Josh Benner

Tag: community

  • Sermons: Fellowship – Acts 2:42-47

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    Pillars of the Christian Life: Fellowship
    Acts 2:42-47

    A relationship with Jesus is personal but it is not private. Christians need each other. The people of God who share in a united faith in the life, death, and resurrection need each other in a world that does not believe the gospel. Fellowship can be an easy blindspot, but there’s more depth behind this type of community than simply being nice to be at church on Sunday mornings. The goal is authentic Christian community where there are meaningful relationships and where people are known.

    Sermons can also be found wherever you listen to your podcast.

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    Josh Benner is the pastor of Christian Bible Church in Cissna Park, Illinois. He has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He has an awesome wife named Kari.

  • The first rule of accountability

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    “Accountability” is one of those popular words that I hear in the church.

    People form accountability groups where they answer questions in regards to lust. People tell friends that they “need to be held accountable” for a certain area of sin in their lives.

    Accountability is a good, wise, and Biblical practice. James calls us to accountability: confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working (James 5:16).

    But accountability is only as good as a person’s willingness to be held accountable. In a moment of struggle, there can be a renewed commitment to changing your life and calling people to hold you accountable. But what about a few days, a few weeks, a few months later when the same old temptations come creeping back? An initial reaction can be to want to hide, to withdraw, to say “I’m fine” when you’re not fine. All of these make accountability worthless.

    It’s good when we hold one another accountable. But more important than someone else’s commitment to holding you accountable is your commitment to actually being held accountable, to being willing to be held accountable when the going gets tough, and a willingness to be vulnerable before you’ve fallen back into an area of struggle.

    Accountability must be accountability in practice, not in theory. It’s more impo

    Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.

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  • BGSU tragedy: shared grief I’ve observed from alumni

    I was out to dinner with my family this evening. The conversation swirled around various topics, but I was mostly in a different world, thinking of the deaths of three young sorority sisters in Alpha Xi Delta and I struggled to muster up much of an appetite to eat my meal. At a couple points, for a brief moment, I thought that I might have a warm tear trickle down my cheek, but I was able to hold it in. Like a broken record, I continually find myself muttering “it’s so tragic, this is just so sad.”

    For the current undergraduates at Bowling Green, I don’t think Greek life will ever look quite the same. An event this monumental can have a way of dividing time; there was time before the Alpha Xi Delta tragedy, but now the Greek community lives in a world after the tragedy.
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