Equipping University

If you have traveled overseas, you know you must convert your money into the local currency. It is almost always the case that vendors in foreign lands do not recognize or accept American dollars. So, the traveler must go to a bank or currency exchange to trade in his dollars for Euros or rupees or pounds or liras or francs or pesos. You end up with the same amount of money relative to that culture but the money has been fundamentally changed. In the same way, the conversion of a lost, unsaved individual requires a fundamental change within that person. Change is necessary to be a Christian because of what men and women are naturally from birth. Of course, without this change, we remain exactly as we are and that is not good news. Hearing and responding to the gospel brings about the change called conversion. Conversion is defined as "our willing response to the gospel call, in which we sincerely repent of sins and place our trust in Christ for salvation." The word conversion itself means "turning" and he

The message about the redeeming work of God in the atonement of Jesus Christ is the greatest information this world has ever received. It is more than news; it is good news. What is this news? That is the ultimate question. People everywhere disagree over the definition of the news and even evangelicals have a difficult time coming to an agreement over what is the gospel and what is not the gospel. The gospel is not meeting physical needs, it is not irrelevant, it is not privatized religion, it is not simply that "God is Love," it is not the path to health and wealth, it is not therapy, it is not moralism, and it is not all about you. The thing that truly distinguishes Christianity from all other belief systems is not its moral code or practicality. The difference lies in Christianity's story - the story of a holy Creator, rejected by his creation, yet stooping do reconcile them through the death of his Son. Christianity is not just a worldview, a way of life, or a program for personal or cultural change. Ch

The message about the redeeming work of God in the atonement of Jesus Christ is the greatest information this world has ever received. It is more than news; it is good news. What is this news? That is the ultimate question. People everywhere disagree over the definition of the news and even evangelicals have a difficult time coming to an agreement over what is the gospel and what is not the gospel. The gospel is not meeting physical needs, it is not irrelevant, it is not privatized religion, it is not simply that "God is Love," it is not the path to health and wealth, it is not therapy, it is not moralism, and it is not all about you. The thing that truly distinguishes Christianity from all other belief systems is not its moral code or practicality. The difference lies in Christianity's story - the story of a holy Creator, rejected by his creation, yet stooping do reconcile them through the death of his Son. Christianity is not just a worldview, a way of life, or a program for personal or cultural change. Ch

The Christian often approaches the Bible in the very same way. Most evangelicals view their Bible as a difficult puzzle to be solved. They have been taught their whole lives -through unintentional pastoral neglect or outright doctrinal instruction - that the Bible is made up of a great jumble of disconnected pieces. In other words, many Christians have grown up in the church looking at the Bible as a collection of individual books with no commonality between them. The many who view the Bible like this have never been taught what the "big picture" of the Bible is supposed to look like. They therefore do not see how a particular piece relates to other pieces. The Bible is simply a book of puzzle pieces that belong in the same box (book) but with no discernible reason why they are there. We learned in the last chapter that the first mark of a healthy church is expository preaching. However, our main concern must not be "only with how we are taught, but - more importantly - with specifically what we are taught.

Expository preaching is becoming increasingly popular and we can only rejoice in this trend. Expository preaching is often defined as "going through a book of the Bible verse-by-verse" but it is much more than this. Some think expository preaching is doing a line-by-line verbal commentary on a passage with a few points of application tacked on to the end of the message. Again, it is much more than that. Expository preaching (or expositional preaching) is "preaching that takes for the point of the sermon the point of a particular passage of Scripture." Effective expository preaching makes clear and compelling the one thing that the text makes most central. In expository preaching, the passage governs the sermon. This type of preaching is preaching in service to the Word, not putting the Bible in subjection to the preaching event. It presumes a dependant belief in the authority of God's Word and a deep desire to hear from God's Word. Why are we committed to expository preaching? Why is expository preachin

A healthy church is not one that has arrived. It has not gotten everything figured out. I does not have a perfect pastor or a perfect blend of contemporary and traditional music. It does not mean that your children will beg you to take them there or that they will never come home complaining about being bored. However, a healthy church is filled with health-conscious Christians will continuously strive to take God's side in the battles it faces. They will seek to conform itself according to God's Holy Word in all areas of life - both individually and corporately. In essence, a healthy church will increasingly reflect God's character and God's desires for the church as his character and desires are discovered in the study and proclamation of God's Word. The way the church has been designed to display the glory of God is through simple obedience to His ordained plan for the body of Christ. The Bible tells us all we need to know: we listen to God's Word and we follow God's Word. The church is not called to lo