Our second sermon series after launching weekly worship at One Church was entitled ?S: Questions and Doubts About Faith. You can listen to the sermon series here.
On our first two Sundays, I collected questions from the congregation with the instructions, “If you could ask God one question, what would it be?”
Then every week I gave a sermon addressing one of the top five most asked questions. The sermon titles were:
- What is the Bible and How Do I Interpret It?
- How Can I Believe that God Exists, and How Does God’s Existence Affect My Life?
- Can Those Who Have Never Heard the Name of Jesus or Those of Other Religions or No Religion Be Saved?
- What Does the Bible Really Teach about Heaven and Hell?
- Why Does God Allow Suffering, Especially the Suffering of Children?
During the course of the series, we lost approximately ten attendees (under 10% of our congregation). We gained, however, enough new attendees during the series that One Church has grown slightly.
Therefore, every attendee we lost was replaced by someone new.
Incidentally, we have lost approximately eight attendees simply because one of our One Groups (small groups) is studying a book authored by Rob Bell.
I learned not to fear addressing controversial topics. Some people will leave because a certain book was not banned from the church.
However, for every person who leaves, someone else looking for a church that is a safe place to express their questions and doubts will arrive and stay.
