I proposed a definition for personal success. What about church success?

3½ minute Video version: https://fb.watch/gHmQNH5AF8/ I recall as a young leader setting high expectations on myself for success. I wanted to succeed, but the results I sought to achieve were often unrealistic and even fanciful. I wanted to be successful, but I was driven by the outward accomplishments of others and restricted by my own internal…

3 minute Video version: https://fb.watch/gy7r_V0cIo/ A friend once thoughtfully asked me, “Are you and I preoccupied with Christ’s second coming?” Even an elemental “statement of faith” includes it: Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again. Our own Statement reads: “The Second Coming of Jesus Christ, our Lord and King (Revelation 19:16), is imminent…

3 minute Video version: https://fb.watch/gqQL6S26bt/ Decisions we make in this life affect our eternal existence. Moses earnestly appealed to people, “I have set before you life and death. Now choose life” (Deuteronomy 30:19). Jesus repeatedly called people, “Follow me.” He told us, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes…

3 Minute Video version: https://fb.watch/goRDP-EILa/ Some years back I went with others on a missions tour to Ecuador. We wanted to see what God was doing in his Church. We visited urban churches in the capital city of Quito, and we visited rural churches in the Amazon jungle. We toured some expansive church complexes, and…

4-Minute Video Version: https://fb.watch/ghI7J9XXdF/ Not many Statements of Faith include a statement about healing. Ours does. Jesus is our Healer. “Provision is made in the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus Christ for the healing of the whole person (Isaiah 53:4-5, Matthew 8:16-17). Prayer for the sick and anointing with oil are taught in the…

3-Minute Video Version: https://fb.watch/g8mrK3Lkyf/ So you’ve become a Christ follower. You’re being changed from the inside out. “Sanctification” is a big umbrella term that describes this process of becoming like Christ progressively. The Alliance is helpfully updating its Statement of Faith on sanctification, currently: “It is the will of God that through the indwelling Christ (Colossians…

3-Minute Video: https://fb.watch/g5Np_PD_rT/ A hundred years ago, Dr. Claude Barlow served as a medical missionary in Shaoxing, China. A strange disease began killing people, and he couldn’t find a remedy. In search of a cure, he filled his notebook with observations he had witnessed in hundreds of cases. Finally, with a small vial of the germs,…

3 Minute Video: https://fb.watch/f-R_JQv0WL/ Sometimes we spout out spiritual truths so quickly, we assume everybody understands what we’re saying. We ourselves may miss fully hearing it. An example is the next two sentences in our Statement of Faith regarding humanity. It’s packed with four sizable and interlinked doctrines. “Man and woman were created in the image…