Josh Hunt's Blog, page 260

Transformation by hard work

There is more to Christian living than trying really hard to be good. More, but never less. Some Christians, I am afraid, don’t try hard enough. When Paul spoke of Christian living he spoke of striving and straining and boxing and running. These are all very active metaphors. One of my favorite jump-ball questions is […]

Transformed by the power of the human example

Your progress in discipleship will be greatly enhanced if you can find someone in your life to be a pacesetter. We all do best if we have an example to follow. If you look back over your progress in the faith, you will find this principle illustrated many times. As clear as this principle is […]

Transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit

If ever there were a people who would be transformed by the renewing of their mind, it would have been the Jews. They had the Word of God. They memorized it. They meditated on it. I will give them the benefit of the doubt and suggest they tried really hard to obey it. But, they […]

Transformed by habit

The vast majority of what we do is simply habit. We either pray or not as a function of habit We read our Bibles or not as a function of habit We go to church or not as a function of habit. The writer of Hebrews warned that some people had gotten out of the […]

Transformed in community

Imagine a man who read the Bible for an hour a day. Imagine he spent another hour a day memorizing scripture. Imagine he listened to sound Christian teaching on the way to and from work. Imagine he listed to sound Christian teaching on TV at home in the evening instead of watching sit-coms and the […]

We become what we behold

There is something about worship. There is something about looking at God that makes us godlier. There is something about basking in His love that makes us more loving. There is something about thinking about his grace that makes us more gracious. There is something about worship. On that day we will be like Him, […]

How to train people to live the disciple’s life

I would suggest that Christian living is hard because we have never been taught to life the Christian life. We have been taught a lot about the Bible. We know a lot of Bible stories from the Bible. We could give you a lot of Bible facts. We could even throw in a few Greek […]

How Saddleback recruits small group leaders

Of course you will need a leader for each subgroup to facilitate the conversation and keep it moving. Unfortunately, if I ask someone to lead the group, that person is going to give me all the reasons why he or she can’t lead. So I don’t even ask. Instead I just say, “Hey, could you […]

Simplify your strategy

A declining church of fewer than fifty people doesn’t need the same structure and ministries it had when it ran one hundred fifty to two hundred. A replanted church must become a focused church. That refocused, simplified church looks different in every context. You will need to determine what your church’s priorities look like as […]

Marks of a dying church

In the past decade, I have had the privilege of working with many churches through the process of “repenting and remembering” that I mentioned in the previous chapter. I have noticed some common themes in churches that desperately need the invigoration of new life. Many of them show the following characteristics. They value the process […]