Anything you can do that connects believers with one another engages the church to go the next level, which keeps the pastor from being burnt out, which therefore keeps him in the ministry.
— Tony Evans
In Scripture, a name often connotes purpose, authority, makeup, and character. In fact, a person's name is frequently seen as an equivalent of that person.
In the urban community, the church doesn't just take people to Heaven; it feeds, clothes, and houses them. It teaches them how to read and gets them jobs. The church should be doing all that. What the government should be doing is freeing up the church and supporting the church, as long as it is providing social services.
The separation of church and state is a suburban, not an urban, issue.
I must confess that it is a lot easier for me as a pastor to preach about prayer than to spend that same amount of time engaged in it.
Many people want 'God bless America,' but they don't want 'One nation under God.' The problem is you can't have one without the other.
Every four years, the eyes of America become riveted on the national election returns. But God's first concern during any political season is not the same as our first concern - it is not about what is happening, or going to happen, in the White House. God's first concern is what is happening, or not happening, in His house.
When I heard Martin Luther King's speech, 'I Have a Dream,' I reflected on the fact that much of the success of that movement was driven by the unity of the church.
We've got to move from membership to discipleship to being full-time Christians, not part-time saints. That means operating comprehensively on the value system of Heaven as we move about in history.
Until we take seriously God's definition of the church and stop just 'having church,' we will not see transformation in our society.
The more people marginalize the true God of the Bible, the more chaotic things become.
To carry our cross is to have such a commitment and identify with Jesus Christ and what He accomplished that I am willing to suffer the repercussions to that identification.
We need a right view of the cross. It is both a historical event that can take us to Heaven and a current event that can bring Heaven to bear on Earth.
Technology has changed how people communicate, how people relate, the speed at which this takes place. To ignore that, in the name of preaching the Word, is to forget that we're to preach the Word to people.
We don't apologize for who we are. We do what we do as Christians. Our faith isn't hidden. There should never be a separation between God and good works.
We're going to have to become very aggressive in addressing justice issues that have to do with fairness and doing that which is equitable and honoring to God.
Ladies, you do not have to submit yourself to any man abusing you.
Ministry burnout is a real problem because it's never-ending.
A name is so important in biblical settings that Scripture frequently mentions God Himself changing someone's name to reflect a new reality. Abram, which means 'exalted father,' was changed to Abraham, meaning 'father of a multitude.'
Government can run and fund programs, but it can't love, it can't show compassion, and it can't embrace. Our faith is designed to have social implications, not just heavenly ones. The spiritual and the social must be connected.
Prayer is God's backstage pass into a personal audience with Him.
Although all serious Christians recognize the importance that the Bible places on prayer, most fall short when it comes to doing it.
America was never officially a Christian nation, since neither Jesus Christ nor the Bible are mentioned in the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence. But there's no denying the influence Christianity has had on our country.
Racism is not first and foremost a skin problem. It is a sin problem. See, when you believe that racism is a skin problem, you can take three hundred years of slavery, court decisions, marches, and the federal government involvement and still not get it fixed right.
In order to impact our society, we need to first model unity in the church.
The exclusion of God automatically means the inclusion of evil.
You can't blame things for being dark if the light bulbs aren't working. So we're complaining about the darkness when the bulbs aren't working, and the Bible says that we are the light of the world.
God operates the world by covenants. Those covenants have specific jurisdictions and responsibilities, not to be infringed upon by another covenant.
Religious programs, activities have often blurred and sidelined the centrality of the cross - causing religion to be empty of its core.
People from different backgrounds may not have natural affinity, but when the Word of God is treated right and the Holy Spirit is allowed to engage, it can bring together things, people, backgrounds, histories, races, colors, and cultures and hold them together in a way that natural affinity may not be able to do.
Churches need to be intentional about reaching the next generation by creating templates for young people to see that there is a stepping stone for leadership in this church.
If the church adopts a school, and the school has kids, and the kids have parents, well, then you've reconnected the hub of a community, because you've brought together its three most fundamental institutions - church, schools, and family.
These young people need to see that there's something bigger out there than what they're looking at everyday or seeing in the news or on social media. They need men and women to come into their lives who will give them a bigger vision of the world, of life, of opportunity, of what they can become rather than what they think they are limited to you.
If you're not married, and your boyfriend is putting his hands on you, you know he ain't the one, because you know that will continue.
We need to learn the names of God because when we know His character and His capacity, we will find rest and discover peace and power in His covenantal care of us.
Getting to know God by His names is more than simply learning a new word or discovering a new title He goes by. Learning to know God by His names opens up the door to knowing His character more fully and experiencing His power more deeply.
The church is the only mechanism for mass mobilization. That's why the civil rights movement came out of the church.
Prayer is the God-given communication link between Heaven and Earth, time and eternity, the finite and the infinite.
It is in following Christ as our captain that we can win in our personal lives, families, churches, and communities.
The Church has failed to be a positive influence for good in our nation and our world.
We can never get around to being one nation under God if we can't even get around to being one Church under God.
As God is continually being marginalized and dismissed in the culture, you will continue to see evil proliferate.
Whenever you exclude God and the value system that He represents out of the equation of a life, of a family, or a culture, you create a spiritual vacuum. Nature abhors a vacuum. It must be filled with something.
The problem is that God is being dismissed from the culture, and that vacuum is allowing, or is the basis for, the deterioration of society. That is because Christians have not kept Him in the center of the culture.
The Bible is pregnant with politics. You cannot read the Bible from Genesis through Revelation and go through too many chapters that are not involving politics.
The cross is to be our point of reference for every area of our lives all the time.
Righteousness has to do with the vertical standard that God gives us to please Him. Justice has to do with the horizontal expression of that righteous standard in the lives of others.
Whenever you define family as anything other than a man and a woman married together, you have just introduced an ethical nightmare.
The goal was not only to teach people the Bible and minister to people personally and spiritually, but also to build a church to be community focused.
I used to be one of those students who needed to see something bigger, and God brought people into my life who gave me a bigger vision than the circumstances that surrounded me.
