We’ve Moved!

Our Blog has moved! The new address is

http://enjoyinggodfellowship.org/blog

 

How Do I Listen To A Sermon?

Tim Challies posts from one of George Whitefield’s sermons on taking advantage of a sermon delivered:

1. Come to hear them, not out of curiosity, but from a sincere desire to know and do your duty.

2. Give diligent heed to the things that are spoken from the Word of God.

3. Do not entertain even the least prejudice against the minister.

4. Be careful not to depend too much on a preacher, or think more highly of him than you ought to think.

5. Make particular application to your own hearts of everything that is delivered.

6. Pray to the Lord, before, during, and after every sermon, to endue the minister with power to speak, and to grant you a will and ability to put into practice what he shall show from the Book of God to be your duty.

HT: Timmy Brister

 

Biblical Manhood and Womanhood Sermon Resource

If you would like to hear a good sermon on biblical manhood and womanhood and the confusion that occurred because of the fall, listen to this by John Piper.

 

A New Blogcast

Very soon, Lord willing, we will have sermon audio available on the web from our Sunday morning gatherings. Check out my group blog to check out our new BlogCast.

 

We Don’t Go To Church, We Are the Church!

My friend Adam agrees. He states,

“I want to create a church where people do life together and intentionally live as the church. It’s not an event, it’s a state of being.”

 This is what we want to create as well.

 

Word of the Day: Moralistic Therapeutic Deism

What is Moralistic Therapeutic Deism? Listen to this week’s White Horse Inn where they discuss a video about Teenagers and God. We need to get this!

Click for info on Soul Searching Video

 

Why We Are Planting a Church in Charlotte

Watch THIS excerpt from John Piper. This is why Enjoying God Fellowship exists. There aren’t enough churches with this as their vision.

 

The Attitude it Takes for Engaging the Culture with the Gospel

Fellow Church Planter Jim Powell writes:

Weak Christian?  That I am, but my friends call me Jim.  Actually, the rhetorical question should read, ‘Strong Christian?!?!’  Is there is even such a thing?  There is not.   “For he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’  Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”   – 2 Corinthians 12:9

Sometimes when there is a misunderstanding between two people I have been known to say, “Say what you mean and mean what you say.” When we describe others as “strong Christians” (certainly we would never describe ourselves this way), we may not mean something that contradicts what our brother Jim has stated on his blog. You may even respond, “But I didn’t mean it that way.” No matter, words have meaning. What kind of message are we sending to the unsaved in our community when we use lingo such as “strong Christian?” What kind of message are we sending to Christians immature in their faith and are not well grounded in the Scriptures? “Ah”, you say, “see, someone who is grounded is strong.” Are they? Is being a mature Christian the same things are being a strong Christian? I would say not. A toddler may not be as mature as a teenager, but he may be very strong. An adult may be mature, but weak physically or in some other way. Maturity is not the same thing as strength. Our strength as Christians depends on our weakness because this is where God’s strength is displayed. If we are going to reach our culture with the gospel, it is imperative that we see ourselves as we really are…as weak Christians. 

 

Biblical Eldership: The Husband of One Wife

I’ll go ahead and let the cat out of the bag. When Paul states in 1 Timothy 3:2 that overseers are to be “the husband of one wife,” he is not referring to divorce. Yes, I said that and I am a Baptist…go figure. In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul uses the word divorce (aphiemi in Greek) three times. However, this is not the same word he employs in 1 Timothy 3. In Greek, the words for husband and wife are the same as the words for man and woman. In other words the literal rendering of the phrase in 1 Timothy 3:2 is “a one woman man.” You could say that Paul is saying that an elder is to be a one woman kind of man. Hear this very carefully, there are men in pulpits all over this country that have never been divorced but are not one woman men. Likewise, their are men who perhaps were divorced pre-conversion, and then got saved and remarried and have been wholeheartly committed to one woman both in deed and thought since they came to Christ. Paul is not forbidding divorced men from being elders, rather he is speaking of the purity of the man’s heart toward his wife. Maybe a man claiming to be a Christian cheated on his wife and then got divorced. This would be a case when a divorced man would be disqualified, but not on the basis of the divorce alone. When examing men to be elders in our churches, we must not put on the narrow glasses of “has he been divorced?” If we do, we miss Paul’s point entirely and may install men who indeed are NOT one woman men.

 

Mission Statement?

OK, I expect to hear from everyone in the core group on this one. I’m serious! Leave a comment!

 I was thinking about our mission and came up with this statement:

 Our mission at EGF is to glorify God by spreading a passion for Jesus Christ by penetrating Charlotte with the light of the gospel.

 What do you think? If you aren’t in the core group, let us know what you think, too. Thanks!