Tag Archives: revival

Jun 21 2021

Signs and Wonders: 'Monday Morning Musings - June 21, 2021'

Signs and wonders are normal features of a full-spectrum Gospel of Jesus. However, they are not center stage. They are not to be commercialized, systematized nor reduced to “supernatural techniques” and methods. They also do not guarantee that those experiencing or seeing signs and wonders will inevitably accept the claims of Jesus as Savior and Lord. Jesus and the apostles did miracles and it did not make them popular nor successful. They were still martyred. Miracles do not guarantee conversion–or anything for that matter.

 

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Copyright 2021. Dr. Stephen R. Crosby. www.stevecrosby.org. For video and audio resources, sign up as a student here. You will find a mix of both free resources and those with cost. This ministry is sustained by the freewill offerings of those believe in the message of a radical grace in a new covenant understanding. If this blog article has been a blessing to you, would you prayerfully consider making a contribution through our Paypal button to help? Stephanos Ministries is NOT a 501-c-3 corporation Click here to understand why. Thank you and God bless you.

Photo by Sam Mathews on Unsplash

Nov 1 2020

The Power of Love in a Christian Community: 'What a Healthy Local Church Looks Like'

Photo by Nina Strehl on Unsplash

The Power of Love in a Christian Community

If you have followed me any length of time, you know I am not shy about critiquing the corruption and short comings in institutional and organized forms of Christian religion. I know many of you, like myself, have experienced not just poor church experiences, but scarring and damaging ones. Many are wary, rightfully so. Many are in extreme forms of reaction, both theologically and emotionally to anything formally structured or organized  in terms of following Jesus with others–being the people of God together practically. Frankly, some have lost hope and given up.

That is why this post is so important. I have permission to share it and have blanked-out personal names to maintain privacy.  

I believe this real-life, real-time letter from a pastor I know personally embodies the values and the transformative power of what can happen in a local church REGARDLESS of how it is STRUCTURED, when Christ is exalted and central at all times, where the good news of the gospel is relentlessly preached in a simple yet powerful way, and where loving and serving each other is all that matters practically.

 I believe it will be worth your time to read. 

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City-Wide Unity: Reality or Romanticism
Oct 14 2016

Unity – What the Real Thing Looks Like: 'Romanticism or Reality at a City-Wide Level'

So you believe in “city-wide” Church unity?

Saying you believe in unity is like saying you believe in gravity: It is self-evident and doesn’t mean much. It is in the making of unity where the real work lies. Programmatic and event-based attempts at church unity are at best temporary relief for our nagging conscience. They rarely produce lasting results. Why? As long as leaders and churches cling to their right to these things there will never be John 17-type unity:

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Oct 30 2015

The Nones and Dones – Part Two: 'A Tidal Wave of Change'

The Nones and Dones - Frustrated with Church and Gone

The Nones and Dones – Frustrated with Church and Gone

My friend, Greg Albrecht, provided the following. It’s a fascinating, and sobering, postscript to my previous blog on “Nones and Dones: “The number of unchurched people in America would make the 8th most populous country in the world!”

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Apr 16 2015

A Night in Jail in the Presence of God: 'Power and Presence Where Jesus Said He Would Be'

A Night in Jail in the Presence of God

A Night in Jail in the Presence of God

Recently, I had the privilege of spending an hour and a half in the manifest presence of God. What made the experience so unique is all the things that many of those reading this have been conditioned to believe are necessary for such a thing to occur in a meeting (a good crowd, prolonged praise and worship, sermon/ministry of the “word,” prayer, altar call, heart wrenching repentance, whatever,  were all absent. How can that be possible?

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Mar 20 2015

Agape That Works – It’s Amazing: '"Revival" - Looking for the Wrong Things in the Wrong Places'

Revival That is Amazing

Agape That Works

An agnostic and his Hindu wife walked into a church meeting, saw how much the community loved one another, and said: “What do you people have? We want it!” They got gloriously and transformatively saved–regenerated–as new creations, not as a result of the preaching, or a manipulative altar call with the lights turned down low and soft music playing. Rather, they experienced a tangible quality of agape love that they could not understand. Would you like to be in a church like that? Does that sound like “revival” to you? Well, it is a true story of a family and church I personally know. If this interests you, read on, there’s more!

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Sep 21 2014

A Miracle of Radical Grace: 'A True Story of Grace and Supernatural Power '

Miracle of Radical Grace

Miracle of Radical Grace

I am very suspicious of many anecdotal tales of miracles. I believe in the modern day manifestation of miracles. I have seen miracles with my own eyes and I have been a participator in some cases. HOWEVER,  I do not believe that the cause of Jesus and His kingdom is helped by inflated, inaccurate, sketchy, “show time,” and overtly fraudulent claims to the miraculous. If anyone cares, I can personally  connect you with the individual involved in the following true story of a miracle of radical grace, who can verify it.

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Aug 25 2014

Idealism Without Action: 'A Deceptive Dead End'

Idealism without Action - A Deceptive Dead End

Idealism without Action – A Deceptive Dead End

Anyone can wax eloquent about what could, or should be, versus what currently “is.” Idealism without action is a delusional dead end. Preachers, teachers, prophetic types, “apostolic visionaries,” dreamers, philosophers–whatever your language tradition might call them–are particularly vulnerable to irrelevant idealism. It is better to incarnate imperfection, than to romanticize about a never-seen ideal.  Jesus can do a lot with folks who will simply “get to it” imperfectly, rather than “talk about it” ideally.

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Aug 5 2014

Gifts of the Spirit – Easy and Not Mystical: 'Jesus's Kingdom is Meant to be Seen, Not Only Heard'

Spiritual Gifts

Gifts of the Spirit

I recently had the privilege of attending a gathering of a few families with whom we have developed varying degrees of relationship over the recent years. The very young to senior citizens were present. As I reflected on the two and a half days together, I was amazed at the ease in which so many different fruit and gifts of the Spirit were manifest during our time.

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Jul 20 2014

Revising Revival – Part 4 – Praying for Revival: '2 Chr. 7:14 and Praying for Revival'

Rethinking Revival

Why 2 Chr. 7:14 has nothing to do with revival.

If in an inferior covenant, God was willing to forgive Sodom and Gomorrah if just 10 righteous people could be found (not even trying, not even praying) why do we think we need 10,000 “prophetic intercessors” in a nation’s capital, or 100,000 people in an arena to beg,  groan, and wail for revival in an era of a better covenant, based on better promises? If the cross indicates that God works through weakness, and if God’s work is done by neither might nor power, but by His spirit, if Gideon won with a few, why do we spend countless hours trying to amass numbers, size, and success? It is just unbelief saturated anti-gospel carnal drive for significance and money veneered with a 2 Chr. 7:14 proof text.

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