News from October 2011
Why your neighbors (in Canada) might not like your Christianity
Posted on October 21, 2011 by Pastor Tom
You invite your neighbor to church but they never come – or they get hostile. Why? Check out this possibility.
“The second noticeable challenge that religious groups face are the negative public perceptions held by many towards Christians. Recalling the negative perceptions that many marginal affiliates have of Roman Catholics and Evangelicals, religious groups should carefully heed William I. Thomas’s (1966, 301) idea that “situations
that are defined as real are real in their consequences.” The public has a justifiable negative perception of Christians because of past and present scandals by a few, the strong and offensive presence of the Christian Right in the United States (that some fear characterizes Evangelicals in Canada), and the general belief that Christians are judgmental and hypocritical, often based on personal experience. Whether or not Christians and individual congregations reflect these qualities (and some do) are irrelevant so long as the general public believes these things to be true.”
Churches Are Not Necessarily the Problem: Lessons Learned from Christmas and Easter Affiliates
by Joel Thiessen, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Ambrose University College – Calgary, Alberta
Church and Faith Trends – A Publication of The Centre for Research on Canadian Evangelicalism: An Initiative of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada
December 2010, Volume 3, Issue 3, p. 14
Why Pray?
Posted on October 14, 2011 by Pastor Tom
There’s a lot of people needing prayer in and connected to our church family right now. It can be at times be overwhelming to hear about the needs and try to process all that’s going on. Someone recently asked me “how do you handle all this stuff as a pastor?” Early in ministry I might have said “well you just work harder and try to be of good use.” But now I would answer “I don’t handle it all. I can’t handle it all. But I can offer it up to the Lord to handle.” Prayer is so critical when people go through stuff.
Can you think of anything more “useful” than bringing someone else before our Loving and All-powerful God with His eternal resources?
I love what Paul says to the Corinthians in his second letter:
We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.
May God guide your prayers to who needs them the most.