart
- "If anything has been lost from our culture, it is the idea that human beings are privately, personally, individually, ultimately, inexorably accountable to God for their lives." R.C. Sproul
- "The kindness of the world is far more formidable than its enmity. Many, who were prepared to stem the torrent of its opposition, have yielded with compromising indulgence to its paralyzing kindness." Charles Bridges
- "Once you have made the World an end, and faith a means, you have almost won your man, and it makes very little difference what kind of worldly end he is pursuing." Screwtape to Wormwood
- "Prayer isn't everything; but everything is done through prayer." -- Armin Gesswein
- "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world." -- C.S. Lewis
- "Where there is much prayer, there will be much of the Spirit; where there is much of the Spirit, there will be ever-increasing prayer." -- Andrew Murray
- "The church that multiplies committees and neglects prayer may be fussy, noisy, enterprising, but it labors in vain and spends its strength for nothing. It is possible to excel in mechanics and fail in dynamics. There is an abundance of machinery; what is lacking is power." -- Samuel Chadwick
- "The church is a Body, not a business. It is an organism, not an organization! It is a family to be loved, not a machine to be engineered, and not a company to be managed." -- Rick Warren
- "If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else." -- Yogi Berra
People, Ministries, Blogs...
- Feminine-Genius the blog of Genevieve Kineke
Insightful cultural commentary from a Catholic woman - The weblog of Dr. Peter Leithart
Not to be read by Baptist fundamentalists... - Moore to the Point
Dr. Russell D. Moore - The weblog of Dr. Al Mohler
Big... - Touchstone blog
A blog of mere Christianity - Ligonier Ministries - R.C. Sproul
Reformation orthodoxy from Orlando - The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood
Procalaiming God's Glorious Design for Men and Women - Touchstone
A journal of mere Christianity - Credenda Agenda
More funny and insightful stuff from Idaho - Desring God blog - John Piper
Definitely not funny - but joyful! - Blog and Mablog - Doug Wilson
Witty, insightful, Presbyterian...
