Are We Doing Church Wrong Rediscovering God S Divine Design For His Church

How do you define "church?" And more importantly, do you know how the Bible defines church? What if God's design for the church was the opposite of how we've been approaching it? God designed the Church. He has declared in the Scriptures what the Church is and what the Church is to be about, yet our Churches for the most part don't resemble what we read in the Bible. This book explores the 5 Major Foundational Identities of the Church that we find in the Bible: The Family, the Bride, the Body, the Temple and the Army. Doug challenges the Modern Church culture to rethink and realign itself with its Biblical Identities, so that we may be empowered to fulfill our purpose as the Church.

The Divine Conspiracy has revolutionized how we think about the true meaning of discipleship. In this classic, one of the most brilliant Christian thinkers of our times and author of the acclaimed The Spirit of Disciplines, Dallas Willard, skillfully weaves together biblical teaching, popular culture, science, scholarship, and spiritual practice, revealing what it means to "apprentice" ourselves to Jesus. Using Jesus’s Sermon of the Mount as his foundation, Willard masterfully explores life-changing ways to experience and be guided by God on a daily basis, resulting in a more authentic and dynamic faith.

Church attendance in the west has declined in recent years, but decline has been accompanied by growth in spiritual exploration, a desire for spirituality, faith, even Jesus - all without the church. Experience, history and the New Testament suggest this desire is ill-founded. It is through the church, the Bible suggests, that the Kingdom comes. How can we find a wider vision of the Kingdom and the church’s role? Kelly explores four of the ‘brilliant ideas’ inherent in God’s design of the church. God works through his people, and the church trains and equips; the church is Spirit-driven, and spiritual formation is central to God’s mission; the church’s task force transforms the world through acts of love and service; the church is the rainbow-clothed Bride of Christ, one global family, a reconciling model for the world. Can we break out of the greyness of our church experience to discover the riot of colour God intended? Is there a route back to the brilliance of God’s plan?

John Koenig presents a rich variety of prayer practices that reflect the real prayer experience of Christ and his followers. Recapturing the earliest believers' extraordinary encounters with the Holy, Koenig offers prayer as instruction for the mind, renewal of the spirit, and help in effecting positive change in one's life.

In this seminal work, Sweet shares how three strands form the church: missional, relational, and incarnational. He calls for the re-union of these three essential, complementary components of Christian life.

"Church hurt" is a cultural crisis that headlines news stories, fuels documentaries, and trends on social media. Millions of people have endured this unique pain, have disengaged to some measure, and are searching for a way to heal. Written for any believer wounded in a place of worship, and unsure how to move forward in their faith, this powerful book is an insightful and honest guide into the 9 unique types of church hurt and how to heal from them. Having helped thousands move from anger, distrust, apathy, and heartache to safely re-engaging in their faith--and local church--Pastor Joe Dobbins offers compassion, wisdom, and practical advice to help you · understand why church hurt is so potent and hard to address · break free from bad beliefs, self-defeating patterns, and cycles of pain · discover the way to inner healing and find hope to move forward · release your pain and reframe your story · re-engage in a faith community and protect yourself in the future Even though the people of God hurt you, the heart of God is to heal you--and that healing can begin today!