Timothy Paul Jones

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Timothy Paul Jones

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Writing: If You Want to Remember It, Write It By Hand

7th January 2018

Words and writing matter. In the opening chapter of the Scriptures, God speaks, and a cosmos bursts into being (Genesis 1:3). When he constitutes Israel as his  people, God speaks and writes, and a covenant is born (Exodus 31:18). John described the incarnation of God in Christ by declaring, “the Word became flesh” (John 1:14).

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Filed Under: Blog, featured, Lead, Learn Tagged With: fountain pen, fountain pens, handwriting, learning, notebook, paper, pedagogy, pen, pens, preaching, teaching, writing

Family Ministry: When and Why Did Weekly Children’s Classes Begin in Churches? (Part Three)

29th November 2017

This research into the history of age-organized catechetical classes in the church is based on an academic paper that I presented to the practical theology section of the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in Providence, Rhode Island, on November 16, 2017. This post is the third in a three-part series. Click here for […]

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Filed Under: Blog, Family Ministry, featured, History, Lead

Family Ministry: When and Why Did Weekly Children’s Classes Begin in Churches? (Part Two)

28th November 2017

This research into the history of age-organized ministries in the church is based on an academic paper that I presented to the practical theology section of the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in Providence, Rhode Island, on November 16, 2017. This post is the second in a three-part series. Click here for Part […]

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Filed Under: Blog, Family Ministry, featured, History, Lead Tagged With: A Weed in the Church, children, children's ministry, church history, church leadership, family integrated, family integrated church, family integrated ministry, family ministry, history, John Calvin, leadership, Reformation, Reformed, Reformed theology, Scott Brown, youth, youth ministry

Family Ministry: When and Why Did Weekly Children’s Classes Begin in Churches? (Part One)

27th November 2017

When did age-organized ministries for children begin? If you thought children’s classes didn’t begin until the introduction of Sunday School, you have a lot to learn!

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Filed Under: Blog, Family Ministry, featured, History, Lead, Learn, Uncategorized Tagged With: A Weed in the Church, children, children's ministry, church history, church leadership, family integrated, family integrated church, family integrated ministry, family ministry, history, John Calvin, leadership, Reformation, Reformed, Reformed theology, Scott Brown, youth, youth ministry

Church History: Martin Luther and the Ninety-Five Theses

30th October 2017

On October 31, 1517, a monk and professor named Martin Luther sent a document entitled Disputatio Pro Declaratione Virtutis Indulgentiarum to the archbishop of Mainz. This Disputatio consisted of ninety-five theses for theological debate. Perhaps on October 31 or more probably a week or two later, Luther hammered the theses to the door of All Saints’ Church […]

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Filed Under: Blog, History, Lead Tagged With: 95 theses, church history, history, Martin Luther, ninety-five theses, Reformation, Reformation 500, theses

Sermon: The Cycle That Only A Cross Could End

5th September 2017

“If only I could see God do something amazing, then it would be easier to follow him.” Has that thought ever occurred to you? It’s certainly crossed my mind from time to time! And yet, what we learn throughout the Scriptures is that, even when people did see God do something amazing, faithfulness wasn’t any […]

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Filed Under: Audio, Blog, featured, Lead Tagged With: Barak, Deborah, Jael, Judges, Judges 4, Judges 5, sermon, Sisera, Sojourn, Song of Deborah

Leadership: Why Are Leaders Needed if All God’s People Are Priests?

8th August 2017

“Everyone in the entire community is holy, and the LORD is among them!” That’s what a band of rebels from the tribes of Reuben and Levi declared when they revolted against Moses and Aaron before going on to demand, “Why then do you exalt yourselves above the LORD’s assembly?” (Numbers 16:3). The rebels were consumed […]

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Filed Under: Audio, Blog, featured, Lead Tagged With: 1 Peter, Aux origines du sacre biblique, Claude-Bernard Costecalde, holy priesthood, leader, leadership, priesthood, royal priesthood, union, union with Christ

Church History: Leadership Wisdom from Ignatius of Loyola

31st July 2017

Íñigo López de Loyola—better known to us as Ignatius of Loyola*—passed from this life on July 31, 1556. He was a Spanish priest and a leader in the Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation. Roman Catholics have celebrated July 31 as his feast day since the seventeenth century. As a Protestant, I may not celebrate the feast day of […]

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Filed Under: Blog, featured, Lead Tagged With: charity, church history, Ignatius Loyola, scholarship

Leadership: What Does It Mean to Be Christ’s Body?

31st May 2017

In a grove of trees south of the city of Corinth stood the Asklepion, an ancient temple dedicated to the god of healing (pictured above). Every year, thousands of women and men made pilgrimages to this temple to seek relief for their bodies. Worshipers who believed that they received healing in this place left behind […]

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Filed Under: Blog, featured, Lead Tagged With: Corinthians, leadership

Family Ministry: The Discipline of Generational Diversity (Part 2)

25th May 2017

This post on intergenerational diversity in the church is the second part of a two-part series. Click here for the first post in the series. A Model for Movement toward the Discipline of Generational Diversity If you look at your church and glimpse a lack of intergenerational ministry, it may seem at first as if […]

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Filed Under: Blog, Family Ministry, featured, Lead Tagged With: elderly, equip, families in faith, family in faith, Family Ministry Field Guide, involve, senior adult, senior adulthood, Star Wars, TIE fighter, TIE Model, TIE Principle, train

Family Ministry: The Discipline of Generational Diversity (Part 1)

24th May 2017

The Function of the Family in the Storyline of God At the center of God’s story stands this singular act: In Jesus Christ, God personally intersected human history and redeemed humanity at a particular time in a particular place. Yet this central act of redemption does not stand alone. It is bordered by God’s good […]

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Filed Under: Blog, Family Ministry, featured, Lead Tagged With: church as family, diversity, elderly, family as church, family ministry, intergenerational, intergenerational ministry, older adults, retirement, senior adulthood, senior adults, transgenerational

Family Ministry: A New Definition for Family Ministry (Part 3)

17th May 2017

I delivered this paper on an expanded definition for family ministry in May 2017 at the HOUSE Conference in Australia, a conference sponsored by YouthWorks and themed around the intersection between family ministry and ecclesiology. This post is the third part of a three-part series. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 _____ A RENEWAL OF […]

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Filed Under: Blog, Family Ministry, featured, History, Lead Tagged With: children's ministry, family ministry, intergenerational ministry, intergenerationality, youth ministry

Family Ministry: A New Definition for Family Ministry (Part 1)

15th May 2017

I delivered this paper proposing a revised definition for family ministry in May 2017 at the HOUSE Conference in Australia, a gathering sponsored by YouthWorks College and themed around the intersection between family ministry and ecclesiology. This post on a revised definition for family ministry is the first part of a three-part series. Part 1 Part […]

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Filed Under: Blog, Family Ministry, featured, Lead Tagged With: Australia, church as family, family as church, family ministry, HOUSE Conference, Perspectives on Family Ministry, YouthWorks

Sermon: The Difficult Journey Toward Deep Diversity

25th April 2017

“It is appalling,” Martin Luther King, Jr., once pointed out, “that the most segregated hour of Christian America is eleven o’clock on Sunday morning.” One of the primary reasons that churches remain segregated today is because white Christians failed to acknowledge the full humanity of their African-American sisters and brothers many years ago. For many African […]

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Filed Under: Audio, Blog, featured, History, Lead Tagged With: Acts, Acts 15, Ben Witherington, circumcision, deep diversity, diversity, message, proclamation, racial reconciliation, racism, sermon

Leadership: When Your Church Has Issues

18th April 2017

It happens in dating, and it happens in friendships and marriage. You meet someone, and—for a while—this individual seems flawless. Sometimes it takes a few months, other times it only takes a few minutes—but, eventually, it happens. It becomes apparent that this person has issues. Chances are, they recognize the same truth about you. It […]

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Filed Under: Audio, Blog, featured, Lead Tagged With: Acts, Acts 5, Ananias, message, Sapphira, sermon, Sojourn, Sojourn Community Church

Church History: William Wilberforce and the End of the British Slave Trade

22nd March 2017

In late March, 1807, the British slave trade came to an end. One of the key figures in the battle against the British slave trade was an evangelical Christian named William Wilberforce. Wilberforce was short—about five feet, three inches in stature—and suffered from poor health, but he was eloquent and witty. He became a member […]

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Filed Under: Blog, featured, History, Lead, Learn, Video Tagged With: history, racism, slavery, Wilberforce

Sermon: That Awkward Text About Noah that No One Wants to Preach

21st March 2017

In every Sunday School lesson and Bible storybook about Noah that I recall from my childhood, the ark-builder’s story ended in triumph. In sermons, if they mentioned this text at all, it ended with a “curse of Ham.” Noah saves the animals and sees the sign of God’s covenant—and, with that, the account of Noah […]

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Filed Under: Audio, Blog, featured, Lead Tagged With: alcoholism, covenant, curse of Ham, drunk, drunkenness, ethnic, ethnicity, Genesis, Genesis 9, Ham, Japheth, message, Noah, race, racism, rainbow, sermon, Shem, Village Church

Church History: Forget About St. Valentine! Today Is St. Cyril’s Day

14th February 2017

The Magnificent Moravian Failures Who Weren’t Failures at All In the ninth century A.D.—four hundred years or so after the fall of the Western Empire—a prince in the land of Moravia asked the emperor of the Eastern Empire to send missionaries to his people. The prince’s motives were primarily political. He needed the support of […]

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Filed Under: Blog, featured, History, Lead, Video Tagged With: church hisory, Cyril, Cyrillic, Eastern Orthodox, evangelism, history, Methodius, missionaries, missionary, missions, Moravia, Orthodox

Culture: The Failure of White Evangelicals in the Civil Rights Movement

16th January 2017

A few months ago, Justin Taylor interviewed four evangelical historians about the role of Southern white evangelicals in the American Civil Rights Movement. It is a lengthy and painful read, but it provides a much-needed perspective on white evangelicals’ persistent failure to challenge systemic racism. Here are a few excerpts: Matt Hall: The unfortunate reality […]

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Filed Under: Blog, featured, History, Lead Tagged With: justice, Martin Luther King, racism

Blog: Most-Read Posts of 2016 and Plans for 2017

3rd January 2017

Around twenty-seven thousand people racked up nearly one hundred thousand views of this blog in 2016. If you were one of them, thank you! Since there are no advertisements on my site, I don’t profit from any of the content. And so, if you’ve profited from what I’ve written, please consider purchasing a book (or two […]

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Filed Under: Apologetics, Blog, Family Ministry, featured, History, In the News, Lead, Learn, Movie Reviews, Serve, Solve, Video Tagged With: apologetics, church history, family ministry, history, leadership, year in review

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