Victoria Osteen and Our Conservative Prosperity Gospel

Last night, Christian Twitter was alive with the ridiculous and sad clip of Victoria Osteen’s blatant prosperity gospel declaration. “We go to church, not for God, but for us.” I especially liked the enterprising blogger who affixed Bill Cosby’s “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard” to the end of the clip. Well done. But […]

Two Things We Need: Comedy and Rest

I want to highlight two recent articles that are related to each other, I think. First, I wrote a column for Christianity.com about the need for comedy. I thought of this in light of the death of Robin Williams. Here’s an excerpt: The Scriptures tell us that laughter is a kind of medicine for the […]

On Losing a Close Friend

I just found out that my close friend and mentor, Bill Swanger, went to be with the Lord this morning at around 6:00 am. It’s really hard to put into words how much I loved Bill and how much he helped me in my ministry and in growing as a husband and father. I met […]

What We Can Learn from the #icebucketchallenge

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you have undoubtedly had your Facebook timeline inundated with friends, family, and celebrities doing the #icebucketchallenge. Everyone from people you don’t know to Mitt Romney (in a suit!), former President George W. Bush, and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell have dumped large buckets of water on their head to raise awareness […]

Why Pastors Should Pause

Pausing is one of the hardest things for me to do and it seemed even harder when I was a pastor. I think this was for two reasons: a) I loved the work of pastoring: studying, writing, counseling, leading, visioneering, etc b) I have a hard time pausing and reflecting. But I was always convicted […]

Should Christian Writers Try to Be Popular?

Recent controversies in the evangelical world have caused many people to rethink the idea of “platform-building” and “celebrity”, two buzzwords that are often misunderstood. I had the chance to discuss this with two friends of mine, Justin Taylor, popular blogger at Between Two Worlds, vice-president of book publishing at Crossway and Collin Hansen, editorial director […]

My Favorite Podcasts

I’ve got about a 20 minute (sometimes 30 during school season) commute to work. I like to redeem my commute by listening to podcasts. I generally subscribe to about ten or twelve of them so I have a wide range of options when I get in the car. My moods change and my needs change […]

Job Opening at ERLC

Know someone interested in joining the ERLC team in Nashville? We are hiring a new Interactive Media Manager to join our communications team. This is creative role specializing in video and audio production, technical and logistical support for ERLC events, and social media engagement. This is a great opportunity to join a fun and dynamic […]

Some recent interviews

I had the privilege of interviewing a few church leaders on a variety of issues: Here I interview pastor David Platt of Brook Hills Church in Birmingham, Alabama and author of Radical and Multiply on the need for Christians in the West to speak up about the persecution of Christians in the Middle East and elsewhere:  Here I […]