Evotional.com - Mark Batterson

Kicked off The Elephant in the Church series this weekend.

I love the challenge of taking on tough topics or controversial issues. Too many churches are answering questions no one is asking. We dance around the real issues. But when we have the courage to talk about tough topics I think we experience a healthy tension as a church. I also think it's as good opportunity to remind people that I'm not omniscient. In fact, I told our congregation upfront: don't take my word for it. Go back to the original source. The Bible is the ultimate authority.

Some of the issues we'll explore in this series are things that God-fearing, Bible-believing, Christ-following people have disagreed about for two thousand years. And because of that, we often steer clear of them. And I'm certainly not advocating that we major in minors. But I think it's disingenuous when we ignore them. We've got to think about them and talk about them. And that is what this series is about. It gives us permission to talk about tough topics. And we may agree to disagree. But we'll be better off having had the tough conversation.

So this weekend I talked about spiritual gifts and I Corinthians 12-14. If you want to check out the message, you can sign-up for a free subscription. All of my messages are turned into transcripts and sent out via email.