The Spirit of Community
Community sounds great…on paper. Lived out, it’s messy. We can see how investing in our relationship with God pays off, but relationships with others? Yes and no. The book of Acts is a game-changer. It shakes us up, pointing us to sacrificial, faith-shaping community. At least, until we hit the end of the chapter. Or...
Adam Rice
The Blessing: A Short Story of Loss and Reconciliation
Paul and Eden had adjusted well to life in Rochester, Minnesota. It was now home. They were there for Paul’s job in IT. A major company recruited him out of college eight years earlier. Great salary. Rehabbed bungalow. Fun neighborhood. Made up for the harsh realities of being really far from home and shoveling snow...
Bob Turner
Announcing the Public Launch of Renew Movement Church Planting
The Exponential Church Planting Conference in Orlando, FL, starts today. It is the largest gathering of church planting leaders on the planet with a registered attendance of 5,500 church leaders. I will be leading a pre-conference for RENEW.org and a main track focused on renewing the teachings of Jesus to fuel disciple making. At the...
Bobby Harrington
The Role of Mentoring and Discipleship in a Women’s Ministry
So, what Is mentoring? The word “mentor” originally came from the name of a friend of King Odysseus in Homer’s Odyssey. Mentor was entrusted with Telemachus, the king’s only son, while the king was off at war. Mentor showed wisdom, care, and commitment, which are all essential ingredients of a good mentor by today’s standards...
Anessa Westbrook
What Is the Glory of God in the Bible? A Q&A with Donnie Berry, PhD
Editor’s Note: What is the glory of God in the Bible, and why does it matter to learn about? Far from being a peripheral concept, God’s glory is actually central to the gospel—to the good news about King Jesus—and central to understanding God’s agenda for our lives. To help us understand God’s glory better, I...
Daniel McCoy
How Prayer Fuels Disciple Making
Roughly five years ago I had the blessing of sitting in a room with about 20 other lead pastors to listen as Shodankeh Johnson shared about the incredible Kingdom growth in the small West African nation of Sierra Leone. This was, for me, the first time I had heard about Disciple Making Movements (DMM). It...
Paul Huyghebaert
Jesus Is Lord: On Finding Our Identity by Discovering the Identity of Jesus
What does it mean to declare that Jesus is Lord? The Greek word kurios is a word that can mean lord, master, or sir. It is also the Greek word which the translators of the Septuagint (an ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament) used when translating YHWH, a Hebrew name of God connected with...
Daniel McCoy
Fasting and Prayer: 2 Stories
Fasting and prayer are often combined in Scripture. Both Old Testament followers of God (Ezra 8:23; Nehemiah 1:4; Psalm 35:13; Daniel 9:3) and the New Testament church (Luke 2:37; Acts 13:3; Acts 14:23) combined prayer and fasting when fervently bringing a request to God. This article brings together two stories, one ancient and one contemporary,...
Tina Wilson
Building a Diverse, Jesus-Centered Network: An Update for Early 2023
Dear Renew.org Network, We hope you will be encouraged by how God is using all of us to build Renew Network. Together, we are a collaborative community of diverse church leaders, churches, and disciples of Jesus who rally together around the DNA of clear biblical theology and a focus on being disciples of Jesus who...
Bobby Harrington
Thoughts on Giving a Communion Meditation
Taking the Lord’s Supper is a central component of our spiritual lives and our worship services. Here are some reminders I give to people as they prepare to lead our church in preparing for communion (what many churches call “communion meditations”). Keep it biblical. A Lord’s Supper meditation is always about Jesus. It’s about his...
Jim Frech
5 Biblical Responses to Anti-Christian Slander
Why isn’t my church in the 21st century more like the early church of the 1st century? Where are the 3,000 baptisms in a single day? The opportunities to preach the gospel to kings and governors? Now, if we’ve got open eyes, we can see that God is doing some amazing things in our churches...
Daniel McCoy
What to Do When Your Child Stops Believing
When he was about fourteen years old, my son, Jonathan, sat me down and told me that he had lost his faith in God. I was hurt, but I wasn’t surprised. After all, he had not shown much spiritual interest in several years. He suffered from depression and had been painfully lonely since we moved...
David Young
Sermon on the Mount: False Prophets
One thing that makes walking the narrow path difficult (Matt. 7:13-14) is that the wide path has a lot of hype men. They’re not hard to find. Thomas Keating recounts a story about Sufi master who was outside on his hands and knees sifting through the grass looking for the key to his house. Some...
Jeremy Bacon
How to Preach a Sermon Every Week
I remember sitting in church as a kid listening to my dad preach a sermon week after week. Over time, I worried that he would run out of material one day. After all, there are only so many chapters in the Bible! Now that I’m a pastor myself, I’ve realized that the Bible contains enough...
Joshua Branham
A New Kind of Event for Making Connections
Drew Moore is the lead pastor of Canyon Ridge Christian Church (Las Vegas) and Megan Rawlings is the founder and leader of The Bold Movement. They are joining together to help lead a special night at the start of the Renew National Gathering, from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 25, at East 91st...
Renew.org
Questioning the Asbury Revival?
For those of us who believe God is really doing something special with the Asbury revival right now, it can be hard to hear criticism and questions of what is going on. When you believe God is doing something powerful, you hate to hear it questioned. But everything needs to be questioned. God doesn’t expect...
Matt Dabbs