“It is so good to still have you with us Jesus. We thought we’d lost you but here you are in the flesh. Those three days without you felt like an eternity but now that you’ve been with us for about, how long has it been? A little over a month? We couldn’t imagine life without you and we are ready for what comes next. So, me and the guys were wondering when are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel? What was that, Jesus? You’re leaving?”
Just-for-Men-Preacher
“But you’re so young.” This was the concern of many minister search teams when I was interviewing for my next ministry. Once I responded with, “I’m thirty-five years old, it’s not like I’m living in my mom’s basement playing Halo.” I listened to my wife’s counsel not to respond to that concern in that way again. What we might be prone to think is that we want our leaders to have arrived. What if instead we desired that our leaders and ourselves be ever-growing. Continue reading “Just-for-Men-Preacher”
Pray for My Mother
“I don’t know what to pray for anymore or what I should pray, can you please pray for my mother?” My mother died of cancer in 2007. If you are a person of faith and have ever walked with a loved one as they are living out their last days and the hope of healing diminishes, then you may have experienced a weariness in your prayers. I have. When I struggled to find the strength to pray and what I should pray. I looked to someone else that had what I considered to be a bigger picture of God and his Spirit. Continue reading “Pray for My Mother”
4 Ways to Have Moving Worship
Worshipping God requires movement. I don’t mean swaying and snapping your fingers (acceptable church of Christ dancing). Moving worship is not just about expressiveness it is about God and the formation of our lives into the likeness of Jesus. I believe worship should be spirited and emotive but more than that it must be spiritual. This involves moving with the Spirit. Here are four movements required for spiritual, Christ-centered, life-changing worship. Continue reading “4 Ways to Have Moving Worship”
Jesus Centered Movement
The church must recapture its first priority. The church is not a monument dedicated to Jesus. The church is not a memorial honoring Jesus. The church is not a living memory of Jesus. The church is not an organization or a physical property to be maintained. The church is a movement. Continue reading “Jesus Centered Movement”
Salvation || Past | Present | Future
Salvation is not limited to any temporal aspect. It is not limited to any specific time and place. Salvation is all encompassing. Salvation is through Jesus Christ and includes the past, present, and future. To help us connect salvation to the past we will refer to it as our justification. Salvation in the present is our sanctification and salvation in the future is our glorification.
The Gift of Pain
A life without pain may mean that we have resigned to helplessness and hopelessness. A pain free life sounds great but it may be that we have grown numb or that we are self-medicating to stay numb. A pain free life may mean that we have also become numb to joy and love. In our efforts to avoid pain to try and spare ourselves from the worst, we may inadvertently choose to miss out on God’s best. Pain is a gift, but it is the gift that no one wants. We don’t want it because the problem with pain is that it cannot be switched off. Continue reading “The Gift of Pain”
A Gathered People
“There is no such thing as lone ranger Christianity in the New Testament; there is no suggestion that a person can be vitally united with Christ and growing spiritually apart from the church.” – Roger E. Olson.
Where am I Going? And How to Know if God is Leading
Ruth Haley Barton opens chapter seven of her book Sacred Rhythms with a quote by Ernest Larkin. He says, “Discernment in its fullness takes a practiced heart, fine-tuned to hear the word of God and the single-mindedness to follow that word in love. It is truly a gift from God, but not one dropped from the skies fully formed. It is a gift cultivated by a prayerful life and the search for self-knowledge.”
Continue reading “Where am I Going? And How to Know if God is Leading”
Learn to Love Out Loud
“Love is a habit… We learn to love… not primarily by acquiring information about what we should love but rather through practices that form the habits of how we love.” James K.A. Smith
When you choose to gather in worship it reorients your heart towards God.
God is the object of our worship and God does the work of worship. Worship is top-down, not bottom-up.
And what God works in worship is the transformation of our minds. He moves us forward in our commitment to offer our bodies as living sacrifices. This begins with His Spirit and is perpetuated in covenant community.
We learn to worship God through revelation and in community. Our faith community plays an important role in how we choose to express our affections to God. It’s where we learn to put into practice living out our response to God’s initiation of mercy and grace. Continue reading “Learn to Love Out Loud”