In Blog

The Single Myth Attacking the Church Today

Author Jesse SteelePosted on Leave a comment

With many doctrinal questions, even dwarfing the power of Scripture, there is only one myth attacking the Church: “The clerical system is NOT Satanic.” That myth has been around since Rome commandeered the locally-managed, locally-identified, unified Body of Christ and implemented their clerical system from pagan religions before it.

James is a great teacher with many great ideas, just like Bill Hybels. Pastors are given to the Church by God, just as Apostles and Evangelists, and these functions have no expiration date.

Great pastors like James and Hybels would be far more effective than they already are if they operated as “pastors who are not clergy”. If you look, you will see that defining “pastors” as “clergy” is the source of division in the Church. And this needs no Scriptural claim, other than that Church Unity remains the unanswered prayer of Jesus in John 17 and was the directive given by Paul in Ephesians 2.  · · · →

In Blog

Social Marketing Annoying

Author Jesse SteelePosted on Leave a comment

I miss the good old days when a Twitter follow notice was from a person. Now, it seems everyone is a professional whatever, consultant in whoknowsit, and designer and entrepreneur in almost everything imaginable.

What’s with the follow-back fad? I follow people because I like their Tweets.

Marketing through social blogs and media wastes money. It’s the new telemarketing.

People don’t follow you because you merely because you follow them—that doesn’t make sense from a leadership perspective or a tweetership perspective.

People are interested in your Twitter account because they are interested in your company, not interested in your company merely because you have a Twitter account.

People get interested in your company because they heard about your company over lunch with a friend or because they saw your Tweet get retweeted by their friends. So, a social presence on Twitter doesn’t mean that you follow a thousand people who don’t know you, but that they retweet you.  · · · →

In Blog

Taiwan & Israel

Author Jesse SteelePosted on Leave a comment

Most of the world is unaware of how closely tied Taiwan and Israel actually are. In fact, even the two countries are relatively unaware of their own significance in relation to each other.

Taiwan & IsraelThe Jerusalem Post recognizes many of their similar challenges and realities. Both countries are republics. Israel’s government was founded in 1948, Taiwan (Republic of China) relocated to the island of Formosa in 1949 when it became widely known as “Taiwan”. Both face large and near enemies—Islam, in the case of Israel, and Taiwan faces China.

But there is more to the connection between the two.

Both are strategically important to Western democracies. Islam must go through Israel if they want to reach the United States, just as Taiwan is one of the few bodies of land standing between the States and China.

Taiwan and Israel rarely see snow and their lands and mountains offer beautiful scenery and excellent agriculture.  · · · →

In Faith

Prayer will keep us from disunity. Disunity will keep us from prayer.

Author Jesse SteelePosted on Leave a comment

Sarah Palin said that America needs a “Come to Jesus” moment about our national debt. The same is true of our debt to each other.

Prayer can unite us. Petty differences in theology, especially in literature, have only ever divided us. We’ve got the Church Councils. We have the Bible. Why can’t we come together and pray?

The American Church must evaluate Christian leaders based on their ability to bring distant Christians together. I don’t merely mean their desire to bring Christians together, though that’s a great start.

The last verse of the Old Testament explains the spirit of the New Testament: Turn the hearts of the fathers to the sons and the hearts of the sons to the fathers. That was the work of John the Baptist—preparing the way for Jesus.

The 2012 election wasn’t about Democrats vs Republicans. We elected a Republican House and a Democrat President. No.  · · · →