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His Invitation The invitation of God to all of the world is to be a Home together for the Father, Son and Holy Ghost—to be a Bride that has made herself ready for the return of her beautiful Groom, Jesus (John 13-15, Eph. 2-5, Rev. 19:7). If you think about the picture in the Scriptures of how life for and with Christ culminates—what is it? It’s a courtship—and a wedding supper! God is appealing to us, saying, “I have this confidence about Myself. If you will be with Me and take a look at who I really am, there...

Organic Church. I’ve been using this term for around fifteen years now. Today it’s become somewhat of a clay word, being molded and shaped to mean a variety of different things by a variety of different people. T. Austin-Sparks is the man who deserves credit for this term. Here’s his definition: "God's way and law of fullness is that of organic life. In the divine order, life produces it's own organism, whether it be a vegetable, animal, human or spiritual. This means that everything comes from the inside . . . function, order and fruit issue forth from this...

Embracing the Death of the Church by Neil Cole In every town of America there is at least one church with a building worth hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars. This church meets every Sunday morning with only eight to ten silver and blue haired women and one or two balding gentlemen for a “service”. Empty parking spaces, silent pulpits and dusty pews cry out for days of glory gone by. The church has been dead for years, perhaps decades, but has been kept alive unnaturally by an artificial life support system. The soul is gone, brain...

A Conversation with Frank Viola, Part I 3544 words by Brother Maynard on February 11, 2008 “Pagan Week” has been held over in view of the extended conversation I’ve had with Frank Viola, which turned out not to be a brief one-post interview after all. We got into some pretty big questions, which help frame a deeper understanding of his latest book on which he collaborated with George Barna. My review of Pagan Christianity: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices ran all of last week, during which I voiced a number of concerns with the book and pointed out...