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