Archive for category Church Evangelism

Why People Fall Down In Church

For years I ridiculed and questioned everything that looked unfamiliar in the church. I believed we are called to prove everything, to test everything that seems to be novel in the church. True enough. But when we move into ridicule we are in Enemy territory and can be rebuked soundly for it.

So I do not approach this subject with animosity nor with a light heart. Rather I hope to be seen as the objective reporter.

No I have never fallen down in church. I have never even gotten weak and trembling. A vast amount of the church looks at such a confession with benign approval and pats me on the back. But many others question whether the Holy Spirit has ever manifested Himself to me. After all, they question, how can God Himself show up in the room or in your body, and not be felt in some dynamic way? Read the rest of this entry »

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Is Speaking in Tongues a Prayer Language?

Many pentecostal churches teach that speaking in tongues is a heavenly language, the “tongues of angels”. Is this what the Bible shows? Where does this teaching originate from?

The Greek words used in the New Testament for tongues, when used in relation to speaking, simply meant “language”. The Greek “glossa” means “tongue, language,” and the verb “laleo” means “to speak”, producing the word “glossolalia”. This always refered to an earthly or known language.

There is only one verse in the Bible that mentions the tongues of angels. It is 1 Corinthians 13:1(KJV) “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal”. Is Paul really saying that he speaks in the tongues of angels? This verse needs to be viewed in context and also in relation to the translation from the Greek. The word that has been translated to “though” when translated and used in over 95% of all other places in the New Testament, has been more correctly translated to “if”. Other Versions of the Bible do translate this correctly to “if I spoke in the tongues men and angels”.

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The Coming Kingdom Belongs to Risk Takers

Many leaders in the Body of Christ today consider the next, great season of change in the Church is already begun. Here’s a quick note to alert interested Believers to keep their eyes on these transformations in the Church.

Let’s look at yesterday’s world and today’s world. In yesterday’s world, mainstream churches (Evangelicals, Pentecostals, etc.) dominated the overall ministry of the church. Then, in the ’60s, the true “ministry” of the Church increasingly came from what (for lack of any better term) were called, “para-church ministries”. These were organizations that were more-or-less tied to mainstream churches, but were run mostly by “laity” — not “professional clergy”.

Back then, many professional clergy warned that allowing effective ministry to be “divorced” from local church control could result in ministries having “no accountability”. What para-church ministries actually did (apart from some notably bad examples) was to set up oversight organizations (financial and otherwise) and thus became accountable to their peers.

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