It is actually the same church with a different lead pastor and philosophy of ministry. I would agree that the church was dying due its unbiblical approach. I would not have thought at the time that it was unbiblical but now with hind-sight I would say yes it was. The church itself had an us 4 and no more mentality. The did not want fresh ideas or new people coming in. That has chnaged drastically over the last 3 years.

and here’s another thought on the church you were at before… maybe being uncreative and non-relevant, is also unbiblical in itself?

snakesanddoves… yes… we’re nothing but some creative marketers with godly language without the Holy Spirit. Odd how easy the Spirit of God can be to forget sometimes..

I love the phrase “preaching… is conducive to action-orientated life transformation”. Surely that is for us Christians a return to our roots. Moreover, it leads to deep more authentic faith, I suspect, wholistic conversion, not just intellectual assent or gooey feelings (‘warm fuzzies’ as some here in the UK have called them).

Perhaps your last phrase is the best of all.

“Preachers must learn to see the invisible and hear the inaudible, that the heart of the postmodern world is ‘preaching’ for us to preach Christ centered messages clearly to them.”

This is what will set us apart from the crowd – if by the Holy Spirit we can see the subtexts and bring both the critique of the Gospel and the hope of the Gospel to bear there.

Preaching is a interesting thing. In the church that I have the opportunity to be involved with, we find that the preaching is the thing that gets people in the door but it is community and fellowship that get them to stay. If you asked our church, they would say that preaching is a strong point of the church. We do, as you say, do messages that are Biblical and Relevant. I was at this church when it messages were uncreative and non-relevant, but Biblical and we were dying on the vine.

Now we do messages as a creative staff and it has revolutionized the messages and the messengers. We are on the radio and since this started our request have grown, our church has grown in numbers and spiritually, and we have become balanced.

I agree with your conclusion because we are living it.

Thanks for the posts.

Hey Chad… I’ll send you my email in just a moment.

Hey…love the blog. You do a great job of getting a ton of info on here…plus some really great thoughts. I have some questions for you re: seminary…church plant, etc. Would love to get your thoughts. Could you drop me your email?

Thanks