Viral Faith

The Great Giveaway I was explaining to a co-worker that generosity is part of the character of God. God, as part of His essence, is generous. When you think about the great themes of the Bible, you can clearly see His generosity overflowing. Throughout scripture there is a push from God that the people who are to reflect His person and image, are to be generous with others. However, when we look at the American Church by analyzing its behaviors, we begin to see that those who idenitify themselves as Christians are not very generous (Rodney Starks, What America Believes). We tend to give of our income, time, and resources in ways that approaches those who are outside the church. Why is that? I think it stems from living in a consumeristic environment where we measure everything by "what does this do for me". In fact, most of us still measure our church attendance that way (The church is a community of people called together to carry out the mission of Jesus; its not real...

Seeds of Grace 2 Corinthians 4:1-2 Therefore, since we have this ministry, as we received mercy, we do not lose heart, (NASB) In God's economy, our weakness reveals His strength, our shame reveals His grace, and what we understand as the trash of our lives, God sees as treasure. It is interesting that God's movements seem to pick up steam when His people are most broken. The Apostle Paul understood that our ministry and service to others is a reflection of the mercy that we have received. I do not mean that in the generic sense in which all of our talents are a manifestations of the generosity of God. What I mean, and what I believe the Apostle meant, was that God ministers most powerfully through the means of grace in which we have experienced and tasted. As we continue to follow the Spirit of God to develop a movement that impacts and influence our glocal community, I see seeds of grace that demonstrate that God's power is made perfect in our weakness and that His l...