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Why Church Matters: Discovering Your Place in the Family of God - Softcover

Harris, Joshua

 
9781601423849: Why Church Matters: Discovering Your Place in the Family of God
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1601423845 ISBN 13: 9781601423849
Verlag: Multnomah, 2011

Inhaltsangabe

"Christians belong in churches--the only places where we can thrive and grow spiritually. In Why Church Matters, Joshua Harris makes this case with wisdom, clarity, and graciousness."
--Charles W. Colson

Church isn't where we go. It's who we are.

We were never meant to live our faith in isolation. The church is the place God uses to grow us, encourage us, and use our gifts for His glory. In this honest, personal, and practical book, Joshua Harris shows you why it's time to say yes to church and how to find the right one for you--the place where you can fall in love with the family of God.

Includes:
What you miss when you miss church
Ten questions to ask before you join
How to get more out of the best day of the week

What Readers are Saying:

"This book shows the place of great honor that church holds in Christ's heart and encourages us to value what He values. I've bought multiple copies to give away."
--Mike Neglia; Cork, Ireland

"Josh Harris does an excellent job of addressing our impulse to church hop."
--Garrett Watkins; Atlanta, Georgia

"When our family was in the midst of a transition, Why Church Matters helped us find the right local church. It will do the same for you."
--Andrew Hall; Ilderton, Ontario

Previously published as Stop Dating the Church

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

JOSHUA HARRIS is senior pastor of Covenant Life in Gaithersburg, Maryland. He is the best-selling author of Dug Down Deep: Building Your Life on Truths That Last, among other books. He and his wife, Shannon, have three children. Find out more at www.joshharris.com.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Can This Relationship Be Saved?
What We Miss When We Don’t Commit

Jack and Grace met through a mutual friend. From day one they seemed to be the perfect match. Grace was everything Jack had always wanted. She was beautiful, outgoing, and caring—always there when Jack needed her.

For the first five months they were inseparable. Jack could hardly think of anything but Grace. He didn’t need to look further, he told friends. “She’s the one.” Now almost three years have passed. Jack still enjoys the comfort and familiarity of being with Grace, but the spark is gone. Grace’s flaws seem more obvious. He’s not sure he finds her as attractive as he once did. And he’s beginning to resent all the time she wants to spend with him.

One night, when she asks if they can define the nature of their relationship, Jack blows up. “We’re together, aren’t
we?” he asks angrily. “Why isn’t that enough for you?” Obviously, Jack isn’t ready for commitment. And it’s unclear if he ever will be….

Have you ever been in a relationship like this? I’m writing this book because I believe God has something better for you. He wants you in a relationship defined by both passion and commitment. But before you can take hold of this wonderful plan, you need to know something about this couple. There are millions of Jacks walking around today. And Grace isn’t a girl.

Grace is a church.

Traveling Solo

This is my third book on relationships, but it’s unlike any of my previous books. You won’t find anything here about
how you should relate to the opposite sex. Instead, this book is about how you should relate to the family of God.
The story behind this book is closely tied to my own journey. I was raised in a Christian home, but even though
the church played a big part in my life growing up, for many years it didn’t have a big place in my heart.

My first home as a child was across the street from the little Baptist church my parents had gotten saved in during the Jesus Movement of the seventies. My dad was a pastor till I was seven and even planted a church in Texas. But after two disillusioning church splits, he left the pastorate and started speaking across the country on homeschooling. Over the years our family attended a wide spectrum of churches—mainline, evangelical, charismatic. One church gathered at a run-down commune complete with hippies and llamas. Another was a seeker-sensitive megachurch.

When I graduated from my church’s high school youth group, I started visiting around. I loved God and had big dreams for how I wanted to serve Him, but I didn’t see any reason to get too involved in one church. By then, I thought I knew all there was to know about church, and I wasn’t impressed. Most churches struck me as out-of-date and out-of-touch. There had to be better, more efficient ways to accomplish great things for God.

For me, that meant becoming the next Billy Graham. But I was only nineteen, and invitations for me to lead a worldwide media crusade weren’t rolling in. So I threw my energies into opportunities that were closer at hand. I
started a magazine for fellow homeschoolers. I began to speak at my own conferences for teenagers. Before long, I
had written my first book, I Kissed Dating Goodbye.

The message of that book was that singles should avoid directionless relationships that were romantic and physical but had no intention of moving toward commitment. The irony of this was that even though I had stopped playing the dating game with girls, I was perfectly happy to keep playing it with the church. I liked attending on weekends, and I enjoyed the social benefits of church, but I didn’t want the responsibility that came with real commitment. Like Jack in our story, I wasn’t interested in settling down. So though I gave the appearance of commitment, I mostly just flirted with different churches and kept my options open.

Then something happened that I never expected.

A Passionate Encounter

A friend sent me a set of sermons on tape called “Passion for the Church” by a pastor in Maryland. I’m still not sure why I listened to those tapes. For a confirmed church-dater like me, the title alone was baffling. “Passion for the church”? The words passion and church absolutely did not connect in my mind! The series might as well have been called “Passion for the Laundry Mat.” But for some reason, as I drove around my hometown of Gresham, Oregon, I popped those tapes into the cassette player and began to listen.

The preacher taught from the book of Ephesians. He showed that the church was actually God’s idea—not some plan or program invented by humans. In fact, the church is the only institution God promised to sustain forever. This is where passion came in. To be part of the universal church isn’t enough, the preacher said. Every Christian is called to be passionately committed to a specific local church. Why? Because the local church is the key to spiritual health and growth for a Christian. And because as the visible “body of Christ” in the world, the local church is central to God’s plan for every generation. I have to tell you, the biblical truths in those messages picked me up, turned me over, and gave me a good shaking. Out of my pockets tumbled an avalanche of well-worn attitudes about the church. Most weren’t carefully thoughtout, it’s true. But all of them were misguided, and some were unscriptural and dangerous. For the first time I realized that a wholehearted relationship with a local church is God’s loving plan for me and for every other follower of Christ.

It is not just what my parents want for me. It is not just what some pastor thinks.

And it is not optional.

Can You Spot a Church-Dater?

Today we live in an increasingly fragmented world. That mind-set has influenced the way we approach our relationship
with God. Faith is a solo pursuit. These days, experts describe America as a nation of “believers” but not “belongers”—and the numbers confirm it. According to pollster George Barna, while the adult population in the United States increased by 15 percent during the nineties, the number of adults who either didn’t attend church or only went on major holidays increased by 92 percent!

Can you spot what I’m calling a church-dater? Here’s a quick profile. Do you see one or more of these characteristics
in yourself?

First, our attitude toward church tends to be mecentered. We go for what we can get—social interaction, programs, or activities. The driving question is, “What can church do for me?”

A second sign of a church-dater is being independent. We go to church because that’s what Christians are supposed
to do—but we’re careful to avoid getting involved too much, especially with people. We don’t pay much attention to God’s larger purpose for us as a vital part in a specific church family. So we go through the motions without really investing ourselves.

Most essentially, a church-dater tends to be critical. We are short on allegiance and quick to find fault in our church. We treat church with a consumer mentality—looking for the best product for the price of our Sunday morning. As a result, we’re fickle and not invested for the long-term, like a lover with a wandering eye, always on the hunt for something better.

Take my friend Nathan. He attended two churches on Sundays—one because he liked their music, the other because he liked the preaching. And his involvement in both went no...

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Verlag
Multnomah
Erscheinungsdatum
2011
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1601423845
ISBN 13 
9781601423849
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
160
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar