People don’t come to a small church expecting a scaled-down version of a megachurch experience. They expect a great small church experience.

Yes, there are principles that all great churches hold in common. But a great small church is not a miniaturized version of a great megachurch.

A great small church won’t have parking lot attendants and professional signage leading families to hi-tech, age-segmented children’s ministries.

Mum and Dad aren’t going to be handed a cup of finely roasted cappuccino from a smiling barista in the church lobby, before being led into a thoroughly post-modern worship space with form-fitting seats.

The worship team won’t be playing original songs from their best-selling album to tightly choreographed lights and video. The pastor’s message won’t be backed by perfectly-timed, custom-made graphics and video clips.

There are a lot of great megachurches that have all that cool stuff. But that’s not what makes them great. And if small church pastors try to duplicate that on a small church budget, you will fail.

Yes, I said it. Fail. I know that sounds like lack of faith to some people, but it’s not. Because failing at those things isn’t even the worst of it. The saddest part is that the time and expense you’ll waste trying to be something you’re not great at will be taken from the things you can be great at.

Yes, keep the place clean and uncluttered. If you own a building, strip off the 1990’s wallpaper and slap a fresh coat of paint on the walls. Make sure everything and everyone are well prepared. But put your main efforts into people, not programs. Friendliness, not facilities. Worship, not entertainment.

Give people the space and time to meet with Jesus.

Then do something small church pastors can do that megachurch pastors can’t do – hang out in the lobby after the service. Build relationships. Pray with and for people. Tell dumb jokes. Hug, laugh and cry together. Be a church family.

That won’t lead you to greatness. That is greatness.

Karl Vaters is the author of The Grasshopper Myth: Big Churches, Small Churches and the Small Thinking That Divides Us. He’s been in pastoral ministry for over 30 years and has been the lead pastor of Cornerstone Christian Fellowship in Fountain Valley, California for over 20 years. He’s also the founder of NewSmallChurch.com, a blog that encourages, connects and equips innovative Small Church pastors

Ethical objections to embryo research can trigger genuine progress

Life is not about comfort – suffering is part of our Christian life. Hearing stories of persecuted believers encourage us to pray and addresses our individualism. It gives us a heavenly perspective on our own lives that we can lose easily.  Anne Coles    (Release may-june 16)

 Lee Strobel offers his defense of Easter.

It was the worst news I could get as an atheist: my agnostic wife had decided to become a Christian. Two words shot through my mind. The first was an expletive; the second was “divorce.”

I thought she was going to turn into a self-righteous holy roller. But over the following months, I was intrigued by the positive changes in her character and values. Finally, I decided to take my journalism and legal training (I was legal editor of the Chicago Tribune) and systematically investigate whether there was any credibility to Christianity.

Maybe, I figured, I could extricate her from this cult.

I quickly determined that the alleged resurrection of Jesus was the key. Anyone can claim to be divine, but if Jesus backed up his claim by returning from the dead, then that was awfully good evidence he was telling the truth.

For nearly two years, I explored the minutia of the historical data on whether Easter was myth or reality. I didn’t merely accept the New Testament at face value; I was determined only to consider facts that were well-supported historically. As my investigation unfolded, my atheism began to buckle.

Was Jesus really executed? In my opinion, the evidence is so strong that even atheist historian Gerd Lüdemann said his death by crucifixion was “indisputable.”

Was Jesus’ tomb empty? Scholar William Lane Craig points out that its location was known to Christians and non-Christians alike. So if it hadn’t been empty, it would have been impossible for a movement founded on the resurrection to have exploded into existence in the same city where Jesus had been publicly executed just a few weeks before.

Besides, even Jesus’ opponents implicitly admitted the tomb was vacant by saying that his body had been stolen. But nobody had a motive for taking the body, especially the disciples. They wouldn’t have been willing to die brutal martyrs’ deaths if they knew this was all a lie.

Did anyone see Jesus alive again? I have identified at least eight ancient sources, both inside and outside the New Testament, that in my view confirm the apostles’ conviction that they encountered the resurrected Christ. Repeatedly, these sources stood strong when I tried to discredit them.

Could these encounters have been hallucinations? No way, experts told me. Hallucinations occur in individual brains, like dreams, yet, according to the Bible, Jesus appeared to groups of people on three different occasions – including 500 at once!

Was this some other sort of vision, perhaps prompted by the apostles’ grief over their leader’s execution? This wouldn’t explain the dramatic conversion of Saul, an opponent of Christians, or James, the once-skeptical half-brother of Jesus.

Neither was primed for a vision, yet each saw the risen Jesus and later died proclaiming he had appeared to him. Besides, if these were visions, the body would still have been in the tomb.

Was the resurrection simply the recasting of ancient mythology, akin to the fanciful tales of Osiris or Mithras? If you want to see a historian laugh out loud, bring up that kind of pop-culture nonsense.

One by one, my objections evaporated. I read books by skeptics, but their counter-arguments crumbled under the weight of the historical data. No wonder atheists so often come up short in scholarly debates over the resurrection.

In the end, after I had thoroughly investigated the matter, I reached an unexpected conclusion: it would actually take more faith to maintain my atheism than to become a follower of Jesus.

And that’s why I’m now celebrating my 30th Easter as a Christian. Not because of wishful thinking, the fear of death, or the need for a psychological crutch, but because of the facts.

“But the Bible’s language is clear that Adam and Eve were real people. Their historical existence and fall into sin are foundational to the gospel of Jesus Christ. In addition, the science of genetics—including human and chimp comparisons, mitochondrial and Y chromosome DNA, and human genetic variation—confirms and is consistent with the fact that all humans have descended from an original couple specifically created by God as described in Genesis,” it added.

http://pastorhistorian.com/2007/11/30/fasting-and-the-new-covenant-exposition-of-matthew-914-17/

Mrs Morgan said: “This government is determined to protect schools’ freedom to set their own religious studies curriculum, in line with the wishes of parents and the local community.

“The guidance I have issued makes absolutely clear that the recent judicial review will have no impact on what is currently being taught in religious education.

“I am clear that both faith and non-faith schools are completely entitled to prioritise the teaching of religion and faith over non-religious world views if they wish.”

The guidelines added that non-faith schools should “reflect the fact that the religious traditions in Great Britain are, in the main, Christian whilst taking account of the teaching and practices of the other principal religions represented in Great Britain”.

It’s been about 20 years since Agapé’s “ACCTS” logo was first introduced to the masses!

A lot has changed since then – we’ve moved buildings, seen people ‘move on’, or ‘move through’ and others ‘move in’; but there are also things that have remained the same, such as:

• Jesus at the centre
• Church in the community
• Agapé (sacrificial) love amongst each other and those we meet
• Sticking to the mission: Luke 4:18-19

So when it came to updating the logo, a couple of things were there for the keeping:

The Cross – in the new logo this is much more prominent

The ‘C’ Church – still sitting neatly within the ‘C’ Community, affecting the places we go and the people we see with God’s love and compassion. This has greater meaning as we build up our partnerships, working with churches, agencies and residents to see changes in the hearts and lives of the community.

ACCTS – we are part of the new New Testament Church with a heart to move as God moves us and take him wherever we go.

So what’s changed? Actually, not a lot!

Straight away you’ll notice that the ‘A’ is smoother, the curve perhaps being a little bit more modern, more inviting than the old, sharper shape, and leading nicely into the rest of the logo. The font used to create the logo makes it ‘sit up taller’ and is easy to read.

As already mentioned, the ‘T’ as the cross is more prominent, and more of a focal point, there’s no mistaking what we believe, even if someone’s not sure what the logo means!

There are fewer colours in the logo. Did you notice?! Fewer colours can make a logo look cleaner and clearer; the continuity of the colour is pleasing on the eye and, again, makes the red cross stand out.

So what do you think? Do you like Agapé’s new logo? Feel free to leave a comment!

Viennese psychiatrist Viktor Frankl survived Auschwitz and later summarized his horrific experience with this now-famous statement: “Man’s search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life.”  He observed that prisoners who were most likely to survive were those who refused to abandon hope, who held onto a larger meaning in their suffering.

Our society desperately needs an alternative, a culture that manifests God’s Kingdom on earth.  A culture populated by those who choose love over lust (Matthew 5:27-30), marriage over divorce (vs. 31-32), truth over lies (Ephesians 4:25), humility over ego (Philippians 2:3-11), service over self (Ephesians 5:21).  (Denison Forum)