Jesus' kingdom is a welcoming kingdom; however, there are many ways that churches can unintentionally exclude people.
1. Simon, can you tell us just a little bit about yourself?
Postmoderns are drowning in an ocean of choices and are looking for guidance. In the face of endless options and perspectives, people are frustrated by the complexity of life and have found that the rules they were taught as children no longer seem to apply. Every belief, every fact, every person seems to have another side to them or another angle to it. How do we speak the guiding truth of Christ to a world of shifting perspectives and endless options?
Matt, can you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?
The Body of Christ is more than a Sunday morning meeting. Now, if the Holy Spirit was only given to enable the church to have great Sunday morning meetings, then I say this with all reverence, but the Holy Spirit is way over engineered for that task. God the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Trinity, who is filled with infinite love and goodness, truth and power; God the Holy Spirit was not sent into the world merely to help the church to have a good meeting. The church was not created simply to have a meeting on Sunday morning. The meeting was created to equip the church for their task of serving Christ and serving the world. The biblical way to measure a church is not how much you like the Sunday morning meeting. The biblical measure of a church is how effectively employed is the church in doing the activity of Christ.
Bishop Timothy J. Clarke is the Senior Pastor of First Church of God in Columbus, Ohio. Bishop Clarke has received numerous honors and degrees for his service to the church and to the community at large which include: Master in Ministry, (Southern California School of Ministry, Los Angeles, CA); Doctor of Divinity (Mid-America Bible College, Oklahoma City, OK); Doctor of Law, (Southern California Schoolof Ministry, Los Angeles, CA); Doctor of Humanities (Wilberforce University, Wilberforce, OH); and Morehouse College Board of Preachers Inductee. Bishop Clarke is the author of seven books, including Signs of His Coming and Celebrating the Family: Lessons from the Book of Ruth. Bishop Clarke and his lovely wife, Lady Clytemnestra Lawson Clarke of Teaneck, NJ are the parents of two adult daughters.
This article was orginally published in the Columbus Dispatch on September 2009.
Don Williams Ph.D., is the Pastor Emeritus and founder of Coast Vineyard in La Jolla, CA. He was formerly a lecturer in religion at Claremont McKenna College in California and an adjunct professor at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. He has a B.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from Columbia University and is the author of numerous books, including Start Here: Kingdom Essentials for Christians. He is the architect of the Association of Vineyard Churches’ Statement of Faith.
On Tuesday morning I begin to devotionally read the text that I will be preaching on the following weekend. I am beginning to think through possible approaches, areas that I want to research, etc.
An Anglican Archbishop defined evangelism this way: “To evangelize is to present Christ Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit that men and women should come to put their trust in God through Him, to accept Him as their Savior, and serve Him as their King in the fellowship of His Church.”