8 Thoughts to Chew On
John Shin here. I’ve been thinking about the some things on faith, evangelism, reading, church, Jesus, passion, life, missions, and community. I recently shared my thoughts on my Facebook timeline in 8 short reflections that are compiled together into this 1 article:
If we do not evangelize because we feel socially awkward or embarrassed then is it better to stand idle while our friends, family and colleagues walk pass us into hell? Doesn’t the reality of heaven and hell motivate us at all???
Just my thoughts
Something to chew on…
If someone is reading lots of John Piper, John MacArthur, Tim Keller, RC Sproul, Kevin Deyoung, Francis Chan, Al Mohler and Mark Dever books and there isn’t much difference between that person and another faithful believer who didn’t read those books then that person might be wasting their time or should consider a different study method.
Just my thoughts
Something to chew on…
If your church is primarily growing because of “transfer growth” (which means people are coming to your church because they left their old church for no legitimate reason or they were from a small church and desired to go to a bigger church), but your church is not growing because of “convert growth”, then is your church really reaching the lost? Reaching the city? Reaching the the ones who don’t know Jesus?
Just my thoughts.
Something to chew on….
If someone claims to love Jesus and attends bible study, serves at the church, is part of discipleship and even goes on overseas mission trips but never talks about Jesus outside of church circles and church people, then what does that say about their love for Jesus?
Just my thoughts.
Something to chew on…
If people come back from church retreats only to experience temporary passion and zeal which quickly dissipates leaving them right back where they were before the retreat, then shouldn’t we change the purpose of retreats or consider a different idea to replace the retreat? With all the time and money invested into church retreats, are the metrics (analysis) paying off? Is your church growing, building new ministries, growing in volunteers, more baptisms?
Something I have been thinking about for 8 years.
Chew on that…
If the pastor is in the office 5 days a week and does not evangelize or get to know the city/community then how does the pastor expect the church members to evangelize and invite the community? Does the pastor only “teach” about evangelism?
Something I have been thinking about for about 4 years.
Chew on that…
If your church grows spiritually strong internally and everyone is forming strong community toward itself but the church lacks outward ministry and outward expression of faith toward the city around them or even during their Monday-Friday lives, is that church spiritual growth a success?
Something that has been on my mind for 5 1/2 years.
Chew on that…
If people go on short term mission trips and come back not continuing evangelism or having the same passion for the gospel as they did while on the missions trip, then was the mission trip worth it? Just for that short exposure? Something that’s been on my mind for 5 years now.
Chew on that….
John Shin is Weekends Pastor at Saddleback Church Irvine South and Adjunct Professor at Talbot School of Theology. John loves film production, music recording, volleyball and hip hop choreography.
(photo: John Shin)
