Compiled by Robert Nelson

Transcription

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2 Compiled by Robert Nelson READ THIS FIRST... 5 HOW TO READ THIS BOOK... 6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS... 7 THE DEEPER JOURNEY... 9 I Just Don t Have Time Five Things I Wish Older Christians Told Me Eight Signs of a Modern-Day Pharisee Two Kinds of Leaders When Stuck in a Holding Pattern Why Read Your Bible and Pray Is Inadequate Are You Really Making Spiritual Progress? Three Reasons Why You Need to Make That Apology Calling It in Its Face That Problem You re Facing Right Now Accusations How Are People Branding You? Life Is More Than This There s Always That Thing How to Overcome Bitterness A Tale of Two Young Men How to Respond to the World s Narrative Are You a Peevish Christian? I Was So Convicted! On the Phrase God Is Good Maybe Faith Isn t What We Thought It Was The Next Move of God How to Survive a Crisis Read This Before You Drop the H-Bomb ( Heretic ) on a Fellow Christian Getting Clear on Your Purpose in Life How to Outsource Your Worry What Christians Can Learn from the Music World of the 60s & 70s Christians Are Behind the Ball Again Judge vs. Judge Not Which Is It? Four Sobering Observations About ISIS Stop Wasting Your Time Doing This Humanity s Greatest Disappointment A Phrase Speakers Should Stop Using A Nicodemus Moment An Important Lesson from Charles Manson Honoring Those with Whom You Disagree Your Time Has Not Yet Come... 72

3 The Crisis of Faith Three Strategies for a Life-Changing New Year Rethinking the Sabbath How Personality & Temperament Influences Theology & Church Types Christmas Myths Exposed What If All Christians Heeded This Simple Advice? Fighting Against God Appreciation vs. Expectation The Last Days of Christian America Ninety Million Evangelicals Theology Doesn t Have to Be a Bloodsport Anyway Christianity in Crisis A Lesson on Greatness The Upside-Down Kingdom He Finishes What He Starts O2B Human Things Aren t Always What They Seem Should Christians Sell, Market, or Promote Products & Services? Two Kinds of Deliverance This Hinders Faith What Surprised Me About My Calling Wasted Talent You Can t Love God and Not Love People Cherish Your Friends Recovering the Departed Glory An Insightful Quote About Warfare I Haven t Read Your Book Yet, But God s View of a Woman Magnificent Obsession His Ultimate Intention The Revelation of the Mystery A Cinematic Analogy The Mystery Hidden in God: Part I The Mystery Hidden in God: Part II The Mystery Hidden in God: Part III The First Relationship The Fellowship of the Mystery The Good Pleasure of His Will A New Kind of Church The Eternal Covenant Isn t She Beautiful? What s Happening Now? Mission Statement Questions & Answers Rethinking the Mission

4 Ignorance of God s Eternal Purpose Second Thoughts on God s Mission Expanding the Fellowship of the Godhead Following Your Spiritual Instincts Regarding the Poor Blessed Are the Undesirable Will Durant on Jesus There Is No Proof of God s Existence How Can a Good God Allow Innocent Children to Be Murdered? Seven Points About Resolving the Question of God & Evil Is There a God? Is Jesus the Only Way? Is the Bible Reliable? Can a Good Person Be Condemned? Aren t All Christians Hypocrites? What Is a Christian? Why I m a Christian: Twelve Reasons Concerning Unsaved Loved Ones Does the Bible Really Contradict Itself? An Encouragement for the Missional Church Movement Rethinking the Church Finding a New Well A Hunger for More Pastors and Denominations Stepping Outside the System The Peril of Youth Reasons for My Departure A First Taste of Body Life A Burden for the Poor The Confirmation of Witnesses The Dark Side of Church Life The Agony of Affliction Seeing the Eternal Purpose Meeting Pioneers Many Are Called, But Few Can Stand It A Marriage of Glory and Gore Toward a New Understanding of the New Testament Learning Christ Together To Know Him Three Stages of Knowing the Lord The Church of Yesterday The Church of Today The Church of Tomorrow Why I Love the Church: In Praise of God s Eternal Purpose Ten Reasons Why I Left the Institutional Church & Sought the Ecclesia What Is an Organic Church? A Plea for Clarity Organic Church Life Doesn t Work House Church vs. Organic Church

5 Billy Graham s Stunning Prophecy The Problem with Mental Filters Organic vs. Organizational It s the System, Stupid For the Missional Church Movement Why I Started Writing About the Church How (Not) to Leave a Church The Church Over the Next Twenty Years Why the Postchurch Perspective Is Unbiblical When Celebrity Authors Say They No Longer Attend Church The Anatomy of the Church Rethinking Church Discipline & Excommunication We Tried and It Didn t Work Not Hearers Only Five Reasons Why People Leave Their Church Performers, Spectators, and Participants Why Organic Church Is Not Exactly a Movement In Quest for a City Rethinking the Spirit A Brief History of the Baptism of the Spirit Investigating the Four Instances of Spirit Baptism in Acts What Is the Baptism of the Spirit? Being Filled with the Spirit Rethinking the Gifts of the Spirit Spiritual Gifts vs. Spiritual Life The Manifestation of the Spirit The Exercise of Spiritual Gifts Counterfeit Spirituality The Issue of Life The Strange Function of Spiritual Gifts The Problem with Labels Post-Charismatic A Caution from the Past Rethinking the Five-Fold Ministry Rethinking Spiritual Growth Don t Believe Everything You Read or Hear Hearing One Side of a Story Warning: The World Is Watching How We Christians Treat One Another Scratch a Christian and You ll Find Out What They re Made Of Rick Warren s Horrific Tragedy & The Sickening Response of Some Christians Religious Jealousy: The Unspoken Root Behind Hatred, Slander & Murder Five Reasons to Unfriend Someone on Facebook How to Waste a Good Crisis What Doesn t Impress Me Five Marks That God Is Using You in Tremendous Ways How Ambition Destroys Discernment

6 Losing Track of Jesus The Dangers of God s Favor A Few Thoughts About Internet Correspondence Grace, Mercy, and the Word New Passion The Atonement Certainty Winning Mysticism Spiritual Pride Pettiness The Creeds Life Is Short, Making Things Right, and Eulogies Spiritual Transitions Seeing Christ in Films An Important Insight from President Obama Legalism, License, Lordship, and Liberty Hungry for More I m Praying for You The Art of Being a Jerk Online I Don t Know Why I Gave Up Trying to Live the Christian Life Don t Waste Your Time Being a Christian The Peril of Measuring Yourself Against Others Three Things That Break the Back of Envy Standing Against All Odds How to Avoid Spiritual Bankruptcy Why Calvinists Live Like Arminians&Arminians Pray Like Calvinists Where Are the Other Nine? The Four-Fold Price of Truth Do You Know Where You re Headed? The Wine That Never Fails Training for Reigning Do You Make These Eight Mistakes When Reading the Bible? Ten Ways to Handle Stress Beyond Kindness Haters Gonna Hate Three Kinds of Critics & How to Respond to Them The Swearing Christian How (Not) to Correct Another Christian How (Not) to Receive Correction from Another Christian Keep the Love On Confidence Two Doors They Smirked When I Stood Up to Speak, Until I Read Colossians Remember Joseph Rethinking Righteousness So You Don t Believe in God Anymore? Is Your Ministry Due for a New Season?

7 Heroes Gutless Wonders Have You Heard? The Plague of Gossip and Slander in the Body of Christ A Tale of Two Missiles Romans 8 Remixed Where Will Power Fails Overcoming Discouragement Rethinking Conventional Christianity Five Marks of a Spiritual Pioneer You re Putting God in a Box Christianeze Revisited Ten Mistakes Christians Should Avoid at All Cost Lessons from Rush An Embarrassing Confession About Money Don t Make This Mistake Three Christian Responses to Mental Illness Further Thoughts on Mental Illness Rethinking the Church and Culture Rethinking Christian Unity Rethinking the Gospel Rethinking Christian Conferences Rethinking Paul s Thorn in the Flesh Rethinking How We Present the Gospel Rethinking Evangelism Rethinking Water Baptism Rethinking Sickness Rethinking Your Reputation Rethinking Christian Leadership Rethinking Jesus The Dissenters Eastern Medicine vs. Western Medicine Dialogue with a Liberated, Free-Thinking, Postmodern Christian The Word Radical The Cost of Challenging the Status Quo Throwing Out the Baby with the Bathwater? Reformation, Revolution, and Changing the Course of Church History The Presence of Future Thoughts on the Coming Revival Jesus and Paul Under Fire Nine Lies the Media Likes to Tell About Evangelical Christians Evangelicalism Today A Jesus Response to Suicide Jesus and the War on Women Don t Confuse Me with the Facts The Problem with Christianity Seven Reasons Why Christians Abandon the Faith

8 Practical Help for Christian Communities Twenty Common Mistakes Christians Outside the Organized Church Make The Real Reason Why Christian Communities Fail The Chief Killer of Body Life Sowing Seeds of Discord Having an Instinct for the Cross Whatever Happened to Perseverance? In Praise of Dry Spells Living Without Offense Whenever God Is Moving Among a People, This Will Happen Everybody s Normal Until You Get to Know Them The Wish Dream Handling Problems in Christian Community Five Ingredients for Sustaining Christian Community The Deeper Meaning of Suffering You Don t Know What You Have Until The House Church Movement Pouring Holy Water on Strange Fire Broken Fellowship Over a Peripheral Doctrine Commending and Criticizing MacArthur s Charismatic Blasting Did the Sign Gifts Cease During the Age of the Apostles? The Scriptures and the Power of God The Relationship Between Truth and Experience Revelation Misunderstood Interpreting the Bible by the Spirit and the Intellect The Third Wave Does God Still Heal Today? What About Health and Wealth? Did the Apostolic Ministry Really Disappear? That Thorny Gift of Tongues Five Big Questions A Challenge and Request Does the Bible Replace the Role of Supernatural Gifts? Epic Jesus Discipleship in Crisis Problem 1: The Tool of Guilt Problem 2: Youthful Enthusiasm Problem 3: Unbiblical Prescription A Solution to Problems 1, 2, and Problem 4: Will Power Problem 5: Eating from the Wrong Tree Problem 6: Imitation Misconceived A Solution to Problems 4, 5, and Problem 7: Individualism Problem 8: A Lack of Spiritual Consciousness Problem 9: Self-Denial Overlooked

9 A Solution to Problems 7, 8, and Rethinking the Will of God The Agony Over God s Will Getting Stuck on a Train Track Finding Liberty in a Parking Lot Choosing Between Parking Spaces Sharing the Lot with Fellow Christians More on Discovering God s Will Beyond Evangelical What Does Beyond Evangelical Mean? Four Divergent Streams in the Evangelical Fold Clearing the Terrain A Collective Confession (You Are Not Alone) A Replay of History The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Evangelicalism Why the Christian Right and Left Won t Adopt Me Sinning Differently Than Others Cutting the Moral Line Moving Beyond Deconstructionism Moving Beyond Sectarianism The Turning Tide The Coming Evangelical Collapse Answers to Questions and Objections How Evangelicalism Lost Its Way (Other Voices) A Beyond Evangelical Approach to Reaching the World Forgotten Words of Jesus When the Pages Are Blank White Noise: Getting Scripture to Speak Again Exercise 1: Move to a Different Section Exercise 2: Switching Translations Exercise 3: Read Chronologically Exercise 4: Turn Scripture into Prayer Exercise 5: Let Jesus Tell His Own Story Exercise 6: Hear Jesus Speak Through the Epistles Exercise 7: Hear the Father Speak Through the Epistles Exercise 8: Write Scripture in Your Own Words Exercise 9: Read Scripture Out Loud Exercise 10: Mirror Read Exercise 11: Read A Devotional Commentary Exercise 12: Read an Academic Commentary Exercise 13: Do a Word County Exercise 14: Turn Scripture into Song Exercise 15: Find Christ in the Scriptures Exercise 16: Circle Topical Themes Exercise 17: Read, Inquire, Ponder

10 Exercise 18: Personalize Scripture Exercise 19: Imagine Yourself to Be a Character in the Story Exercise 20: Get a Partner Straight Talk to Pastors The Message Questions & Answers Other Books by Frank Viola Want to Delve Deeper? Coming in