Chris R. Quinlan

Recently I responded to a question, "What is church?" This person suggested that perhaps church would be better if it were smaller. I got a little carried away with my answer, so I thought I'd blog it. Church is where imperfect people congregate to worship a perfect God. Christian worship takes many forms as you know, but I just wanted to remind you (and anyone that will read) that church first and foremost is the "body" of Christ. It's an organism that has many God-intended purposes, the least of which is being entertained. The "body" has to have all its parts to function properly. It's very tempting to think that a small group of people would be ideal for "doing church", but this simply isn't true. Is there a perfect size for a church? I don't know. Maybe. But the book of Acts certainly doesn't give us specific instruction on this nor does it intend to. Many have erred trying to pull "church normatives" f...

Some may think that I have some sort of irrational distaste for movies. I can assure you, this distaste does not come from trying to make myself pious or “holier than thou.” In my ten year journey as a Christian, I have slowly come to realize the larger picture regarding the movies that we all love to consume. I'd like to share some personal thoughts with you. In my pre-Christian days, I was just like everyone else; I went to see just about every movie that came out that was worth seeing. I didn’t much concern myself with the content. In 1997, I surrendered my life to Christ, and my conscience gave immediate testimony to the things I was doing that were wrong. One of those things was watching movies that contained content that was sinful according to the bible. Every now and then I would go see a movie, defying my conscience, but felt terrible after doing it. As I grew in my Christian walk, I more and more treasured the scriptures and less and less cared about entertaining myself...

2 Peter 3:15-16 and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation ; just as also our beloved brother Paul , according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all his letters , speaking in them of these things , in which are some things hard to understand , which the untaught and unstable distort , as they do also the rest of the Scriptures , to their own destruction . What is the first thing that comes to mind when you read the first sentence? Here is how my thought process goes when I read something like this: - OK, this is a command, so I'm very interested in what it has to say to me, knowing that knowing and obeying scriptural commands is an act of love and joy as I follow after Christ. - It starts with the word "and", so I need to remind myself of the previous section. 2 Peter 3:14 Therefore , beloved , since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace , spotless a...