Who Said That?

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

If you are retooling your church to fit the Starbucks model, try reading Ephesians instead. Surely we can do better than faux community and the illusion of social superiority.

-Kevin DeYoung, read the whole post here

Please support Ministry Best Practices by Visiting our Advertisers

Make Your Sermon Count

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Ever feel as if your congregation doesn't remember on Monday what you preached about on Sunday?

It is important for those of us who hear the preaching of the Word, to meditate on it and apply it into our lives.  And if the church can provide tools and resources to further that goal, we should make every effort to do so.

That is why I like what College Park Church is providing.  They are making available on their website a 'Sunday Package'. In the package is the sermon to listen to again, a manuscript of the sermon, a study guide, as well as the weekly church bulletin and news and opportunities.

I think this is an awesome idea, and as far as I can see, it isn't very difficult to implement.

Please support Ministry Best Practices by Visiting our Advertisers

10 Insane but True Facts About Porn

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

In Tim Chester's forthcoming book, Captured By a Better Vision: Living Pom-Free, he describes the spread of pornography as an epidemic. Here are some statistics that back up his claim …

• Every second, 28,258 Internet users are viewing pomography and $3,075.64 is being spent on pornography
• The pornography industry is larger than the revenues of the top technology companies combined: Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo!, Apple, Netflix and EarthLink
• There are 4.2 million pornographic websites, which is 12% of all the websites on the internet
• Every day there are 68 million (25% of the total) search engine requests for pornographic terms
• 42.7% of internet users view pom
• The average age of first exposure to pornography is 11 years old and 80% of 15-17 year olds have had multiple hard-core exposure
• The 35-49 age group is the largest consumer of internet pornography
• 47% of Christians say that pornography is a major problem in the home
• 17% of women struggle with pornography addiction and 70% of women keep their cyber activities secret
• The USA produces 89% of all pornographic web pages (Germany are the next biggest producer, producing 4% of all pomographic web pages)

The fact that pornography is an enormous problem probably comes at no surprise to you. But this isn't just a problem that is merely out there, outside of the church - it's prevalent inside the church as well. Christians struggle! Pastors struggle!

Therefore it's a surprise to how relatively silent the church is about this issue.  Perhaps we've developed a "don't ask...don't tell" mindset, I won't challenge and ask you about this issue, just as long as you won't ask me.

But as ministry leaders, we must,with grace and truth, be addressing this with our youth, our men and yes, even our women.  We cannot any longer be passive and timid about this issue - we must be as aggressive toward pornography, as pornography has been aggressive in coming into our homes and putting people into bondage.

Does your church publicly address pornography with it's members?  If so, how?  Please share in the comments section.

Please support Ministry Best Practices by Visiting our Advertisers