Conversion: How God Creates a People (9Marks Building Healthy Churches Series)
Overview
The way a church operates says a lot about how they believe people are saved. When a church truly embraces the Bible’s teaching on conversion, they will call people to repentance and faith—not just one-time decisions, therapeutic healings, or moral lifestyles.
This short book was written to help churches rightly understand the difference that a biblical doctrine of conversion should make for teaching, evangelism, discipling, membership, and every other facet of the life of a local church.
Top Highlights
“sincerity. Not by intense feelings. Not by loving God or doing any good work. We are saved by” (Page 44)
“My point is this: the appeal of nice is not only that it panders to our prideful desire to justify ourselves, it also dispenses with the need to justify ourselves to God altogether. It substitutes feeling good about myself for being in right relationship with God and neighbor. It numbs my sense of guilt, soothes my anxious insecurity, and promotes the illusion that I am in control of my own fate on judgment day.” (Page 21)
“To begin with, it means they needed to be taught that a Christian isn’t someone who prays a prayer and tries hard to be good. Instead, a Christian is someone whose heart has been transformed by God’s grace, who is characterized by repentance and faith, who desires to be with God and know him more.” (Page 27)
“Ever since the Second Great Awakening, evangelicals have characterized conversion as a decision. Raise your hand! Come forward! Come to the altar! What is the fruit of turning conversion into a decision? Churches filled with professing Christians whose lives look no different than the world’s. Comparable Christian divorce rates. Rampant materialism. High pornography usage. Church ‘members’ who rarely, if ever, attend. The problem is not that we have Christians in our churches who still sin. Of course we do. The problem is that we have ‘Christians’ in our churches who aren’t Christians. But we have given them assurance and told them to never let anyone question it.” (Page 58)
“Church membership, at its biblical core, is our affirmation and oversight of one another’s professions of faith and discipleship to Christ, which we do through baptism and the Supper.” (Page 60)
- Title: Conversion: How God Creates a People
- Author: Michael Lawrence
- Series: 9Marks: Building Healthy Churches
- Publisher: Crossway
- Print Publication Date: 2017
- Logos Release Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Conversion › Christianity; Discipling (Christianity); Church
- ISBNs: 9781433556494, 9781433556524, 9781433556500, 9781433556517, 9781951474294, 9781951474430, 9781955768627, 1433556499, 1433556529, 1433556502, 1433556510, 1951474295, 1951474430, 1955768625
- Resource ID: LLS:CNVRSNHWCRTSPPL
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-03-19T04:01:45Z