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Nathan Creitz

I help disciples make disciples.

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Can the Church Be Organized and Organic?

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There is a debate about whether the church should be an organism or an organized institution.

Rather than find a healthy balance, there is a tendency for the two sides to run to the extremes. As a result, those who debate the issue stake their claim on one extreme and attack the other rather than finding the strengths of the other’s position.

It’s okay to be organized. It’s okay to be organic. The problem comes when a church becomes overly organized or overly organic.

The Overly Organized Church

The overly organized church borrows more from the business world than from the Bible.

The overly organized church has flawless policy manuals. They establish structures and systems and, for the most part, everything runs smoothly.

The overly organized church hires a Pastor/CEO to oversee the systems and structures and boards and committees. If he fails the task then he is fired and a search committee is formed. Resumes are vetted to determine if this person has the necessary business acumen to lead the organization effectively.

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The Problem of Choosing A Good Bible Translation

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How do you find a good Bible translation? Well, it depends on what language you speak. If you speak English, I can recommend the Holman Christian Standard Bible. It’s my choice of the modern translations because it is accurate, it is readable, and it is not as theologically biased as some translations tend to be.

If you aren’t satisfied with my recommendation then I will happily point you to Mark Strauss and Gordon Fee’s book entitled, How to Choose a Translation For All Its Worth.

The problem of choosing a translation in English is a minor problem. If you grab an NIV or an HCSB or an ESV or even the older KJV you will be reading the Truth (just don’t fall into the trap thinking that The Message is a translation!). There are nuances where a word choice could have been more precise or might have captured the original meaning more clearly, but it’s a minor problem that is solved by careful exegesis of the text.

There are bigger problems to worry about.

Bible Translations Needed

What if you don’t speak English? Well, there are Bible translations in 4,516 languages. There are even some languages that also have numerous versions to select from, though I don’t know if it is to the extent of the selection in the English language.

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What is an Ebenezer anyway?

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I’ve never been able to remember what an “Ebenezer” is. It always bothered me when a song leader would say something about “raising an Ebenezer” in the middle of a worship set and confuse 90% of the congregation (much less the outsiders who are visiting that day).

I don’t think I’ll ever forget what Ebenezer means again.

Samuel and Ebenezer

I want to briefly share two stories. One is a recent experience of God’s faithfulness to us and one is a story of God’s faithfulness to a group of Israelites who were huddling together in fear in a town called Mizpah nearly 3,000 years ago.

With the threat of attack by the Philistine’s, Samuel the prophet reminded the Israelites to abandon their worship of other gods and to worship and serve the One True God.

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Against Preaching: Preaching In A Media-Saturated Culture

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This post is part of The Disciple Making Preacher series. This series attempts to answer those who are against preaching and to propose that preaching is an irreplaceable means of disciple making in the church today.

The prophets of doom in today’s Church are confidently predicting that the day of preaching is over. It is a dying art, they say, an outmoded form of communication, ‘an echo from an abandoned past’. John Stott

Modern forms of communication have had a profound effect on preaching, preachers, and parishioners today.

Some preachers have shortened their messages to cater to the dwindling attention spans of their people. Others have supplemented their sermons with video clips and other visual aids in preaching.

But perhaps worst of all, there are those who have decided that preaching is completely outdated and must be replaced altogether. While supplementing a sermon with video or drama on occasion is not inherently bad, supplanting the sermon completely is a big problem.

A Media-Saturated Problem

The average American watches nearly 5 hours of video each day on TV’s, phones, and computers according to the latest Nielsen Cross-Platform Report.

The average YouTube video is 2 to 3 minutes. Most hour long TV shows might have 6 or 7 commercial breaks.

Hollywood movies have even found a mathematical formula that lets them match the effects of their shots to the attention spans of their audiences.

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Our Church Planting Vision: Go, Grow, and Gather in Jesus’ Name

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Over the past few months, God has been giving us clarity on our church planting vision for Queens, NY.

Without even planning it this way, the vision God has given us has become more than a vision of what we will see happen. It is also the process to accomplish the vision. In fact, our vision is our disciple making process, our church planting plan, and an embodied apologetic.

First, here is our mission:

Our mission is to glorify God by making disciples of all peoples.

The mission is larger than us. It’s simply the mission that Jesus gives all of His followers. Our church in Queens isn’t going to accomplish this mission entirely on its own, but, as far as it depends on us, the above is what we will strive for.

Our vision on the other hand, is how we will pursue the mission in our particular time and space.

Our Church Planting Vision

We will be a multiplying community of Jesus’ followers in the heart of Queens who will go on mission, grow in grace, and gather in His name for the glory of God among all peoples.

I know. I know. What good are statements like these, right? However, when God gives you a vision for what He is calling you to do it helps to capture it in a clear statement. Otherwise, you might find yourself building something flashier and trendier and otherwise different than what God intended.

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