Great Bible Survey Course - FREE!

Twelve years ago I began to be concerned about the demise of Sunday School. Shabby as most classes were in teaching the Bible, people were exposed to the inspired scripture. Particularly was I concerned about cell churches where the focus of the cells would be on equipping, edification, evangelism.

So I invested about $30,000 and hired eight different people to help me. I wrote a complete text in five minute segments that would cover the Bible from cover to cover. I then created a 488 page paperback book with all the pages that appear on the computer screen. The first presentation was made by creating four CD's, one CD for each quarter of the content.

In five minute segments, the entire Bible is surveyed with graphics and sound on video clips. I eventually exported the entire series so it can be viewed on line anywhere there is a computer in the whole world.

It is the equivalent of a Bible College Survey of the Bible.

I added to the studies a monthly "Ask Your Questions" meeting for all cell members attending the church I served in Singapore. These were stimulating nights where I would answer any and all questions about the Bible for those taking the course.

Please use it, and encourage all new believers and illiterate Christians to go to the site. When they register, the site keeps a record of how far they have progressed and lets them take as many 5 minute segments as desired in one sitting.

The textbook pages appear on the 488 panels of the online course and can be secured in paperback as well. (Click here)

To check out the site, click on the title of this blog. It will take you straight to the login site.

"Jine de chuch neah ya home!"

Back in 1955, I heard a Panhandle Florida pastor preach the Annual Message at the Pensacola Baptist Association. With typical Southern Florida twang, he made an impassioned plea that everyone should join the church nearest to your home.

At that time I was in seminary, commuting weekly to pastor the now defunct Southside Baptist Church. Peter Lord pastored a few blocks away. In that low income area, we had two churches that were equidistant from the population. The membership in both churches was equal but attendance vacillated between them. When either church had something "special," the other would see attendance drain like water in a bathtub when you pulled the plug.

We solved the problem by merging the two congregations and becoming co-pastors. The first Sunday, Peter preached in the morning and that night I preached. At the close of the service, I resigned using the excuse that Peter was graduating from seminary and I was going to take my doctorate.

I then accepted the pulpit of the Hayne Boulevard Baptist Church in New Orleans. This 40 member church had been "pastored" by 13 seminary students in 12 years! I broke all records by staying 3 years and six months and building a new auditorium for them, growing to 250 members. I found the motto "Join the church near your home" suited me perfectly: we were the single church on Hayne Boulevard for miles. I used it on my calling card.

Next came several years in Pennsylvania, planting all the original churches in the Keystone Baptist Association and then planting more in the Delaware Valley Baptist Association. About 18 altogether. The motto served me well; building membership was the name of that game.

Moving to Texas with the Baptist Convention placed me in charge of personal evangelism. After five years, I finally began to realize the slogan "join the church near your home" was a slogan based on an unbiblical definition of ecclesia. At the age of 34, it finally dawned on me that all these "church plants" were based on a consumer view of church life. These years were profitable in bringing some to Christ but added to the Big Lie that a building was "church" and joining one of the building centered organizations was a man-made decision, based on getting personal needs met. My motto was reinforcing a heresy!

There the truth was, staring me in the face all those years; my filters blocked it as though someone had cut it out of my Bible with scissors:

WE DO NOT CHOOSE TO JOIN THE AUTHENTIC CHURCH;

WE ARE CHOSEN AND JOINED TO IT BY THE SPIRIT OF GOD.

The true "church" is not the building nearest to your residence. It is the body of Christ we are joined to by the choice of the Holy Spirit: 1 Corinthians 12:13. It is a supernatural invasion of the reign of God over a group of people formed as arms, legs and inward parts to be inhabited by the Son of God, the Christ. Through that body He will reveal His presence: 1 Corinthians 14:24-25. (See my latest book for more on this!)

Consumer Christianity is killing the authentic work of Christ. I planted wood, hay and stubble for most of my ministry. Most of those building centered churches have never grown larger than they were after 6 years of existence--now a half century later!

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