Making Life Work

By: Mardy Cobb

    What kind of example are you setting? Has anyone ever asked you this? We often resent this question when we hear it. Why? One reason: because we feel the person asking is accusing us. Another reason might be: We feel the person asking the question has no right to judge. In other words, we often want to reply, “I don’t care what you think.” By the way, we are often right about the person asking the question.

    Rather than taking offense at the thought of “example,” let’s try to see it from another angle. Example is not about other people’s opinion. Other people have opinions, and they may pass judgment. But that is an issue of judging. That is not an issue of example. We need to be careful not to let our resentment for false...

By: Ronald L. Dart

    "What are you going to do about the local churches?" This is probably the most often asked question these days, followed closely by questions about the Feast of Tabernacles and Methods of evangelism. Oddly enough, it is the one question you may be able to act on yourself.

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Ideas have consequences, and that’s why doctrine is central to Christianity.  It’s true that Christianity is about behavior and relationships, and those are important things, but doctrine has a special place because it’s the lens through which we define how we act and how we relate

    A great example might be how you view the path to salvation.  If you believe there are many paths to salvation, your approach to evangelizing the Christian message will be radically different than one who believes that Jesus is the only way.

    If you believe salvation comes from keeping a set of rules and rituals, you will make different choices in life than someone who believes that salvation comes from God’s mercy. 

   ...

By: Lenny Cacchio

"It’s a different Greek word," my friend said.  "This is a different word for ‘ministry’ than the one most commonly used."

I looked it up, and he’s right.  The Greek word is leitourgeo, and it means something different than the more common diakonia, which implies service in general.   According to Thayer’s Greek Lexicon, leitourgeo is "a public office which a citizen undertakes to administer at his own expense."

It’s a noble thing to perform acts of service with no motive for financial gain.  The New Testament speaks of such sacrificial service, and more than that, Paul calls himself a bond slave for Christ (Philippians 1:1, Titus 1:1), admitting not only that he serves, but that he also feels bound as a slave to a life...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    One time Jesus told a story about a businessman who gave differing amounts of capital to different people, telling them to do something productive with it and he would settle the books with him when he was back in town.

    When the rendering was made, some of the men did well while others did not.  But the interesting thing about the story is that no one was expected to do more than his allotment of talents allowed.   The guy who started with five and made five was rewarded no differently than the fellow who started with two and from that made only two.

    The businessman didn’t expect the one with two to have the same impact as the fellow with five.  He expected results based on what they had, not what they...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    The last time I checked, God’s scorecard doesn’t look too good.  Of the six billion people on the earth today, 4 billion of them adhere to a set of beliefs other than what is broadly termed Christianity (source: http://www.adherents.com/). Even if we assume for a moment that all those who claim the label of "Christian" really are Christians in deed as well as name, it means God isn’t doing very well in the battle for souls.

    Add to this the historical reality that the explosion in the world’s Christian population is a comparatively recent phenomenon (the past 500 years), and we must wonder why God seems impotent, if it so be that Christianity’s traditional truth claims are...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Baseball beats loudly in the hearts of millions in spite of the inroads of football and NASCAR, in spite of fans frustrated by spoiled athletes and too many sub-par teams.  During this summer of 2007 I was reminded of the soul of the game and why it connects with the American people in a special way.

    I speak of the 2007 National Baseball Hall of Fame induction ceremony and specifically about Cal Ripken, Jr.'s remarks to the assembled tens of thousands on the grounds and multitudes more via ESPN Classic.   People can sense a class act, and they sensed it throughout Ripken’s career.  He only confirmed it on the dais in Cooperstown.

    Said Ripken,

"When I realized that I could use baseball to help make...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    It’s an odd experience to see ourselves as others see us.  When someone new walks into your church, what do they see?  Do they see you parading your neuroses?   Do they see a social club with good music and fellowship, but a lack of the preaching of the word?  Do they see a coffee klatch or a healthy, functioning church?

    The Apostle Paul addressed the Corinthian church with such a concern.  That church must have been a raucous place, for Paul warned them that people coming in off the street would see chaos, and perhaps rightly conclude that the church was out of its mind, but "if you prophesy, preaching God’s Word, [even though such preaching is mostly for believers] and an unsaved person or a new Christian comes in...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    A marketing genius told me about one of the more amusing marketing failures in the history of corporate America.  The corporation in question decided to market its product in Africa.  The target market in this story was an illiterate one, and the population identified the contents of the package by the picture on the label.  If the label had a picture of a tomato, the can was a can of tomatoes.  If the label had a picture of apples, then the jar was a jar of apples.

    So when Gerber went to Africa and put a picture of a baby on the label, you can understand why they sold few jars of baby food.

    One American auto company had trouble breaking into the Japanese market because, among other reasons, in Japan they...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    “Having a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry the message to other addicts and to practice these principles in all our affairs.”  -- Step 12 of the Twelve Step Program

    “Carry the message,” the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous said.  To those in the Twelve Step Programs it’s more than just a nice thought.   It can be the difference between life and death.  This twelfth step requires those who are recovering from the cauldron of substance abuse to form a network of support for others who suffer from the same problem.

    This is a unique concept, this idea of sinners helping sinners.  It’s a very biblical one, but one that many churches might find troublesome.  Sinners helping...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    They cast their nets all night and failed to catch a single fish.  For men whose livelihoods depended on a decent catch, the lack of one could be financially devastating.  To come ashore with nothing must have been have been a discouraging experience for men used to harvesting the normally abundant waters.  How would they pay their taxes?  What would they tell their families?

    Empty nets happen from time to time, but sometimes it seems as if the nets turn up empty more often than full.  That can be particularly true of churches that can’t seen to grow, though they try with all they know how.  They cast their nets with membership drives, evangelization efforts, media and literature programs, but for reasons it seems...

By: Lenny Cacchio

    Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.  (James 1:27 NIV)



    Some months ago I wrote an article for this column entitled The Gift of George Bailey.  It was a reference to one of my favorite films, Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life.  Capra succeeds in reminding each one of us that we all have a part in God's plan whether we see it or not.  The seemingly small things we do daily can have a larger impact than we can imagine, and the world would be a lesser place if we had never been born.

    That story of encouragement is a good one to recall from time to time, for...

By: Lenny Cacchio  

    On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water." (John 7:37-38 NKJV)

    In this passage, Jesus is attending the annual Feast of Tabernacles celebration in Jerusalem, one of the annual religious festivals listed in the Book of Leviticus as a time to celebrate and worship before God. Scholars tell us that in Jesus’ day, part of the festival celebration was a water ceremony, where the priest would take water from the spring-fed pool of Siloam and would pour the water on the altar.   Clearly, Jesus was using this ceremony as a reference point...

By: Lenny Cacchio

I will make you fishers of men. -- Jesus, Matthew 4:19.

As the fishermen in Jesus’ entourage well knew, to catch fish you have to use the right bait.  You can’t just throw a hook into the water and expect the fish to strike.   The marketing of Christianity, aka, fishing with the right bait, is big business these days.  It is the subject of hundreds of books, thousands of magazine articles, and scores of seminars.  Some people call it evangelism, and evangelism a good thing.  But we should bear in mind that the fishermen Jesus knew fished with nets, not with hooks. With a hook and a minnow, you’ll catch a fish one at a time, and that’s good, but with a net, you’ll catch thousands. In the book of Acts we see Peter...