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What IS the church?

5/16/2020

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What IS the church? 

The last two months have seen churches empty on Sundays, and significant shifts to the programs of the local church. We've now seen by experience what many have always known to be true: The church is not the sum total of its programs. Nor is the church simply the building that many visit on Sunday mornings. 

But this realization simply invites another great question - the one that starts this post: What, then, IS the church?

This question isn't abstract. The way we answer this question has massive practical  implications for how we continue to navigate the ever-changing landscape and move into what everyone is calling "the new normal." 

So let's dig into this question and briefly look at three biblical and theological truths about what the church IS. The church is a transformed people living with a God-given purpose who are shaped by 6 key priorities. 

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My 2018 Top 5 "Top Reading Lists of 2018"

12/24/2018

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Looking for some of the best biblical and theological books to read in 2019? Below I've collected and listed five "sources" that are worth listening to for some worthwhile reads.

My hope is that as you scan these lists, you'll find at least 2-3 books that strike your interest enough for you to pick up the book and dig in.

Click on either the image or the title below and you'll be taken directly to a page where you can see which books are on that particular list.

My Top 5 Reading Lists of 2018

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Christianity Today's 2019 Book Awards
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The Gospel Coalition: 2018 TGC Book Awards
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Verge Network - Top Books of 2018

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Sam Storms - Top 10 Books of 2018
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Tim Challies - The Collected Best Christian Books of 2018

Interested in more?

Below you'll find a few other links to related posts. Happy reading! 
  • 6 Books to Consider for the Reader You're Buying For (2018 Edition)
  • How to R.E.A.D. Books Well
  • The "Ministry" of Recommending Books
  • Building a Biblical and Theological Library? Here are 4 More Books for the Shelves.
  • My 2017 Top 5 "Top Reading Lists of 2017"
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Happy Reformation Day 2018!

10/31/2018

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This posted in adapted from an earlier post on this site, first composed on October 31, 2014.

Tonight is Halloween. A couple of my kids will likely be going door-to-door getting candy, and we'll probably be handing out candy to neighborhood kids from our door as well. But October 31 is significant for more reasons than just this.  October 31 is also "Reformation Day" - the day in 1517 when a monk named Martin Luther nailed 95 Theses to a church door in Germany and sparked what we now call the Protestant Reformation.  (For a recommended introduction to Luther's 95 Theses, check out this book.)

Here's what Philip Schaff, a noted church historian, says about the significance of the Reformation: 
“The Reformation of the sixteenth century is, next to the introduction of Christianity, the greatest event in history. It marks the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of modern times. Starting from religion, it gave, directly or indirectly, a mighty impulse to every forward movement, and made Protestantism the chief propelling force in the history of modern civilization.”

- Philip Schaff, 
History of the Christian Church, Vol. VII: Modern Christianity—The German Reformation [1910; repr., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980]
If your'e looking to brush up a bit on Reformation history, check out this post from Ligonier Ministries. This post shares a bit more about the history of the Reformation and key players in it. I encourage you to take a few minutes on this Reformation Day of 2018 and check it out.

Here's the post: "The Reformation and the Men Behind It" by Stephen Lawson

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Please note the usual disclaimer, that my recommendation of this article is not necessarily an endorsement of everything else on the site where this was posted. As always, read both discerningly and graciously, and with the Bible as your final authority.
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Summer Reading: 2018

6/2/2018

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Summer is upon us!

If you've got some extra time over the next couple of months - maybe you're traveling a bit, or your summer schedule allows you more time to read for other reasons, or you just want some book recommendations as you maintain a habit of reading - here are a few books (in categories we should keep on our radar screens) you may want to consider. These are books that I've either read recently myself, or am hoping to dig into in the next couple of months.

I encourage you to explore these books a bit (each is linked to their Amazon page where you can learn more), then choose whichever one or two jumps out at you most and dig in! 

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Retiring a Jersey: "What's Good about Having the Bible on Mobile Devices? What's Dangerous?"

3/1/2018

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If you ever check out either the Library or the footer of this site, where we highlight the top 5 posts of the previous month, you'll have seen "What's Good about Having the Bible on Mobile Devices? And What's Dangerous?" has been on this "Top 5" streak for a while (a long while!). And it's understandable why.

We should WANT to make the Bible accessible in all of the ways we can. Getting God's Word into the hands of as many people as possible is a good thing. But we should also want to be aware of any dangers that can accompany recent trends - not so we avoid the trend itself (and all its benefits!), but so that we can mitigate against particular dangers and have them on our radar screen.

If you've not checked out the post, you can do so here.

So as a nod to the popularity of this post, I'm officially going to "retire the jersey." I'll leave the post just as it is on the site and will include it in the "retired jersey" category of this site's "Library" page. However, moving forward I'll no longer include it in numbers 1-5 of each month's top posts (even though it continues to rank highly among the website "hits" for individual posts), thus allowing room for other posts.

Interested in other posts that have gotten a lot of traffic on this site recently? Click here to check 'em out!

Interested in seeing all of the "retired jersey" posts up to this point? Here they are:

  • Gregg Allison on the Importance and Role of Christian Education in the Life of the Church
  • What is Moralistic Therapeutic Deism? And How Does it Stack Up against Biblical Christianity?​
  • What's Good about Having the Bible on Mobile Devices? What's Dangerous? 
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What if We're the "Upside Down"?

10/25/2017

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Many of you are likely familiar with the Netflix hit show, "Stranger Things" (season 2 releases in just a couple of days!). I, for one, watched it last year and really enjoyed it.

Surely, part of my enjoyment was nostalgia - since I grew up in the 1980s (the setting of the show). But that's not all. Much of my enjoyment was because of excellent story telling and how Stranger Things helps us picture a "re-enchanted world" where there's more going on than science can fully explain. In the secular West, I wonder if more and more people hunger for this re-enchantment - echoes of a memory instilled in us as image bearers of God. The popularity of Stranger Things suggests that this musing of mine (and many others, including Mike Cosper and James K.A. Smith, both teasing out Charles Taylor) - that people hunger for re-enchantment - is correct. 

The story Stranger Things tells is intricate enough that I won't try and reduce it to a few sentences. I'll focus instead on just one feature of it. As season 1 unfolds, the viewer learns that in the world of Stranger Things, there's something of an alternate dimension running alongside our own - a world with its own creatures; a world that's darker and a bit more decayed; a world that sometimes interrupts our own, and has points of contact with it. In Stranger Things, this darker-and-decayed alternate dimension is called "the Upside Down."

Here's where I'll stop describing Stranger Things and draw a connection to our own world, by asking a question: What if OUR world is really the Upside Down? 

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Can I Trust the Bible? (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

8/29/2017

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As the Brookside Institute champions the value of biblical literacy, we don't do this in some abstract or indifferent way. We want to value biblical literacy so that we're transformed by the Bible.

If that's the case, that means there's a whole lot riding on whether the Bible is a trustworthy book. Some version of "Can I trust the Bible?" is being asked in lots of ways today, and so responding to this question is important. Here's why: The greater our confidence IN the Bible, the more we'll base our lives ON the Bible. We'll never base our lives on something we don't have confidence in.

This last weekend, I spent about 30 minutes responding this question, "Can I trust the Bible?" Check out the video below to see what I said.

Can I Trust The Bible? from Brookside Church on Vimeo.


Interested in more on this? Check out the following posts:

  • 4 Great Resources to Boost Your Confidence in the Bible
  • Come Hungry to the Bible
  • How to Study the Bible on Your Own​
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Retiring a Jersey: Moralistic Therapeutic Deism and the Gospel

8/1/2017

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If you ever check out the footer of this site, where we highlight the top 5 posts of the previous month, you'll have seen "What is Moralistic Therapeutic Deism? And How Does it Stack Up against Biblical Christianity?" has been on a #1 streak for a while (a long while!). And it's understandable why.

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (MTD) is often called the "default religion" of many Americans - whether they consciously articulate it or not. And MTD is definitely NOT a direct overlap of biblical Christianity.
 To understand the "background noise" that informs the perspective of many Americans - even American Christians - one needs to understand MTD.

If you've not checked out the post, 
you can do so here.

So as a nod to the popularity of this post, I'm officially going to "retire the jersey." I'll leave the post just as it is on the site and will include it in the "retired jersey" category of this site's "Library" page. However, moving forward I'll no longer include it in numbers 1-5 of each month's top posts (even though it continues to rank highly among the website "hits" for individual posts), thus allowing room for other posts.

Interested in other posts that have gotten a lot of traffic on this site recently? Click here to check 'em out!

Interested in seeing all of the "retired jersey" posts up to this point? Here they are:

  • Gregg Allison on the Importance and Role of Christian Education in the Life of the Church
  • What is Moralistic Therapeutic Deism? And How Does it Stack Up against Biblical Christianity? 
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It's Not Too Late! A Review of the Top 5 Blog Posts Each Month, for the Last 6 Months

7/22/2017

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Based on the number of "hits" each month, here are the top 5 posts here on the Brookside Institute blog for the last six months - January 2017 through June 2017. Take a minute to scroll through the list below and either catch up on things you may have missed or revisit things that were especially helpful.

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Summer Reading: 2017

5/23/2017

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​Summer is almost upon us!

If you've got some extra time over the next couple of months - maybe you're traveling a bit, or your summer schedule allows you more time to read for other reasons, or you just want some book recommendations as you maintain a habit of reading - here are a few books you may want to consider. These are books that I've either read recently myself, or am hoping to dig into in the next couple of months.

I encourage you to explore these books a bit (each is looked to their Amazon page where you can learn more) and jump in - the water's fine!

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    Tim Wiebe

    Christian. Husband. Father. Pastor. Learner. Contributor. Reader.


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Top Five Posts from February 2023
#1 - 6 Online Tools that Can Help You Dig into (and Understand!) the Bible
#2 - 5 Ways to Show Readiness for Jesus' Return
​#3 - ​​8 Things We Learn About God in Deuteronomy 4-10
#4 - ​ What's Up with 1 Kings 18:40?
#5 - How 2 Timothy 1-2 Helps Me Approach Teaching

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