Category Archives: At the Crossroads

Nov 18 2014
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At the Crossroads

A Missionary Church: A Response

It is not the job of other people to be God’s missionaries. It is our job, because we are God’s people!

David used these two sentences to end his post how the Church of God has as a part of our identity the call to be a missionary church. David’s post highlighted the fact that God has worked through people to be a blessing to the world for his sake since the call of Abraham in Genesis 12. I would argue that it goes even further back than that. One of the significant threads that runs right through the whole of scripture is God’s design to use men and women as his representatives in the world. And it’s by going all the way back to creation that I believe the Church of God must find our roots for being just what the title of these posts call us to be, A missionary CHURCH.

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Nov 05 2014
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At the Crossroads

A Kingdom of God Church: A Response

“It is the kingdom story that the Bible is telling all along…” Joe stated in his post “A Kingdom of God Church.” From the very beginning we see YHWH in relationship with humanity and giving instruction to them. From the first stories of scripture there is evidence of a committed and hands-on ruler – involved in the lives of the faithful and calling them to join together. Even from Adam and Eve, the intention is clear – God, and God alone, is to be the leader of the people that God created.

When discussing the Kingdom of God, there is a story that always sticks out to me addressing how God’s people act regarding having a divine king. The ever present danger for God’s people is the desire to be like everyone else. This is not new to our generation. In 1 Samuel 8 Israel, who were God’s chosen people, asked Samuel for a king. Israel already had a king, YHWH was their king. But Samuel takes their request to the Lord. The Lord’s response is this “they have rejected me from being king over them.” (vs. 7) The Lord told Samuel to return to Israel with a warning, but the people would not listen, they replied (vs. 19-20) “we are determined to have a king over us, so that we also may be like other nations.”

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Oct 30 2014
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At the Crossroads

A Missionary Church

What does it mean to be the Church of God? What contributions does this group make toward broader Christianity? These and other questions have been on our minds since we began this series on the strands that comprise “the fabric of what it means to be God’s church.” Now, as this series draws to close, we have one last perspective to consider. For God’s church to truly be God’s church, it must be a missionary church.

In recent decades, Christians have written tremendous amounts of material on the meaning of “missions” and “missionary work.” These terms have been interpreted and acted upon differently by various groups over the years. Denominations of all varieties have sent people to foreign countries in order to spread the gospel of Christ. Some groups have practiced door-to-door evangelism in local communities. Short-term missions trips are an implicit prerequisite for understanding the world and, perhaps, for being a “good” Christian. In our own movement, Church of God women have historically raised money and provided tangible goods for missionaries all around the world. Continue reading →

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Oct 29 2014
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At the Crossroads

A Holiness Church: A Response

“I am continually struck by the idea that our understanding of holiness has become very worldly….” – Jen Carney

I love that line from Jen’s post about being a holiness church. I find the irony compelling; what was sacred and separated out has become profane and mixed in with everything else. How are we to understand holiness when our perception of holiness has been warped by the world? This ‘worldly holiness’ is an emphasis on purity, cleanliness, and sterilization against the dirty, tarnished, tainted parts of life. The more holy we become, the more we are required to remove ourselves from everyday life in our community. If we do not retreat from it, we will be risking our holiness. We could accidentally rub up against unholy things, activities or people and cause our fall from grace.

But isn’t this completely antithetical to the call of God? Continue reading →

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May 20 2014
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At the Crossroads

A Kingdom of God Church

“Seek first the kingdom of God, and its righteousness…”

Throughout this series, we’ve been looking at the significant beliefs that make up the DNA of the Church of God. In his book, Vision for the Church of God at the Crossroads, Gilbert Stafford makes the bold claim that while it’s true other groups in the wider church consider themselves Gospel churches, or Bible churches, or born-again churches, or holiness churches, or unity churches, or Kingdom of God churches, or missionary churches, it’s the equal commitment to all seven attributes that makes the Church of God unique.

If this is the case, then I would like to suggest that it is the fact that we are a Kingdom of God church that actually holds all seven together. When we neglect the Kingdom of God, I believe we tend to separate the other six elements out, as though they function independent of one another. Continue reading →

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May 16 2014
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At the Crossroads

A Unity Church: A Response

Unity, not uniformity.  Diversity, not division.  Jonathan’s two main points about the nature of the church are well taken.  God intends for churches, movements, and denominations to be marked by these characteristics.  And yet I wonder if we can push this in a different direction:  toward the local church.

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May 12 2014
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At the Crossroads

A Unity Church

That the Church should be one is not debated.  The Bible makes it pretty clear that God’s intention for the Church is oneness.  Jesus, in the garden before his betrayal, fervently prays that his followers will all be ONE (John 17:21).  Paul makes it pretty plain in his letters that all believers are baptized into ONE Church, part of ONE body (1 Cor. 12:12-31; Eph. 4:1-16).

But, while we do not doubt that the Church should be one, we seem to have a lot of questions and disagreements over how we get there, and what that looks like practically.  Well I can’t pretend to have all the answers, but I can throw out some food-for-thought and maybe encourage further discussion.

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Apr 09 2014
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At the Crossroads

A Holiness Church

Beloved how this perfect love unites us all in Jesus!
One heart, and soul, and mind we prove the union heaven gave us.

It seems there are a number of definitions of what it means to be “holy” or to live a “holy life.” Even in the Church of God, a holiness movement, there are a number of people who believe deeply in holiness living, but would define this differently from one another. Often, we hear holiness defined as what we don’t do. “I believe in living a holy life, therefore I do not …” You can fill in the blanks. What we find in the Scriptures, however, is that holiness has much more to do with our relationships with God, others, and ourselves. “What is the greatest commandment?” Jesus was asked. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. The second is like it: love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and prophets hang on these two commandments.” Continue reading →

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Apr 03 2014
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At the Crossroads

A Born-Again Church: A Response

Growing up in the Church of God, talk of being “born again” was something about which I heard a lot. The struggle for me came when my experience and relationship with God did not reflect this one, pivotal moment, when I turned from a lifetime of sin and became a new person. Eugene Peterson describes discipleship as a “Long Obedience in the Same Direction” and that is a good description of how I have understood my own faith story. Sure, I had the time when I was 5 years old and I asked my parents to pray with me, following a church service where a Southern Gospel group had come to sing and, apparently, scare the living daylights out of a 5 year old with a hellfire-and-brimstone-type message. And maybe we could point to that moment as my moment of conversion. But as an adult, looking back on my faith journey, I see transformative seasons in my life, where I was being born again.

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Mar 06 2014
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At the Crossroads

A Born-Again Church

I can’t remember the first time I heard it, but I know I’ve heard it a lot since. 

“I’m a Christ-follower.”

I understand what people are doing when they say that. It’s an attempt to avoid the cultural baggage of the term “Christian,” a term that has come to mean all sort of things to people outside of the church which fall far short of the vision of the Kingdom of God we find in Christ. That being said, I’ve never been able to embrace “Christ-follower” as an alternative. It seems to me that it fails to communicate the reality that when a person puts his or her faith in Jesus as Lord, something radically different happens to their very being which changes them. Their identity, which does come from following Christ, is changed at the core of who they are. It’s as if in that moment, they are born all over again into someone new.

I see that hand!

This belief, that as Christians, we are born-again is woven deep into the history of the Church of God. Having grown out of the revival and camp-meeting background of the 19th century, the Church of God has been a people who have held up the importance of that moment of rebirth. We call people to remember the day when their life changed forever and they were reborn in the Spirit of God! Sure, some are more dramatic than others, but it’s a part of who we are to believe that there is a day in our past to which we can point as our “second-birthday.” Continue reading →

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