Timothy's Thoughts

W hile driving around, I noticed a church sign because one word of the name was black and easy to read, but the word “church” was a shade of gray that nearly blended into the white background. When churches stop dropping words from their signs, it is usually because they don’t want people to think they are associated with another church that has the same word on their sign. This particular church sign used to have the words “Baptist Church” on it, but “Baptist” was dropped and now “church” is difficult to read. I looked at the group’s website and a statement along the lines of “we don’t need another church, we need another kind of church.” Of course, once I got past that statement, the way they described their church sounded very much like the description I’ve seen on many other church websites. I think people have focused on the wrong things. Maybe if we drop Baptist from the name, people will come to church. Maybe if we don’t tell them it is a church people will come. Maybe if we cha...

M ost people have taken a personality test on more than one occasion. There’s always a few questions that you look at and wonder, “Should I answer this way or that way?” Recently, the iPersonic Personality Test has been going around. With just four questions, it can tell you something about your personality. But even with the small number of questions, I had one that caused me difficulty. It was the first question. I often like to have a lot of people around me. I am easily distracted. I find it easy to approach other people and establish new contacts. I often make impulsive decisions. I prefer to be in the centre of things; I have lots of friends and love action and company. I like to organise my leisure time actively and together with others. I never leave others in any doubt about what I think and what my point of view is. My feelings are like me - lively and spontaneous. A club holiday or travelling with a group of good friends is just the right thing for me. I prefer t...

I t seems like we spend a lot of time talking about what to do about the music in church. When I did my stint as music director at a small church, I’ll say that I thought it was hugely important. I aimed for newer songs and always put a slower song right before the sermon, so people would be ready to listen. I had this idea that we could change our music and our attendance would increase. Well, our attendance did increase during that time, but it had nothing to do with the music. If anything, the people who came would’ve liked different music than the stuff I was giving them. Our thinking can get really messed up. We start saying things like, “If it will draw in more people, we can put up with music we don’t really care for.” It isn’t that there’s anything wrong with having newer music, or older music, or whatever kind of music. We run into a problem when we start making assumptions about what other people want. “If we want young people, we’ll have to have contemporary music,” we say....

T he other day, I posted a link to a Wikipedia page as a comment to a post that showed up on my news feed. The person who had shared the post saw the link as disagreeing with the post he’d shared. He sent me a message saying as much and “I’m removing you from my friends list.” For the most part, I don’t care if someone removes me from their friends list or not. But this is a person that I see frequently. He isn’t someone I’ve spent a lot of time talking to, but our paths cross in Christian ministry. We exchanged several messages, with me saying I didn’t see why he thought it was such a big deal and him saying that he was concerned what his non-Christian friends would think. Personally, I think non-Christians seeing that Christians can disagree with each other and still get along has a greater impact than seeing them pat each other on the back and say, “Good job, brother.” But neither of us seemed to be persuading the other. What really got me, when I thought about it, was the words in ...

T his week, the world watched as athletes gathered in in Sochi, Russia for the Olympics. There’s no question that the Olympics are flawed and there is always some political issue that comes up. Russia and the west have long been at odds with each other. And if that isn’t bad enough, NBC seems to have made it their goal to mention Russia’s stance in opposition to homosexuality, at every opportunity. But even with all its flaws, the Olympics give us a picture of heaven that is unlike any other. And they sang a new song, saying, “Thou art worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof; for Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood, from every kindred and tongue, and people and nation, and hast made us unto our God kings and priests; and we shall reign on the earth.” -- Revelation 5:9, 10 For a brief moment, as the people of the world gather to participate in the Olympics, we see something similar. As we watch the athletes march in to the Olympic stadium, we see “...

W e’re going through deacon training, so I looked online to see what other people are saying about the subject. It is interesting that nearly everyone mentions Acts 6:1-7, which is calling of the first deacons, but they don’t mention verse 8 and following, and they don’t mention chapters 4 and 5. I can understand why they don’t mention chapters 4 and 5. These chapters don’t have deacons mentioned at all. But they do give us an understanding of what is meant in Acts 6:1 where it says, “their widows were neglected in the daily ministration.” Or as some versions say, “the daily distribution of food.” In the early church, some had a lot and some had very little. Those who had more started selling their possessions and the money was used to buy food for everyone—not just the widows—everyone. The food was distributed daily, but somehow, the Grecian widows were being overlooked and going hungry. It may have been a cultural thing. It may have been a language thing. It may have been an age thin...