The Gospel 700 years in advance

The Rescue- The Suffering Servant from Erick Sorensen on Vimeo.

Do You Care?

Is it all about you, your needs, and what you are feeling? Do you care about lost people? What would your bank account and your schedule tell us? These are just a few poignant questions that Mark Driscoll asks his congregation. I am asking you. Where is your heart at? What is your heart condition?

If you are interested you can view the whole sermon here.

Why American Christians should never EVER think they're persecuted...

Persecution in India: Unedited Footage from Cornerstone Church on Vimeo.

Elijah

The Rescue- Turning us back to Him from Erick Sorensen on Vimeo.

Decide to Abandon Retirement as the Reward for Your Life

Here is a video put together by the folks over at Desiring God. The voice you are hearing is that of Pastor John Piper. Would you abandon your plans for retirement to serve God and His kingdom until the day you die?

What's the Point?

The Rescue- The Search for Meaning from Erick Sorensen on Vimeo.

To be a Church like this

Ray Ortlund:


“. . . a friend of tax collectors and sinners!”  Luke 7:34

What does it mean for a church to be gospel-centered?  That’s a popular concept these days.  Good.  What if we were scrambling to be law-centered?  But the difference is not so easy in real terms.

A gospel-centered church holds together two things.  One, a gospel-centered church preaches a bold message of grace — so bold that it becomes the end of the law for all who believe.  Not our performance but Christ’s performance for us.  Not our sacrifices but his sacrifice for us.  Not our superiority but only his worth and prestige.  The good news of substitution.  The good news that our okayness is not in us but exterior to us in Christ alone.  Climbing down from the high moral ground, because only Christ belongs up there.  That message, that awareness, that clarity.  Every Sunday.

Two, a gospel-centered church translates that theology into its sociology.  The good news of God’s grace beautifies how we treat one another.  In fact, the horizontal reveals the vertical.  How we treat one another reveals what we really believe as opposed to what we think we believe.  It is possible to say, “We are a gospel-centered church,” and sincerely mean it, while we make our church into a law-centered social environment.  We see God above lowering his gun, and we breathe a sigh of relief.  But if we are trigger-happy toward one another, we don’t really get it yet.

A gospel-centered church looks something like this album cover — my all-time favorite.  A gospel-centered church is a variegated collection of sinners.  They come together and stick together because they have nothing to fear from their message or their culture.  The theology creates the sociology, and the sociology incarnates the theology.

The one deal-breaker in a gospel-centered church: anyone for any reason turning it into a culture of legal demandingness and negative scrutiny.  Few would do that in the theology, of course.  But still, a church with a message of grace can stop being gospel-centered in real terms.

A major part of pastoral ministry is preaching the doctrines of grace and managing an environment of grace.  The latter is harder to accomplish than the former.  It is more intuitive.  It requires more humility and self-awareness.

May the Friend of sinners grant beautiful gospel-centricity in all our churches.

Giving back to The Giver

Generosity from Erick Sorensen on Vimeo.