Dan

Now I admit, my title may be a little over the top, but I want to ask a serious question.  Who's idea is the megachurch?  I admit the megachurch has done some great things, but is the price that we paid worth the work?  I think I need to back up and start from the beginning of my train of thought, and then you can decide if I am off the track. Where I live in Iowa, they have decided that it's better to remove the community schools and build big monstrous schools and bus kids in.  It looks like in a few years my kids will be bussed to one of these big schools.  I am not crazy about the idea, … [Read more...] about Is the Megachurch a Tool of the Devil?

As I look back on church history, I read accounts like Polycarp who was led to the stake and burned alive for not recanting his faith.  Men like Martin Luther and John Calvin who pushed for reform while fleeing for their lives.  Men like John Bunyan who went to prison because he refused to stop preaching.  The pilgrims and puritans who came to this country for religious freedom and fought to establish the freedom to worship in America.  These men and countless more who faced persecution to obtain religious freedom, to worship, to preach and to evangelize.  Today in communist and Muslim … [Read more...] about How We Abandoned Christ in America

Before I begin, let me say I am in support of the Great Commission Resurgence.  I think it’s a great thing, and we need to focus our ideas, resources and tool on reaching out.  I have already posted on the things I think will hinder the SBC from really seeing a movement of God from the GCR, and I don’t want to hash that out again.  What I want to look at is simple.  Does the Great Commission Resurgence have a chance to really move the SBC forward in outreach, or is it just great propaganda?  Here are some things I would like to discuss and toss around. If the SBC is a bottom up … [Read more...] about Does the GCR Stand a Ghost of a Chance?

Have you ever noticed how many ideas in the Christian faith seem more hypothetical than concrete?  Things like “fall into the arms of grace” or “just give it to God”.  What do those look like really?  Are they things that have meat to them, or are they just things we say and have no idea what they really mean?   How do you fall into grace, or give something in-material to a spiritual being?  There are lots of things that we say are hard to define and pin down, but I think it’s symptomatic of a larger issue.  We have tried for two thousand years to define Salvation, but I am not sure we … [Read more...] about How Does It Work?

I know it’s interesting to have a topic like this on a blog, but I wonder about our online relationships and how they impact the Universal Body of Christ.  I have developed some great relationships online with people I would have never met otherwise.  I have learned a great deal from blogging, reading, writing and sharing online ideas.  I think blogging has a lot of validity, but what I want to ask about is community.  Is online community authentic?  Can we have true fellowship online?  Has the invention of the internet created a whole is community? The most popular social network … [Read more...] about Has Blogging Ruined the Church?

(Editor:  Dan Barnes is the Associate Pastor of Heartland Community Baptist Church  in Sioux City, Iowa.  He has some interesting perspectives here, so enjoy the discussion and play nice.) I am excited and encouraged by the movement taken by the Southern Baptist Convention with the Great Commission Resurgence.  I am excited to see so many coming together to focus on reaching the lost and touching the down and out.  I am excited to see where God’s Plan for Sharing takes us during this decade and I am optimistic.  I do have some concerns, however, that I think are holding us back.  More than … [Read more...] about What Is Holding the SBC Back?