To Tithe or Not to Tithe

In a recent conversation I had with a church planting friend of mine, the topic of the tithe came up, and I thought it might be interesting for me to put down in this forum what I am teaching my church regarding giving.

Having been heavily influenced by the likes of Andy Stanley, Randy Alcorn, and my own Dad, I have become convinced that teaching percentage-based giving is not only the number one kind of giving to encourage in our people, but I have also become convinced that the church organization should structure its budget based on the tithes of the people without regard to special offerings, designated funds, or anything above and beyond the tithe.

However, I know there are two major problems with my approach: ( continued… )

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How should Christians live out God’s ideal of justice?

Occasionally, I get really deep questions turned in on our Sunday Connect Cards, and this past Sunday, I received this one:

I noticed that two of the songs played in service this morning mentioned justice as something God has and uses to demonstrate his goodness. If one of the classic arguments against belief in a personal God is perceived injustice in the Bible – God plays favorites, the wholesale slaughter of thousands of men, women, children by the Hebrews, the concept of Hell, etc. – how should we answer that change? On a less philosophical level, how should Christians demonstrate the ideal of God’s justice in our daily lives? How do we commit to something so ephemeral and confusing?

This is such a big question that I responded to the author by email but thought it might be worthwhile to post it here as well. What follows is my response. [ read the rest ]

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Why do we say “Amen” at the end of prayers?

Recently, a note came to me from someone in our church with an interesting question. It said this:

Why is it that sometimes your prayers do not end with “Amen”? Is there a biblical reason why we do or do not say amen after prayers?

I responded personally, but I also felt my answer might benefit others, so here it is in blog form.

The Meaning of “Amen”

First, the word Amen is a Hebrew word that comes from the Hebrew root AMN which means faith/faithfulness. Strangely enough, this same root word shows up in a variety of other Hebrew words including words for the firm columns supporting a roof. [ read the rest ]

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LCC Weekly :: November 4 & 11, 2012

This is part of a series of posts aimed at supporting and encouraging the volunteers of Lafayette Community Church.

Sunday Review

Our past two Sunday gatherings have been truly refreshing to me. For one thing, Jake Steffes has been selecting our music, and he has done a great job of not only picking songs that resonate with the theme but also ordering them in a way that encourages us on Sundays to release ourselves into God’s presence. His work has taken a load off of my mind and has given our band more time to prepare! [ read the rest ]

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LCC Weekly :: October 28, 2012

This is part of a series of posts aimed at supporting and encouraging the volunteers of Lafayette Community Church.

Sunday Review

What an incredible Sunday we experienced last week! Not only did we get the weekend started right with our Volunteer Refresh event on Saturday evening, but the whole weekend we were blessed to have Brian Fraaza and his band with us.

It was also a great blessing to have Greg Shackleford, a great friend of mine and a founding member of this church, joining us this weekend as a part of Brian’s band. I also want to recognize Kelsey and Ben who drove down from Kalamazoo with Brian and Greg to bless us with their musical talents. [ read the rest ]

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