Gospel.com Blog

While you may not find it interesting, one of the realities of doing church in the United States is the need to have some sort of administrative staff. Sometimes it falls to the Pastor, but if you’re lucky there’s a designated person for the job. If you happen to be in one of these church administration positions you know that it’s not exactly a piece of cake keeping all the legal, tax and money stuff straight and accounted for. And the last time you want to be asking questions like, “Does that income fall under Unrelated Business Income Tax?” is not when the IRS is asking the same thing.

Church Law & Tax Report “exists to provide church leaders, staff members, and volunteer workers with extensive legal, tax, and risk management resources and training at an affordable price.” They offer extremely practical advice and articles on everything from tax status to church safety. It is a pay site, but the resources are extensive.

Check out a few sample articles:

Negligent Supervision Part 2

Preparing For The Unthinkable: Violence in the Church

The Unrelated Business Income Tax and Publishing

How should a church treasurer respond to a donor who demands a refund?

And here’s some more about the services they offer.

In Matthew 25 Jesus tasks his followers to take care of “the least of these” and later in Matthew 28 “to make disciples of all nations.” The mission of International Aid is responding to “Biblical mandates by providing and supporting solutions in health care.” They do a far better job of describing their ministry than I ever would, so read this excerpt from their welcome page:

Disasters such as the Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, earthquakes, and floods will continue to test International Aid’s ability to provide compassionate care in emergencies.

Yet, it is our experience and preparedness as a disaster aid provider that allows our health ministry to offer compassionate care beyond the time and place of disaster.

International Aid is committed to improving global health care by making quality health services available to the world’s poor.

For the past five years, we have leveraged the impact of our worldwide network of ministry partners in countries with unmet health needs.

International Aid bridges the three components of health delivery systems: community health, clinical care, and technology, and embraces them as mutually supportive approaches to health care in the developing world.

The work we do is a physical expression of the power of compassion. We introduce tangible projects of mercy and love that restore the physical, emotional and spiritual health of others.

If you’re at all interested in international missions and providing health care to the oppressed, consider praying and supporting International Aid’s ministry.

Bob Cilman, musical director of the Young @ Heart chorus, is very happy that the film named after his group is bringing the talents of these post-retirement-age singers to a whole new audience. They are all in their 70s, 80s, and 90s, and he has found that the audience for Young @ Heart tends to be on the younger side.

Past the Popcorn Managing Editor Greg Wright talked with Cilman a couple of weeks ago over the phone after the film’s press tour canceled its flight out of Dallas due to storms. Cilman enthusiastically endorses suggestions that the film is ideal field trip material for retirement home residents. “It’s hard for older people when they come to see us,” he says, “because they don’t know much of the music.”

Young @ Heart, however, is not a musical documentary, nor is it about the music itself. It’s about the people behind the music, about the sacrifices they make, about living and dying with pride and hope, and about connecting with other real people. It’s a film that older audiences should connect with particularly well, as they will see a great deal of themselves in the various chorus members.

Each week, Past the Popcorn offers a thorough look at the latest round of films opening on big screens.

With less than a month to go before the summer blockbusters break upon us like, well, blockbusters, the indies and the studio botique labels are trying to make as much hay as they can before all of the screens are sucked up by the megaflicks.

The darkest (and sharpest) of the bunch this week is Street Kings, a police-corruption action thriller starring Keanu Reeves in a familiar-looking role. But the well-pedigreed film is probably not what you expect, says Greg Wright: “I don’t think you’ll hate this movie. No, if either cop movies or Keanu Reeves are your thing, you’ll probably even love it. Still, I’m not sure you need this kind of dark vision of America, either.”

(more…)

Are you familiar with the ministry of Luis Palau? Palau, an evangelist whose ministry has preached the Gospel over the radio, in print, and at massive evangelistic events, is on the leading edge of the revival movement. He’s spoken in over 70 different countries to over 25 million people, preaching the Gospel to those who aren’t Christians and encouraging believers to revitalize their faith.

If you haven’t yet explored the Luis Palau Association website, you might be surprised to find that although Palau’s revival ministry works on a grand scale—huge evangelistic events and concerts—there are a lot of resources on the website to help you kick off a revival in your personal spiritual life. Here are a few items worth checking out:

• Palau has written dozens of articles about living out the Christian faith—many of which have become “classics” in the Gospel.com community over the years. Among the best are Five Ways God Answers Prayer, Facing Sexual Temptation, and Forgiving an Absent Dad—but you’ll find many, many others worth reading in addition to those.
• Growing Faith is a semi-regular podcast featuring Palau’s insights into many different topics, from overcoming addiction to understanding the place of wealth and poverty in society.
• Central to Palau’s ministry are the massive evangelistic festivals held all over the world. There are upcoming festivals this year in places ranging from Romania to Mexico.
• Reaching Your World is a one-minute and two-minute daily English feature that provides listeners with practical encouragement on how to share their faith. Tune in and listen online!
• And if you live in the Portland, Oregon area, the Luis Palau Association always welcomes volunteers!

The Luis Palau Association is a truly global ministry, but there’s are plenty of good resources to help you through the everyday, personal issues that come with being a Christian in today’s society. Stop by and see what they have to offer!

Sometimes all it takes is an impassioned speaker to move us on into action. Thankfully many of the gospel.com community members have made classic and contemporary sermons and messages available on their sites. Here’s are some links to those resources on from around the community:

From Sermonindex.net:

A Burning Heart by Leonard Ravenhill

Turkey Creek Revival by J.D. Brodgon

A Vision of Revival by Sammy Tippit

David Bryant’s Proclaim Hope:

Seven Irrefutable Reasons Why We Should Prepare for a Nationwide Christ-awakening Movement

The Anatomy of a Christ Awakening

The Crises that Demands a Christ Awakening

How to Prepare a Way for a Christ Awakening

From Life Action Ministries:

Personal Revival Messages

The youth of today are the leaders of tomorrow—so the saying goes, and it’s as true for the church as it is for society in general. What that means for the church today is that it’s not enough to train and disciple adult believers—if we’re hoping and praying for a revival with an impact that extends beyond the Boomer and Gen X generations, Christians must work to inspire young people with the spirit of revival.

Several ministries in the Gospel.com community are focused on fanning the flames of revival not just in today’s church leaders, but in tomorrow’s:

• Youth for Christ aims to connect young people with mission trips and service opportunities that will deepen their faith. Their mission trips send young people everywhere from Botswana to Uruguay, and their Prayer Triplets program plugs students into a worldwide network of prayer. In their words, these small prayer groups “may seem insignificant, but even one life spent in prayer may start a revival that will sweep the world.”
• Youth Specialties is all about helping youth leaders inspire their youth. In particular, their Generation Change (“Calling students to change their world”) conferences, held all across the U.S., train church leaders and volunteers to inspire young people to carry the Gospel into the world.
• In an article at the Youth Specialties site, Ted Stump describes a type of student ministry that might just be the prelude to widespread youth revival: student-led cell groups.
• Youth revival programs are not without their challenges. Elsewhere on the YS site, Tom Bergler cautions against (among other things) youth revival programs that focus too much on entertainment and not enough on real spiritual change. Current Thoughts and Trends sums up an account of a high school revival that might or might not bear lasting spiritual fruit.

Take some time to browse through more articles and resources here about youth revival!

In an effort to get some feedback on an upcoming book he’s written, ysmarko of Youth Specialties has been publishing some passages on his blog and asking for feedback. If you’re currently involved in youth ministry in any way you might want to jump on over to his blog and read through his thoughts.

The first of the series.

The most recent post: part 10.

Find links to all the posts here.

“The nature of revival is that it deals with things below the surface. It goes to the root issues so that long-term resolution is really possible.”

Personal revival is something we all need, but do we want it? I don’t think I’d be alone in saying, “Not always.” Revival means change. Sometimes drastic change. And change can take a tremendous amount of effort.

But revival also means renewal. Through revival we do more of what God wants us to do and less of what our sinful nature desires us to do, which is, to me, scary and exciting.

Life Action Revival Ministries exists to help individuals experience revival in their own lives.

Life Action Ministries is on a mission. We have a single-minded focus to see God glorified through a revival among His people. This purpose has carried us for over three decades of work alongside the churches of our country. Life Action Ministries is the largest revival ministry in North America.

This next excerpt is from their revival report from last year written by Byron Paulus:

I passionately believe that the greatest spiritual need in American church life is to make concentrated time to seek the Lord corporately. When it comes to experiencing the life-giving presence of God, there simply are no shortcuts. Spiritually, good things really do come to those who wait (on God!)—those who are willing to have a single antenna tuned in to a single voice.

It is in the context of seeking God that He speaks most clearly. It is then that the potential of another outpouring of revival and spiritual awakening in our nation is most likely.

That’s exactly what happened 150 years ago in America. A businessman named Jeremiah Lanphier noticed that God was absent from his bustling, materialistic society. So he did the one thing that he could do—he paused for a noontime prayer meeting during the workday and invited others to join him.

What began that day on September 23, 1857, eventually grew over the next 18 months into one of the greatest revivals that has ever swept our country. The entire eastern seaboard seemed to have become a prayer meeting, and major cities like Chicago, Boston, and Philadelphia witnessed thousands of people closing their shops over lunch to pray. Historians estimate that up to 50,000 people a week were coming to saving faith in Jesus Christ.

What about you? Will you renew your commitment to tune out distractions and fix your attention on the Lord? Will you join with others to pray that God will once again visit us in revival?

When you look at the culture around you—when you consider the spiritual state of our society—what do you think? Does a Christlike spirit define the words and actions of our leaders, our neighbors, our families? Is the church of Christ boldly proclaiming the Gospel and successfully modeling Christian love and integrity to a watching world?

In the eyes of many Christians, the answer is a definite no—looking around us, we see violence, immorality, and dishonesty where there should be peace, righteousness, and integrity. We see a Christian church struggling to preach the Gospel message in a way that the world can understand… and we see the church struggling even to train and disciple its own to become effective followers of Christ. Maybe, looking around at all this, you even think to yourself something like: If only a spirit of Christian revival would take root in our culture today, we could truly impact our world for Christ.

If you’ve ever thought something along those lines, you’re not the first person to do so: at different points in history, there have been periods of spiritual revival that witnessed outbreaks of large-scale, sometimes nationwide fervor for Jesus Christ. From the so-called “First Great Awakening” in the early 1700s to the “Jesus people” movement of the 1970s, there have been times when the conditions were just right to kickstart a spiritual revival in which thousands or millions committed (or recommitted) themselves to Jesus. Sometimes those revivals were short-lived and quickly faded from memory… but others had long-lasting effects on the church and popular culture.

Some have suggested that the conditions are right once again—that the world is primed for another Christian revival movement to sweep through hearts and minds. In fact, there are Christian ministries working toward that very goal, through prayer, evangelism, and missionary work. Some of those ministries are plugged into the Gospel.com community. This week, we’ll be talking about revival in all of its incarnations, from personal, individual revival to worldwide revival, and we’ll be highlighting a few of the ministries that are working to make it happen. (You can take a look at some of them at our Revival topic page.) So as we kick off the new week, take a few minutes to ask yourself: is the time right for a revival in my country? My community? My own heart?