Timothy's Thoughts

I ’ve been doing a lot of thinking about small groups. Part of that is because I’ll be taking on the leadership of one of our adult Sunday school classes (pending church approval). A church without small groups will struggle to be more than just a performance venue. If the only interaction people have at church is shaking hands with a few people, it is unlikely that people will miss them when they are gone and when they are hurting, there is no one there to help them. That’s not what church is about. But just what is a small group? From Acts, we know that the disciples met from house to house. We don’t know exactly what this looked like, but we know they did it. Today, different churches do small groups differently. Some people will say something like, “We don’t do Sunday school; we do small groups.” But we need to be careful that we don’t turn that around and say, “We don’t do small groups; we do Sunday school.” Sunday school is just one of several things that can be considered small ...

S ome people say that the church website is the new front door to a church. Their argument is good, since most people visit a church’s website before they visit church. But then they go immediately into what the home page of the website should look like. There’s nothing wrong with having an attractive home page, but we must be careful that we don’t forget everything we know about church doors. I’ve been to many church buildings. There are quite a few of them that I’ve entered, but not by the front door. The church I grew up in had two doors. There was the front door, which was at the top of a set of steps. There was a side door that closer to the parking lot and had not steps to get to it. Most people used that door. The only people who used the front door were visitors who made their way around the side of the building by walking across the rocky and uneven yard, before climbing the steps. But that was the door that had a sign above it, stating the name of the church. The other door w...

H ave you stopped to think how many times in the Bible that God answered prayer by sending a messenger? When Daniel couldn’t understand a vision, God sent a messenger to set him on his feet. When Abraham prayed for Lot’s protection, God sent messengers to forcibly remove him from harm’s way. When Peter was in prison, God sent a messenger to free him. When a eunuch was seeking to understand the scripture, God sent Philip. When some women were praying on the river bank, God sent Paul. With it happening so frequently, you might think that is God’s preferred method. And you just might be right. When Jesus looked at the multitudes in Matthew 9:37-38, he said, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Pray ye therefor the Lord of the harvest, that he would send laborers into his harvest.” And when Isaiah saw a vision of the Lord in Isaiah 6:8, the Lord said, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Isaiah responded, “Here am I; send me.” Could it be that we have the wro...

W hat does it mean to ask in Jesus’ name? John 16:23-24 shows Jesus telling his disciples that whatever they ask in his name, the Father will give them. We tend to apply this to ourselves as well, but we all can think of situations where we asked for something in prayer and ended with “in Jesus name I pray” and we didn’t get what we asked for. So, either that isn’t what this passage is talking about, or we’re applying it wrong. It might be helpful to follow the analogy a little closer. Instead of jumping to this being a God who is omnipotent, so he could give us anything, let’s follow the relationship as it is presented. This is the father/son relationship. So, how would this work with the fathers and sons we know? It occurs to me that I have some things that belong to me, but they are still at my parents’ house. One of those things is a bicycle. Suppose you went to my father and asked, “Can I have that bicycle?” My father would respond, “No, it isn’t mine to give you.” Now, suppose to...