For the last couple of weeks, I’ve had numerous discussions with and about the Non-Institutional churches of Christ (NICOC hereafter), both in preparation for and response to our Think Deeper Podcast episode on the topic.

You can watch the episode for a bit of a background if you’re not familiar, but a very basic summary is that the NICOC and the Institutional or Mainline churches of Christ (MCOC hereafter) had a sharp parting of the ways 70-80 years ago over whether the local church had authority to send contribution funds to parachurch organizations.

Our guest, Jacob Hudgins, was a wonderful representative for the view, and we had a very cordial discussion. Everything that follows in this piece is neither an attempt to speak for his point of view or to argue back against what he said in the episode.

Rather, I want to look at the prospects for unity between the NICOC and the MCOC going forward from here.

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Well, it’s June again. And despite some of the rollbacks of the last couple of years, “Pride Month” is still very much a thing.

It took them decades of plotting and working to make it happen, and so it’s probably going to take some time for us to make it stop happening.

But just saying we will not stand for the culture of LGBT+ism won’t be enough to turn the false rainbow tide.

We have to get over our aversion to standing FOR a pro-family culture.

“What aversion?” you might ask. “We’re pro-heterosexual marriage and believe a man is a man and a woman is a woman.”

To that I would say, we have settled for a bare minimum.

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Pop psychology and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.

As we as a society have grown more self-aware about our mental health and the industry terms have entered the cultural vocabulary, there is no mechanism for preventing the potent concepts from being misused.

Suddenly everyone is an expert, throwing out diagnoses and analysis with a sense of authority because of the weight the terms carry.

In 2016, psychologist Nick Haslam put a finger on the problem by coining the term “concept creep.”

Wikipedia summarizes the idea as “the process by which harm-related topics experience semantic expansion to include topics which would not have originally been envisaged to be included under that label.”

To give an example, “trauma” originally had a useful meaning. Now it has come to mean “anything bad that ever happened to someone.” Similar terms like abuse, narcissism, gaslighting, and toxic have undergone the same kind of expansion.

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I’ve been working through Malachi for our Minor Prophets teaching series on Focus+, and every time I visit the little book I’m reminded of a challenging truth:

Sometimes, our worship is the LAST thing God wants.

This truth demolishes the idea of box-checking Christianity. Just because we showed up and went through the rituals doesn’t mean God was pleased. In fact, sometimes it makes Him even more upset.

Let’s talk about the two times the Bible tells us God doesn’t want our worship.

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“Actions speak louder than words,” and “Kids will do what you do, not what you say” are two clichés we all understand, but sometimes need to take more seriously.

This is particularly applicable when it comes to what we do as Christians.

Every choice you make as a church member teaches your children an important lesson about the church.

Here are four of the biggest lessons they are learning from your words and actions.

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In John 6 we see the account of Jesus feeding the 5,000.

The crowd’s instant reaction was to declare that He truly was the prophet they had been anticipating and was the one they wanted as their king. Even as He got away with His apostles and crossed the sea, they still pursued Him.

Isn’t that exactly what we’d want? Thousands of people who believe in Jesus and are ready to follow Him, even making Him their king?

Even the greatest of our seeker-sensitive, producer/consumer churches couldn’t dream of starting with a dedicated following 5,000 strong. If Jesus believed in our business-like approach, He would have been well on His way.

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We have had 10+ years now of much-needed tough love messaging to young men.

People like Jordan Peterson have called them to step up, take responsibility, and become competent and virtuous. Various corners of the Christian world have also echoed that call.

And, in a lot of ways, it has worked.

Young men are growing more religious. Many of them want to settle down, marry, and have kids.Laziness and aimlessness are frowned upon in ways they weren’t before.Pornography addiction is no longer a “Most guys do it but nobody talks about it” issue. The calls to walk away and the resources to help are abundant.

There is certainly still plenty of work to do, but young men have come a long way.

But that leaves the question... who is going to challenge the women?

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On this week’s stream, I examine some statistics regarding the increasingly higher ages at which Americans are getting married.

Topics:

* Discussing some possible reasons why the median age is climbing so high

* Explaining why this matters so much more than most people think

* Offering suggestions for how to help young people toward prioritizing marriage and childbearing

NOTE: I’ve been doing the livestreams at 12 CT on Wednesdays, to mixed results. I’m thinking about moving to a regularly scheduled weeknight stream. Help me pick when by answering the polls at the post for this podcast at jackwilkie.co

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As summer begins, modesty becomes a topic worthy of addressing yet again. It remains one of the most controversial, and therefore most avoided, topics of modern Christian life.

To read, subscribe, and/or support:

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Marco Arroyo joins me to talk about what may be the biggest advantage the churches of Christ have as the religious landscape changes.

Check out Marco's channel at ‪@IBSMarco‬

Watch below, listen above, or listen on the Church Reset podcast (Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app).

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