Nick Sorenson's take on Living for Christ and Serving in the Church

Does Youth Group Work? By work, I mean simply, do youth continue on with the church once they are no longer youth. We're so trained to think that if youth are going to remain in church we must have a thriving youth program.  I have a separate post on the family integrated church idea, so this is not going to be about that. This is specifically about youth group or youth aimed church. I can only answer this (for myself) based on my experience. I grew up in the height of the youth group movement, in the 80s and 90s. Youth groups were large, there were lots of events (camps, conferences with excellent speakers, youth trips to the Brownsville revival in Pensacola Florida, retreats, lock-ins, you name it). Youth groups were strongly endorsed by the church as a whole. The role of youth pastor was sort of the entry position into becoming a senior pastor.  So back to the question, did it work (in mine and my wife's experience)? Well, we're still in church... so yes, kind of. But i...

Why would a good God allow bad things to happen to good people? This is the age old question asked by: 1. Skeptics 2. Atheists 3. Reasonable people Nobody should feel bad asking this question aloud or in thought. The answer to the question is of course impossible to determine. But, we can certainly answer it in this way (according to the Bible). Death came into the world through the fall of man. In other words, bad things happen to ALL of us because Adam and Eve brought sin/death into the world. This resulted in pain and toil in countless areas. It meant we will all die in our physical bodies. It meant sickness. It meant separation from our fellow man (through many means and ultimately death). It meant separation from God, if our salvation through His sacrifice of Jesus is rejected (by men who choose not to believe). On simpler terms, it brought pain in childbirth and trouble in working the ground (earning our income would be troublesome for most). And to peel the onion back yet anothe...

Yet One of You is a Devil... If you observe church leadership long enough (not that long), you'll find that corruption and double lives are not uncommon. In fact, arrogance, immorality, and outright scam isn't a rarity with countless hugely successful ministries. Thanks (or no thanks) to the Internet, we find dozens of disgusting stories coming from just as many big (trusted) names, and that's all only from the past 5-10 years. How is it that God allows these, who are obviously ungodly, to hold places of leadership within the church? Look them up... or maybe don't! The stories coming from the lives of these men are shocking, and if we're not careful, even faith shaking. How can Jesus let them continue on in influence when He Who knows all, knows that their life doesn't match what's being preached (assuming they're still preaching the Word)? As we observe the stories we see in news headlines, this is an easy question to ask ourselves. Why can this g...

My 95 Theses Pertaining to the Modern Evangelical Church Ok, not 95 and no, I do not agree with many of Luther's beliefs. Where Luther and I would see eye to eye is in the (re)evaluation of something we'd grown up accepting, and to a certain extent swallowing hook line and sinker.   So let the discussion begin. I am sure there are more than 95 issues with the norms we've accepted as the church, but here are just a small number that I believe are at least questionable. Much like Luther's theses, what I will be implying here is that the church has evolved, and strayed as it has done so. And just as Luther tried to do with the Catholic church, let's, as he did, hold our own (existing) view of the church up to the authority of Scripture. After all, as Christians, the Bible, in its entirety, is our belief system. Have we shaped our views pertaining to church structure upon what we've read in Scripture or is it simply mirroring our current church cult ure (note the i...

Should We Refer to Others (or Ourselves) as Father, Pastor, etc? To answer this question, you must interpret Matthew 23:1-12 for yourself. I will give my own opinion on the passage, but before that, let's take it a step further. In the Roman Catholic tradition, the pope is to be referred to as "his holiness". This is at best, extremely inaccurate. According to Jesus Himself in Mark 10:19 and paralleled in Luke 18:19, no one is good except God. We should not refer to another human (with the exception of Jesus who became a Human for 33 years) as "holiness". This blog post is addressing a problem in nearly all denominations (and non-denominations). The issue is perhaps a little less obvious that what we see with the pope's title, but I believe it is in error no less. Should a man (or woman) be referred to as Pastor ____, Father ____, etc? Let's look at the Word: Matthew 23 1 Then spake Jesus to the multitude, and to his discipl...

The Essential Qualities of a New Testament Church This post is notes taken from an 1987 sermon given by the (at that time) future A.G. superintendent Dr. George O. Wood, and of course the Acts 2 text itself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoDbhN1uTOk I find George to have been a humble man, with the Spirit of God in him. He held multiple degrees including a law degree, yet he never seemed to let it get to his head.  In this sermon, I believe he was on a mission to walk more closely with what we see in the Acts church. He is one of my all time favorite Assembly of God superintendents. He spoke in our chapel services at Evangel University in Springfield MO many times while my wife and I attended. It was always a moving time and not just by persuasive words but by the Spirit of God. On to his message (and I would highly encourage you to watch it for yourself at the YouTube link above).   Acts 2:38-47 Early Church Characteristics (13 Qualities of Unity): 1. Repentance 2. Baptism ...

What is Our Purpose in This Life?   Do we all have purpose? Does doing something big make us more important? What about the quadriplegic in a wheel chair or the person(s) with disease who can’t support themselves? Do these people still have purpose? This begs the question of what are we here (on earth) for in the first place. As Christians, what are our first two commandments given by Jesus Himself? Matthew 22: 36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. If a person still has the ability to do these two things, they are fulfilling their God given purpose! Everything else we do (for the Lord) is just a mission. As important as it may seem, the mission we're on is NOT our purpose. We all have...