Jesus points to the love and unity of himself and God and explains it as both a love that Christians are invited into and an evangelistic tool that the church has in reaching the world. The Church is the place where all are welcome to worship the living God and that is meant to be a community where all can feel loved and welcomed.
Tag: unity
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Your church is not a restaurant: the customer service mentality and its danger to the American church
In America, where we have so many options with everything, every business with which we interact lives and dies on our satisfaction.
And we often treat churches in much the same way. Like it’s just another business that we’re patronizing. Where if you’re not happy with a church, if you decide you don’t like something about a church, it’s become so easy just to uproot and go to the next church.
It’s coming from a consumeristic mindset where we want the experience to revolve around us. (more…)
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Your church is not a restaurant: the customer service mentality and its danger to the American church
In America, where we have so many options with everything, every business with which we interact lives and dies on our satisfaction.
And we often treat churches in much the same way. Like it’s just another business that we’re patronizing. Where if you’re not happy with a church, if you decide you don’t like something about a church, it’s become so easy just to uproot and go to the next church.
It’s coming from a consumeristic mindset where we want the experience to revolve around us. (more…)
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Last Man Standing returns to huge ratings, important family message
Tim Allen’s hit sitcom Last Man Standing, premiered on Fox last week to an audience of 8 million viewers. The show had previously had a six season run on ABC before being cancelled in 2017.Spoiler alert
In the return episode, Allen’s son-in-law is so fed up with President Trump that he wants to move his family (Allen’s daughter and grandson) to Canada. The family disapproves. During the episode, Allen’s grandson Boyd turns up missing.
In spite of all of the arguing and disagreement, they all unite to find Boyd (who had wandered to his grandfather’s store to work on a project).
I do appreciate shows that do take a sincere look at the unity that we need. The political divide in our nation is extreme.
Relationships and friendships have ended and families have been divided just because of differences of opinion.
It’s one thing to have strong opinions on politics, but the division that can happen gives the role of politics an unnecessarily high priority in our lives. Yes these things matter. But so does faith, family, friendships, and unity.
Before Roseanne was cancelled, that was stated as one of the goals for the return of that show.
With Last Man Standing, I do hope that the show can continue to be a voice for the importance of love of family in spite of differences. It’s an important conversation that I think the entertainment industry largely ignores. It can have a tendency to get too caught up in wanting to make its own political statements rather than addressing the overarching political conversations we’re having in this country.
Many were critical of the cancellation given that Tim Allen (and his character Mike Baxter) is conservative and paints conservative politics in a positive light. The show was still popular and fans thought that the cancellation was politically motivated.
Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear what you think, and don’t forget to subscribe!
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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Your church is not a restaurant: the mentality of consumerism and its danger to the American church
In America, where we have so many options with everything, every business with which we interact lives and dies on our satisfaction.
And we often treat churches in much the same way. Like it’s just another business that we’re patronizing. Where if you’re not happy with a church, if you decide you don’t like something about a church, it’s become so easy just to uproot and go to the next church.
It’s coming from a consumeristic mindset where we want the experience to revolve around us. (more…)
