{"id":68658,"date":"2023-12-17T23:02:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-18T05:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/?p=68658"},"modified":"2023-12-18T00:24:11","modified_gmt":"2023-12-18T06:24:11","slug":"32-random-thoughts-about-the-local-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/?p=68658","title":{"rendered":"32 Random Thoughts About the Local Church"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Every now<\/a> and again<\/a> I jot down a thought that I’d like to ponder but that I don’t intend to tease out into an article. After all, not every idea is worthy of a full-length treatment. Hence, today I’ve got a long list of brief, random (and unsolicited) observations and pieces of advice related to the local church. I hope there is something here that benefits you.<\/p>\n

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You are a contributor to your church\u2019s strengths and weaknesses. Your giftedness makes your church stronger and your sins and weaknesses make it weaker. Whenever you are tempted to grumble about your church, you need to remember that even if you can be part of a solution, you are also part of the problems. Be humble.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s no clich\u00e9 that Sunday morning begins on Saturday evening. Your experience of church will be much different if you stay up late watching movies you shouldn\u2019t be watching versus if you go to bed at a reasonable time after refraining from sinful behavior. If you want to get the greatest benefit from the worship services, you<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every now and again I jot down a thought that I\u2019d like to ponder but that I don\u2019t intend to tease out into an article. After all, not every idea is worthy of a full-length treatment. Hence, today I\u2019ve got a long list of brief, random (and unsolicited) observations and pieces of advice related to the local church. I hope there is something here that benefits you. You are a contributor to your church\u2019s strengths and weaknesses. Your giftedness makes your church stronger and your sins and weaknesses make it weaker. Whenever you are tempted to grumble about your church, you need to remember that even if you can be part of a solution, you are also part of the problems. Be humble. It\u2019s no clich\u00e9 that Sunday morning begins on Saturday evening. Your experience of church will be much different if you stay up late watching movies you shouldn\u2019t be watching versus if you go to bed at a reasonable time after refraining from sinful behavior. If you want to get the greatest benefit from the worship services, you need to plan ahead. There are no perfect churches. Every church has its unique collection of strengths and weaknesses. Though it can often look attractive to leave a church because of its weaknesses, the new church will have plenty of its own. Count the cost before moving on. One of the best compliments that can be paid to a Christian is this: You are a good churchman. Make it your habit to pray through the\u2026See Also40 More Random Pieces of Advice for the Christian LifeThe Worst Consequence of Skipping ChurchWhy the Local Church Really Matters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":68669,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[31],"tags":[303],"class_list":["post-68658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tim-challies","tag-articles","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/biblicalcounselor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/lightstock_341998_medium_tim_challies-1-1.jpg?fit=1920%2C1080&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=68658"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68658\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68671,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68658\/revisions\/68671"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/68669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=68658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=68658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=68658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}