Thoughts Across The Bow

  Strategies for Reading Your Bible More in the New Year: Here are some strategies, ideas, and tips to encourage you to read your Bible more in the new year. These tips are in no particular order, with no context.  Pick a consistent time and location to read your Bible. This will aid you in becoming more disciplined and begin forming a habit. (I have a particular spot on the couch I read my Bible. My reading Bible, pens, and highlighters all live there next to that spot on the couch, to my wife's chagrin.) Read your Bible, preferably in the morning. If you try to read your Bible right before bed, real scientific studies have shown that you will, in fact, fall asleep. Plus, you want to pray and read your Bible before the day's battles have begun, not after they are over. Then you can also marinate on the Word throughout the day and apply the word throughout your day.  Find a Bible reading plan. Our church uses a community bible reading plan (now called “ Seeing Jesus Toget...

An Argument for Church Planting:   Biblical Justification             The Great Commission presented by Jesus in Matthew 28:18-20 is generally regarded as the motivational track for evangelism, but it should also be linked with a passion for church planting. Evangelism must be tied into making "disciples," "baptizing them," and "teaching them to observe" God's Word (Mat. 28:18-20). The pattern laid out in the book of Acts is that after people came to faith in Christ, they were baptized, devoted themselves to the "apostles' teaching," "fellowship," "breaking of bread," and "prayers" (Acts 2:41-42). This New Testament pattern for believers assumes that new believers will join a local body of believers and commit themselves to "fellowship" (Acts 2:42; Heb. 10:25). The book of Acts primarily records the missionary journeys of Peter and Paul. After the Apostles left a community of believers, a church...

Quick Update: In September, Juli and I attended a church planting assessment with Send SBTC. It was our second church planting assessment, and we left the assessment encouraged (and excited for the journey ahead).  We received a recommendation to plant from Send SBTC. Our launch team/life group has also begun meeting. Please pray for us as we begin to engage the community evangelistically, expand our team by inviting others to join us, and enrich relationships on the launch team. We are also talking over church names and could use some prayer. Two of my brothers from the HCPN (Houston Church Planting Network) launched their respective churches. I got to attend both church launches, which encouraged and blessed us.  Fr. Jon Beadle is the pastor at All Saints in Conroe, TX. All Saints is an Anglican church. Our Anglican brothers have produced some great Gospel-centered thinkers like C.S. Lewis, J.I. Packer, and J.C. Ryle.  https://www.allsaintsconroe. com/ Pastor Raph Peter...

Quick Update: We have started taking concrete steps to transition our small group into a launch team (recruiting, gathering, and building community). Juli and I attended our second church planting assessment with the Send Network SBTC. We felt like it went well. We received good feedback and learned a lot from some experienced church planters and their wives. We should hear back from SBTC in the next couple of weeks. It was an encouraging assessment and left us excited about the journey ahead. I also started the “Finishing Residency” program with the Houston Church Planting Network, which will last for about nine months.  Why Plant a Church? After transitioning from a steady career to the unknown journey of planting a church, it has generated conversations and questions. One of the questions that I received is, why plant a church? After all, there are churches on “every corner” and in nearly every town in the Bible Belt.  First, church planting is a biblical pattern that we se...

Friends and Future Partners, My wife, Juli, and I felt a call to plant a church in 2020 through the encouragement and support of our church small group in Cypress, TX. Several other couples within our church sensed a collective call to plant a church in Cypress, and we hope this small group will eventually become our launch team. The elders at our church, Redeemer Church in Tomball, Texas have also affirmed this calling and have agreed to take me on as a Church Planting Resident. I have completed my M.A. in Theological Studies, and I am working on completing a M.Div. With the encouragement of my elders, I completed the Foundational Church Planting Residency with the Houston Church Planting Network and was invited to join their Finishing Residency for continued weekly training. We also went through a formal church planting assessment and received a recommendation to plant a church. Juli and I have been married for 15 years and have three awesome kids: Janae, Piper, and Judson. ...

  A Biblical Argument for Church Membership:      Some argue that church membership is not found in the Bible. This argument further adds that having a process where the church acknowledges who belongs to the church requires a step or process not found in the Bible. The argument presented here is that membership is biblical .   The  pattern for the early church was to join a local congregation .   M embership is consistent with church discipline, consistent with church government depicted in the Bible, and honors the church that Christ built. The argument for church membership is integrally tied to the argument for attending the local church regularly and congregationalism. It is also important to note that a church is a congregation of believers which is distinct and separate from a church building. In modern America, sometimes, the two words are used interchangeably and can cause confusion. In this post, the term "church" refers to a congregation of ...

  Church Membership Biblical References: Mat. 18:17 “If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” Acts 2:41 “So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.” Acts 2:42 “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship , to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” Acts 2:46 “Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple, and broke bread from house to house. They ate their food with joyful and sincere hearts” Acts 2:47 “Praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.” Acts 4:32 (CSB) “Now the entire group of those who believed were of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but instead they held everything in common.” Acts 5:11 (CSB) “Then great fear c...