Presby-Musings

Jay Bakker knows what he's talking about when he says in the introduction of his latest book, "I've been around churches my whole life, yet I didn't discover grace--true grace, revolutionary grace--until I was twenty years old." Jay Bakker knows what he's talking about because he's the son of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker , pioneers of televangelism and founders of the now infamous PTL Network .  The PTL Network at it's height in the 1980's broadcast into millions of homes around the world.  The Bakkers fell from grace when Jim was accused of, and admitted to infidelity with a staff member.  He was eventually convicted of fraud when it was discovered that PTL was selling more time shares than they actually had at their huge Heritage USA Christian resort. Jay went from being a Christian media darling as the young son of TV's 1st Christian family to a virtual pariah, who was made fun of in his schools and church youth groups.  Jay r...

Two and a half years ago I asked the elders of my church a question:  If our church ceased to exist tomorrow... who would miss us? We struggled with this question because we knew the way we answered it would reveal a great deal about the focus, and vision of our church. Some of our elders were brutally honest back then and said, "Only our people would really miss us."   Believe it or not, that is the sort of answer that almost every church in America would have to give if they were pressed to be truthful. You see, most churches are focused like a laser on just staying alive, retaining the people they have, making everyone happy, preserving the status quo... And in our case it wasn't that our church neglected missions and ministry to people outside the walls of our Sanctuary, it just wasn't really our main focus.  It wasn't what defined us. Our elder team recently commissioned a task force to identify the defining vision of our church. We began by exploring ou...