Christ Covenant Pastors' Blog

There has been a growing trend among evangelicals in recent years to disparage “religion” in favour of “relationship.” Without attempting to parse the motives of all the various folk who are so insistent upon this, I want to give just a little bit of reflection regarding why this approach is unhelpful at best, and inevitably, dangerous.

Many people say that by “religion,” what is really meant is legalism or moralism. And since those things are bad, nobody should object.

But we must object. Not only does this logic exclude the basic meaning of the term religion, it forces us into what ends up being a false dichotomy. Under the religion versus relationship banner, it is not only legalism and moralism that get pushed out. All sorts of other things go with it. If what matters is relationship rather than religion, the inevitable connotation is that God is not interested in human beings serving Him in any sort of structured way. And then we get suspicious toward things like organization and commandments. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the most beautiful promises of Scripture is Zephaniah 3.17: “Yahweh your God is in your midst; the Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness; He will quiet you with His love; He will rejoice over you with singing.”

This is the portrait of a loving Father, and it is something that we need to internalize – not only as Church leaders, but as congregational members.

If we ask the question: “How often is there something in my life that God could be correcting?” – the answer would have to be, “Always.” Even the strongest believers in this life are en route, are taking a journey in spiritual growth, and are immature in a host of areas. Read the rest of this entry »