Tuesday's Catch: 'The Local Church Is a Sandbox' And More

The Local Church Is a Sandbox
When we participate in the local church, the Holy Spirit changes us to resemble Jesus more. Think of church as a sandbox where we practice and experience the reality of our faith. Whether you picture a sandbox where children play and develop cognitive skills, or a sandbox in engineering terms where a product is tested and refined, the local church fosters growth and endurance. The church is filled with people like you and me who wrestle with pride and selfish motives, similar to the child who grapples for possession of the nearest shovel or bucket. Yet God refines us, sanctifying and transforming us, often as we interact. Have you considered how God’s process of transformation relates to your involvement with God’s people in the local church?

Church at the Opry
What do you do when you know there are people in your small town who need a community and a place to learn about Jesus, but they aren’t coming to your church? Sharon White led her church through a process of listening for needs and opportunities in their small town of Waco, Ga. When they discovered a shared passion for Bluegrass music they prayed for God’s help to start something new. Today, in their town of barely 500, 100 people show up for the West Georgia Opry every weekend. Listen to hear the full story.

Also see Placing Hope in God: Blessing Seeds at Arthur UMC and Church revives itself with community engagement. Both articles describe how a local UMC church engages with its community. In rural parishes in the United Kindom it was common practice at one time to bless the plows on Plow Sunday at the beginning of the agricutural year. Blessing the seeds and the tractors each year at Arthur United Methodist Church carries on that tradition. One of the things tnat I found interesting in the article about Bethany United Methodist Church is its removal of several front pews to create a "prayground"in the sanctuary for the younger children. This idea is not a new one. It was suggested in an article or book on how to make Sunday worship more child friendly I first read in the 1980s.

Americans growing more socially liberal but remain economically conservative, Gallup says
Americans continue to grow more liberal in their social views but remain more conservative on economic issues, according to Gallup. Since 2015 — coincidentally the year the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage after a sea change of public opinion on the matter — Americans have been almost equally divided on saying they have liberal or conservative social views. That was a departure from the previous decade when Americans were about 50% more likely to identify as socially conservative than socially liberal. At the same time, Americans have remained more conservative on economic issues, although the percentage leaning more liberal has been growing.

Ed Stetzer: A Higher Allegiance
...how do we prepare for what promises to be a challenging year? Well, I think that remembering we are both exiles and ambassadors might help.

The Gospel, Public Policy, and Coercion
It used to be said that the Episcopal Church was “the Republican Party at prayer.” Those days are long gone. The public policy resolutions passed by General Convention will be painted a deep blue. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing depends largely on one’s political leanings. If your views run to the right, it’s at least an annoyance and, for some, a significant incitement to frustration. If one leans leftward, the response is more like, “So what’s the problem?”

Worship and the Christian's True Identity
The whole of the Christian life can be summed up in these two little words (favorites of the Apostle Paul): "in Him." Our union with Christ is the definitive aspect of our salvation and our status before God and others, and therefore our identity must be found in Christ.

Parents, You Aren’t Wrong About the Dangers of Transitioning
It turns out that objecting to allowing children or young people to make irrevocable medical changes to their bodies was exactly the right decision. In her report, Cass put research behind what many already knew to be true.

To, For, With: A Brief History of Children’s Sunday School Curriculum
Scottie May, professor emerita of Christian formation and ministry at Wheaton, maps American children’s ministry through three major phases. Though her study doesn’t engage with curricula explicitly, it’s not hard to notice how each phase has influenced the prepackaged lessons children in evangelical Sunday school classes work through each weekend. Let’s look at each of May’s phases and consider its influence on evangelical Sunday school broadly, then on Sunday school lessons taught in Reformed churches in particular. As we do, we’ll discover that the future of biblical children’s curricula is both global and rooted in the church’s past.

4 Needs Churches Should Meet for Men Going on Mission
Before men go to the mission field, they need character development, theological convictions, church examples, and ministry experience.