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Now Available … By popular demand … I have a “new” book out!

By Jeremy Myers
1 Comment

Now Available … By popular demand … I have a “new” book out!

Skeleton Church PaperbackDue to many requests, one of my more popular books, Skeleton Church, is now available as a paperback! Go here to get it on Amazon.

This book has helped thousands of people understand what the church is, and more importantly, how we can ALL live and function together in unity, just as Jesus wanted.

So whether you are in a house church, mega church, or you’re “done” with church … whether you are in a mainline or evangelical church … this book will help you understand what Jesus Christ is building in the world, and how you can both be a part of it and allow others to be their part.

I am pretty excited that this book is now available as a paperback because this makes it more accessible to more people so that more Christians can now live like Jesus in the world.

But that’s not all … As part of preparing this book for publishing as a paperback, it has been edited, revised, and expanded, and now includes a study guide with each chapter, which makes it perfect for small group discussions.

And … that’s not all! Along with updating the book and adding the study guide, I have also created an accompanying online course around the book. The course sells for $97, but when you join my online discipleship group, you can take the course for free.

And there’s more! If you join any of the discipleship levels and take the Skeleton Church online course, you will be able to download a PDF copy of the newly revised and expanded book at the end of the course.

So here is what you need to do:

Skeleton Church Online Course

  1. Buy a copy (or several) of the paperback books from Amazon for yourself (or for your small group study).
  2. Join one of the discipleship levels of RedeemingGod.com
  3. Sign up for the Skeleton Church online course (There are 6 lessons with 3 hours of teaching.)
  4. Go out and live as the church in this world!

Be looking for more books and online courses from me in 2017!

God is Redeeming Books Bible & Theology Topics: be the church, Books by Jeremy Myers, Books I'm Writing, Close Your Church for Good, defining church, definition of church, go to church, Skeleton Church

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Unchurching from Churchianity

By Jeremy Myers
52 Comments

Unchurching from Churchianity

I first got to know Richard Jacobson through his interaction with me on Twitter, Facebook, and his comments on this blog. I liked what I saw and started reading his blog, where he creates insightful and humorous cartoons and videos about the church and following Jesus.

So when he asked me to read and review his book, I said “Yes!” as quickly as possible.

(By the way, if you are an aspiring author, THAT is how you do it. I get a couple emails a day from people who want me to read and review their book, but who have never read my blog or one of my own books, have never left a comment on my blog, and who have never interacted me on Twitter or Facebook. Publishing, like everything else in life, begins with relationships. Richard’s book is proof. It debuted at #1 on Amazon in his category.)

The book that Richard wrote is called Unchurching. I have written several books about church myself, but this one is better than any of the ones I have written. At least … I like the way he organized his material and presented his ideas.

UnchurchingThe book chapters are all quite short. This means that even if you only have five minutes here or there to read the book, you can likely finish a chapter in that amount of time. This is a smart way to write a book for today’s busy readers.

Best of all, even though Unchurching is a critical look at the church and contains a call for people to follow Jesus away from the four walls of Christendom, the book is incredibly gracious and kind. I could find no judgmental language, no finger pointing, and no condemnation.

I loved how he said that asking someone “What church do you go to?” is like asking someone “What family do you go to?” The second question makes no sense. We do not go to a family; we are in a family and we operate as a family. This is helpful as well, because the church is like a family, and when we think about it as a family, a lot of the questions that trip us up about how to “do church” fade away. Very rarely, for example, will a family ever have questions about “What day of the week should we meet?” or “Who gets to talk when we are together?”

Based on this idea of the church as a family, Richard Jacobson goes on to talk about church elders as facilitators, on how to carry out conflict resolution within the family of God, and a whole host of other related topics.

All in all, this is a great book about the church. If you have questions about what the church is, how it is to function, and why so many Christians today can confidently claim that they are better able to follow Jesus and be the church in the community now that they have stopped attending a Sunday morning meeting, this book is for you.

In a month or so, I plan on interviewing Richard Jacobson on my Theology.fm podcast, so make sure you tune in for that. Until then, buy a few copies of his book … one for yourself and a couple more to give away. Go here to get your copies of Unchurching today.

Unchurching on Amazon

God is Redeeming Books Bible & Theology Topics: be the church, Books I'm Reading, family of God, go to church, unchurching

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Bible and Theology Questions 2

By Jeremy Myers
15 Comments

Bible and Theology Questions 2

The last couple weeks I have been working my way through dozens of Bible and theology questions which people have submitted through that “ask a question” area in the sidebar. If you have been following along, you will note that some questions require a whole post to answer. Others can be answered more succinctly. These shorter answers get put in one post like the following where I try to answer several Bible and theology questions together.

This post deals with Bible and theology questions about attending church, tithing, and…. masturbation.

bible and theology questions

Feel free to leave your own comments about these questions in the comment section below.


Question on Going to Church

Can a person be a Christian and not go to church ?

Yes! A thousand times yes! People who believe in Jesus for eternal life are the church, whether or not they “attend church.”

It’s an old saying, but it’s true: Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than going into a garage makes you a car.

Similarly, a car can be a car whether or not it ever parks in a garage, and a Christian can be a Christian whether or not he or she ever attends church.

Scripture backs this up as well, for there is not one place in the Bible that commands us to attend church. Not even Hebrew 10:25.


Question on Tithing

If it is the priests only God is speaking to through Malachi, then why in 3:6 does the audience seem to change to the “the children of Jacob” and “the whole nation of you” in verse 9 –it seems there is a change here.

I imagine you read this post about tithing and your question is based on what you read there? Maybe you could leave your question in the comment section there so that people could interact with you on it…

tithingI probably should have clarified that Malachi was written primarily to the religious leaders of Israel, but not only to them. As the spiritual leaders, they were the spiritual representatives for Israel, and so naturally, Israel followed their lead. So Malachi 3:6 does mention the sons of Jacob, which may refer to all the people of Israel. Although even then, the statement in Malachi 3:6 is not so much about the actions of the son of Judah, but God’s long-suffering grace upon them. I read this verse as saying that God does not consume the sons of Jacob for the actions of the priests (or of the forefathers – Malachi 3:7). God is patient and long-suffering, and keeps His Word.

As to the statement in Malachi 3:9 about the whole nation, I did reference that in the post. Malachi is saying that the priests are not just robbing from God, but are robbing from the whole nation as well. This is further evidence that Malachi is primarily writing to the priests here, because if he were writing to all the people, it would not make sense to say that all the people were robbing from all the people. It makes more sense to see that the people are tithing, but the priests are stealing the tithe, and as such, they are robbing God and robbing the whole nation.


Question on Masturbation

I’ve been asking to be free/liberated from addiction to porn and masturbation. I have yet to be set free and I don’t want to lose my salvation because of it. Am I forgiven for doing theses things, because deep down I think it’s wrong, but I’m just not sure it’s a sin. I just know I’m a slave to this. Please help.

Honestly, this question probably demands a full post, but I just didn’t want to write a blog post with the word “masturbation” in the title… so let me see if I can answer the question briefly…

First, the Bible really doesn’t say anything one way or the other about masturbation. Sure, some people make some arguments from the Levitical laws, but I’m not going to get into all that. I don’t think they apply.

I personally do not think that masturbation is sinful.

Pornography, however, is definitely wrong, and almost all studies show that pornography and masturbation go hand in hand…. Sorry. Bad pun. Pornography objectifies women, creates unrealistic ideas about sex, and causes immense mental and emotional damage in the minds of men who look at it. Besides all this, there are numerous Scriptures which instruct men to not look at women lustfully (e.g., Matt 5:28).

But the real question is how to deal with the addiction of pornography and masturbation.

The answer to that is the same answer for any sort of addiction, whether it is overeating, drugs, alcohol, gaming, or gambling: Addictions are overcome only by the supernatural power of God.

How do you tap into this supernatural power of God? There is only one way: recognize that no matter what, God loves you and forgives you.

You asked about whether or not you will lose your salvation for looking at porn and masturbating. The answer is no. Why not? Because God loves you and forgives you. Only this knowledge will lead you to the freedom from sin that is yours in Jesus Christ.

As long as we are afraid of not being forgiven by God, that fear keeps us enslaved to sin. It only when we begin to understand the infinite love and grace of God toward us that the power of sin loses its hold in our lives. Fear keeps us in bondage. Fear keeps us trying to depend on our own effort and our own strength to liberate ourselves from our own sin… and it never works. Only when we lose the fear of losing God’s love, and come to see that God loves us and forgives us no matter what, do we get to the place where sin no longer has the draw that it once did.

I know that this seems backwards and upside down from what is taught in most Christian books and Christian pulpits.

I know that what I am saying sounds like people have the freedom to go sin all they want.

But you know what? This is what I read in Scripture. Sin has dire consequences, for sure, but one of those consequences is NOT that God will stop loving you or forgiving you.

I maybe should also share that I speak from experience on this sort of question. I have an incredibly addictive personality. I have been addicted to many things during my life (I am not comfortable saying which things on this blog). Some of the things I was addicted to for twenty years or more. For some it was only five years or so. Some of these addictions have caused great pain for myself and my wife.

I tried everything to conquer and defeat these addictions, from fasting and praying for days on end to accountability groups to self-help books. Nothing ever worked until I came to the realization that God’s love and forgiveness for me was without end. Though I continued to stumble and fall, the recognition that God loved and forgave me led, over time, to a lack of desire for that particular addiction. I cannot say “how” it worked, only that it did.

God is Redeeming Life Bible & Theology Topics: attending church, be the church, Bible and Theology Questions, forgiveness, go to church, Hebrews 10, Malachi 3, masturbation, pornography

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