Stop Trying to Fix People's Problems

(PROJECT TGM)

 

Sam S. Rainer III serves as president of Rainer Research, a firm dedicated to providing answers for better church health. He also serves as senior pastor at Stevens Street Baptist Church in Cookeville, TN. He writes, speaks, and consults on church health issues. You can connect with Sam on Twitter, or at his blog.

 I once made the mistake of giving my cell number to a suicidal transgender alcoholic. For several nights in a row, I had the privilege of answering my phone at 2:00 AM, only to have the same conversation ending with the same advice: “Stop going to gay bars, getting drunk, and picking fights with drag queens.” My advice was simple. The situation was not.
The mistake was not that I reached out to someone desperate for help. Of that I have no regrets. The mistake I made as a pastor was buying into the perception this person had of me. He thought I was going to “fix it” and give some magical advice to make the pain go away. Of course I shared the gospel. Of course I shared how Jesus heals. But I did little to lower the lofty expectations of my abilities to solve his issues. He believed I could fix it. I played the part. I am a pastor after all. It’s what I do, right?   MORE

The Destructive Legacy of Helen Gurley Brown

(Penna Dexter)

DALLAS (BP) -- One popular magazine that sometimes makes it embarrassing to take your kids through a grocery line is Cosmopolitan.

The magazine has actually been around since 1886. It used to be a family publication. Then changed in 1965 when the faltering publication hired Helen Gurley Brown as its editor. At that time, television was becoming the recreation medium of choice and advertising dollars were increasingly flowing in that direction. Helen Gurley Brown transformed the magazine to target the single working woman. During her 40 years at its helm, Cosmopolitan's circulation hit more than 2.5 million. MORE

A Review on "The Harbinger"

The following is originally published by Herescope and is republished here with permission:

By Pastor Larry DeBruyn
A Review and Commentary On The Harbinger
Jonathan Cahn, The Harbinger: The Ancient Mystery that Holds the Secret of America’s Future (Lake Mary, FL: Front Line—Charisma Media/Charisma House Book Club, 2011). 254 pages + Notes. In the Front Matter, it is stated: “What you are about to read is presented in the form of a story, but what is contained within the story is real.” (Emphasis added)
By applying words of judgment spoken and written to ancient Judah (circa 732 BC) by the prophet Isaiah (i.e., Isaiah 9:10-11), Jonathan Cahn creates a prophetic picture in The Harbinger—one the author admits to be part fiction and part fact—of God’s looming judgment over the United States of America (i.e., harbingers being signals of what is to come). As Jehovah judged His chosen nation in the ancient world for their iniquitous ways (Israel and Judah), so God has begun to pour out His wrath upon His chosen nation in the modern world (the United States). As such, The Harbinger (TH) delivers a spiritual wake-up call to the church and citizens of our nation.*

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Seven Common Comments Non Christians Make About Christians

(Thom S. Rainer) One of my greatest joys in research is talking to and listening to those who clearly identify themselves as non-Christians. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not celebrating their absence of faith in Christ. My joy comes from listening to those who don’t believe as I do, so that I might be better equipped to witness to them.

Over the past several years, my research teams and I have interviewed thousands of unchurched non-Christians. Among the more interesting insights I gleaned were those where the interviewees shared with me their perspectives of Christians.

In this article, I group the seven most common types of comments in order of frequency. I then follow that representative statement with a direct quote from a non-Christian. Read these comments and see if you learn some of the lessons I learned.

1. Christians are against more things than they are for. “It just seems to me that Christians are mad at the world and mad at each other. They are so negative that they seem unhappy. I have no desire to be like them and stay upset all the time.”
2. I would like to develop a friendship with a Christian. “I’m really interested in what they believe and how they carry out their beliefs. I wish I could find a Christian that would be willing to spend some time with me.”  MORE

Three Beliefs of a Proud Heart

(JoeThorn.net) P ride is not something you do, it’s worse than that. Pride is a kind of spiritual heart disease; a sickness of the soul that destroys faith and piety leading to disgrace and destruction. This disease spreads by means of lies our proud hearts are eager to believe. There are three beliefs common to a proud heart which must be refuted by the truth.

“I Am Better”

A proud heart plays the game of comparison with a stacked deck guaranteeing that all others lose. It assures a man that he is good, very good in fact, in comparison to others—others he deems to be failures. A proud man ignores the strong and mocks the weak in order to establish himself as superior. In every form of its existence “I am better” is built upon self-righteousness. It is the belief held by the pharisee who stood near the tax collector in the temple who, even as he prayed, was playing the game. He was so fixated on the unrighteousness of another man he lost sight of the holiness of God making it easy to imagine himself to be holy. He found comfort in his perceived exaltation over another sinner when he should have been humbled and broken before the face of God, just as the tax collector was. For the proud heart to exist, it must believe “I am better.”  MORE