3 April, 2014
Published by Jay F Guin in The Work of the Holy Spirit
When I mention “elders” in a Church of Christ forum, I immediately receive a negative reaction, as though all elders in the Churches of Christ are just awful — troll-like, even — just like in the illustration.
And yet our elders don’t ordain themselves. Every church I’m familiar with requires the members to nominate candidates and to comment on the scriptural…
2 April, 2014
Published by jsingleton in The Work of the Holy Spirit
This is the last in a series on how one traditional church and traditional youth ministry took steps to transition to an approach where the parents were equipped to disciple their children. We are including all four parts in a pdf that you can download and/or pass along to any ministers or churches you know who are trying to figure out this transition. The more youth ministers I talk…
1 April, 2014
Published by Sara Barton in The Work of the Holy Spirit
I was scared of the Holy Spirit for a large portion of my life.
Scared.
Fearful.
Even terrified.
It couldn’t have helped that the name for the Spirit I heard was “The Holy Ghost.” As a child, I had this vision of a ghost, not nearly as friendly as Casper, who could come and go through the walls of my house, checking on me. For a time, I was sure that it was…
31 March, 2014
Published by jsingleton in The Work of the Holy Spirit
The glory days of event-driven, program-focused youth ministry are over. Sad? Have a small funeral service if you wish. However, before you bury your beach-balls, youth ministry game books, and your calendar of events realize this change is going to take time and it doesn’t require an immediate purge of everything that has gone before. The number one way for a youth minister to lose their job is to…
31 March, 2014
Published by jsingleton in The Work of the Holy Spirit
It isn’t just statistics about young people leaving the church that cause alarm. What is equally concerning is the lack of Christian maturity that exists within young Christians who remain in the church. Ephesians 4 begins to paint a picture of what mature Christian believers look like. How do today’s young believers measure up to the standard of maturity we read about in scripture?
Ephesians 4:11-16 11 So Christ himself gave the…
27 March, 2014
Published by jsingleton in The Work of the Holy Spirit
In case you aren’t aware, the recognition of the limitations of youth ministry being a viable means of instilling and growing faith in our youth is among the most discussed topics in youth minister over the last few years. This conversation is a direct result of the explosion of articles and books on the mass exodus of young adults from churches. No one likes seeing this generation walk away…
25 March, 2014
Published by jonathanstorment in The Work of the Holy Spirit
One of the best ways I’ve ever heard the Holy Spirit described is “The Wild Goose.” The Celtic Christians called the Holy Spirit this, not to be irreverent, but because they knew something I think we’ve forgotten.
They know that the Holy Spirit is wild.
A few years ago, Leslie and I led a team of college students to work with an orphanage in India for a few weeks. At one…
23 March, 2014
Published by Les Ferguson, Jr. in The Work of the Holy Spirit
This winter has been colder than most.
Those who heat by electric or gas are probably seeing a big difference in their bills.
We see it in a mostly depleted fire wood shed because, we heat our house entirely by burning logs in a wood stove.
It puts out lots of heat, and some places like the balcony/ loft are extraordinarily warm.
But even though I said we heat our house with wood,…
Note from the editor: I appreciate Jimmy and Les tackling this extremely difficult subject and sharing with us what they have learned about the dangers of pedophilia so that we can all take steps to protect those who are most precious to us and be more aware of what is going on around us. This is not an easy subject to discuss and there are some things said in…
23 March, 2014
Published by Matt Dabbs in The Work of the Holy Spirit
From time to time we will be giving away copies of books by those who are writing at Wineskins. Last week we gave away a book by Josh Graves & Chris Seidman “Heaven on Earth: Realizing the Good Life Now.” Today we are highlight Frank Viola’s work by giving away two books. The first is free to all and the second is a book giveaway. Both of these…
