When Fun Becomes an Idol
I’ll never forget a conversation I had with my father one day as we were working on a construction site. Dad owned his own plumbing business and had the bright idea of dragging me along to learn what it was like to get my hands dirty and to work. I remember this day vividly. It […]
21st Century Discipleship
If you are familiar with the Great Commission verses (Matthew 28:18-20; Mark 16:15; Luke 24:46-49; Acts 1:8), you’ll know that the imperative command by Jesus is to “make disciples.” Evangelism is the simple part in many ways, but building up strong believers is the hard work. So how is a person discipled? Well, we first […]
God of Scars
Because I grew up as a classic Christian good kid (a heritage for which I am grateful), I used to look at folks who bore a few scars of their previously worldly life and sort of think, “Well, God bless them, but they can’t be used for Christ as much as I am, because I’ve […]
Great Reads on Heaven, Hell, and Universalism
I’ve been talking to quite a few pastors, both online and off, about the issue with Rob Bell, Love Wins, and the whole issue of universalism, hell, etc. Some are lamenting this as a unnecessary controversy in the body of Christ, but I view this as a great opportunity to discuss some basic Christian doctrines. […]
Update from Awana in Japan
I got this update from one of our Awana Missionaries: Awana Praying Friends: My friend Jess Curabo, Awana Director for the Philippines, reported the following in Japan: Pastor Sato of Fukushima Ist Baptist Church was able to locate around 150 of their people but more than 50 are still unaccounted for. He was able […]
On Showing Up
Yesterday I attended a ministerium (meeting of pastors) for the church fellowship of which Gages Lake is a member. (IFCA International). We meet every other month. I enjoy these times, opportunities to meet other pastors in the region and glean wisdom from those who’ve been doing this way longer than me. As a young pastor, […]
Me, God, and Sunday Morning
This week I had a conversation with longtime believer. It was a conversation while on a flight to Nashville. It wasn’t long before our conversation veered toward the spiritual life. You could immediately tell from this lady’s conversations that she was someone who was kind, generous, and spiritual. And yet, when the topic came toward […]
Why We Need Faithful Preaching
This is a snippet of my message for Sunday, “The Equipping Church” – 8th in a series of messages called Doing Church: It’s important that every generation hears the same faithful orthodox truths of the Bible. I want to read a quote from Eric Metaxas recently biography of Deitrich Boenhoeffer, the courageous pastor who resisted […]
Christian Handwringing – A Favorite Pastime
Along with potlucks, bad hair, and cheesy TV, another favorite past time of Christians is hand-wringing. I say this as a lifelong Christian and a pastor. For some reason, we think we’re more spiritual when we’re beating up ourselves. The easiest sermon to preach for a pastor is the one that beats up on “the […]
Friday Five – Jason Dukes
My friend, Jason Dukes, stopped by to answer a few questions for The Friday Five. Jason is the founder and senior pastor of Westpointe Church in Central Florida. Jason planted this church seven years ago and now they are experiencing great growth as God has blessed their ministry. Jason has also had an influential role […]
Singing Cowper’s Song
I wanted to take a moment to explain the subtle change to my website. I recently asked my web guy, Sam Guzman, to add the words, “Redeeming Love Has Been My Theme and Shall Be Till I Die,” to the top logo area of my website. These is a line from the fourth verse of […]
Thoughtful Engagement on Immigration
A few days ago I posted a blog expressing some of my frustration regarding what I perceived as some callousness on the part of evangelicals toward immigration. It provoked some discussion, mostly offline, among friends. Having some time to reflect, I realized that my post was written in haste, with little editing, and didn’t serve […]