LayGuy

I’ve been blogging at www.layguy.com for just over two years now.  Before that I posted a few items on Yahoo 360 and I copied a few of those posts over.  Tonight I took a trip into my stats just to see what’s been popular on this blog and below are the top half 5 posts over the years.  Hope you enjoy..

 

 

1. Man Turning Into A Tree

When I wrote this post, I had no idea just how popular it was to become.  It was the story of Dede – a man in Indonesia who contracted Human Papillomavirus (HPV) – a bug which causes skin diseases and warts.  However Dede suffered from a rare form of immune disorder where his body was unable to cope with HPV and his warts took on a “bark like” quality and just kept on growing and growing and growing….

 

 

 

2. Bill Hybels says “We Made A Mistake”

Will always remember when I heard Bill Hybels say, “We made a mistake” in regards to the “attractional” or “seeker sensitive” approach.  He admitted that this created a breed of shallow and spoon fed Christians.  Research by his church concluded that the goal of churches is to create disciples who are “self feeders” and are able to grow in their spiritual maturity and develop a deeper relationship with Jesus.

 

 

3. Watch Rob Bell’s NOOMA Online For Free!

While I am not a big fan of Rob Bell – mainly because of his emergent type need to need to question everything – I am a fan of this guy’s ability to communicate.  A great example of this is his NOOMA series of video’s – short stories designed to draw out conversation on spiritual matters for small groups.  I collected all his NOOMA video’s I found online (21 at the time), made a VODPOD collection and posted them on my blog.  Worked like a charm until they were deemed copy write and whoever posted them online had to take them off.

4. America’s Top 50 Influential Churches

This was posted back in July 2007 and has been getting constant hits ever since.  Snatched and expanded from www.churchrelevance.com at the time, this post lists (with URL’s and some Pastor’s blogs) the most influential churches in the US back in July 2007.  Makes for interesting reading and a great place to check out church websites and resources on some of the best churches around.

5. The Demon Seed – Fallen Angels

This is one post from a series of posts I did on the Nephilim – the hybrid offspring of angels and humans before the flood and the real reason God destroyed the earth.  Most Christians (including Reformed) don’t take this topic seriously and brush it off as fantasy.  But I invite you to take a journey with me with this series of posts and you will never see history the same way again.  Entire series (although unfinished) listed below.

The Demon Seed

The Demon Seed – Pt 2

The Demon Seed – Text & Questions

The Demon Seed – Fallen Angels

The Demon Seed – The Nephilim

The Demon Seed – Demon DNA

The Demon Seed – And Also Afterward

Hmm…. makes me want to complete this series.

It was somewhat of a surprise for me to read the following from Bill Hybels:

“We made a mistake.”

Hybels is the Pastor of Willow Creek Community Church – the 5th “top Church” in the US. Many of you have read his books. In a nutshell. Hybels Pastors one of the largest and influential churches in the US.

In a recent article in Christianity Today’s “Out of Ur” blog, is an article outlining the results of a “multi year qualitative study” into “what programs and activities of the church were actually helping people mature spiritually and which were not.”

Being a “program driven” and “seeker sensitive” church, Willow Creek has spent millions of dollars setting up all kinds of programs designed to increase participation and therefore making the participants better disciples of Jesus.

What the research actually showed is that all these programs did not lead people into a deeper relationship with Jesus. Having spent 30 years building this church model and advocating it to others, Hybels has called this report the “wake up call” of his life.

“We made a mistake. What we should have done when people crossed the line of faith and become Christians, we should have started telling people and teaching people that they have to take responsibility to become ‘self feeders.’ We should have gotten people, taught people, how to read their bible between service, how to do the spiritual practices much more aggressively on their own.” – Bill Hybels

To get a feel of what Willow Creek has learnt from this study, I recommend you check out the video’s mentioned in the above article. Greg Hawkins is the Executive Pastor and his video can be seen here. Bill Hybels is here.

Every church leader should look into what they have to say. You may come from different denominations and/or have different views. But this research is good and you will glean wisdom from it if you’re humble enough.

The Bible talks about building on the foundation Christ has begun. He is the Cornerstone and everything will be built around Him. Man has been building for 2000 years and some of the best and worst of humanity has been witnessed as people build upon the great Foundation.

But there is a sobering passage of scripture for all leaders..

“Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.” 1 Cor 3:12-15

Anything you and I do “for the Kingdom” will be tested by fire. Probably most of what we do will be burnt up due to the pathetic nature of our “works.” Things we do thinking that we are doing a great job will probably mean nothing – mere straw in a raging fire.

It’s great to see Hybels re-evaluating his efforts at Willow Creek. Maybe without him even knowing it, his building materials are changing into something more fireproof. In doing so, he will be more effective then he already is and God will receive more glory.

Tags: Bill Hybels, Willow Creek, Seeker Sensitive

In his classic style, John Piper has made available a bunch of resources for those wanting to dig deeper into their faith. One of my favourite teachers of the Word and a guy totally sold out to teaching people about the Glory of our Father, John Piper has just released a bunch of materials available for listening and free download.

In a world where everyone is charging for everything, many Christian teachers are also jumping on this band wagon and having the audacity to actually charge people to download sermons!

I see this as totally wrong. Imagine Jesus setting up tolls on the Mount before delivering His classic Sermon on The Mount teaching. Imagine Paul setting a seal on his letters he wrote from prison and before they were read in Churches, a “love offering” had to be made.

Give me a break! Many try to justify charging people for MP3 downloads saying that web hosting and bandwidth is expensive. As a lay webmaster of my church website, I can tell you that after thousands of downloads of our sermons in the last couple of months, it hasn’t cost me a cent.

Sure, we are a small church and our downloads aren’t as big as some churches. But with bigger churches, come larger offerings – and this should cover the costs of getting the Word out there.

I have a “holy discontent” to use the words of Bill Hybels when it comes to charging people for sermons. One of my favourite teachers was Chuck Missler. A guy gifted in his understanding and a brilliant communicator of the Word – albeit a little repetitive. I don’t listen to him anymore simply because he charges for his sermons.

Piper, on the other hand, is different. Check out his website, desiringgod.org and you will be amazed at the amount of resources he has made freely available. And it’s not JUST resources – it’s quality resources. Below is a taste of his latest offerings. Every two years John Piper completes a rotation of weekend seminars on different aspects of Christian doctrine and practice. Although much of it was spoken years ago, these have now been made available online.

• Biblical Eldership
• Desiring God
• Future Grace
• Gravity and Gladness on Sunday Morning: The Pursuit of God in Corporate Worship
• Prayer, Meditation, and Fasting
• Sexual Complementarity: The Pursuit of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood
• Suffering for the Sake of the Body: The Pursuit of People Through Pain
• TULIP
• Why We Believe the Bible

Tags: John Piper, Bill Hybels, Chuck Missler, Biblical Eldership, Calvinism, Worship, Grace, Prayer, Meditation, Fasting, Manhood, Womanhood, Suffering, Bible, Apologetics