Consider Your Attitude toward Church and Your Motivation for Going When I listen to people talk about church, I often hear what draws them in and what drives them away. They enthuse about programs for them and the youth group for their kids. They gush about the skill of the minister delivering inspiring sermons, the […]
Consider Your Response to Receiving the Greatest Gift Anyone Could Ever Get Paul tells the church of Philippi to work out your salvation (Philippians 2:12). He doesn’t say to work for your salvation. They’ve already received eternal life as a free gift through God’s goodness (his grace), and there’s nothing they need to do to […]
Make Sure That What You Do Advances the Kingdom of God Many people talk about being a missional church (and a missional follower of Jesus). This is an ideal goal, yet people have different understandings about what it means to be missional. Before giving a holistic definition of this often-misunderstood word, let’s first look what […]
Align with Other Believers to Build Ourselves Up and Serve Others In my post about spiritual mastermind groups I talked about the benefit of aligning ourselves with other like-minded followers of Jesus to walk with on our spiritual journey. Now I’d like to look at the word cohort and apply that too. Let’s call this […]
In the book of Hosea, God calls the young man, Hosea, to be his prophet—telling him to marry a prostitute, (see “Hosea Shows Us God’s Unconditional Love”). This is one of God’s most scandalous directives. What is intriguing is that God does not indicate which prostitute. God gives options. The choice is left to Hosea! […]
The first time someone said this to me, I was both excited and dismayed: “God’s calling me to full-time ministry—so I’m going to seminary.” Though I’ve now heard it many times since, my reaction is the same to the thought of seminary training. I’m thrilled whenever anyone desires to work full time to support God’s […]
How We View and Handle Money Matters to God and to Us Paul writes to his protégé Timothy, warning him that the love of money is the source of all manner of evil. An unhealthy preoccupation with wealth is especially risky for followers of Jesus, for their pursuit of money can distract them from their […]
The church has no website and its Facebook page is nothing more than a placeholder. Given this lack of presence on contemporary channels, our experience suggests they are a smaller, aging congregation with a traditional service. My assumption proves true. The pastor is the first person we meet. He’s perhaps in his thirties and not […]
Ten Things to Do Wholeheartedly for God In our post Go All in For Jesus, we talked about the importance of giving God our whole heart, all our heart. The Bible repeatedly tells us to do things with “all your heart.” This means to not do things halfheartedly, that is with a split allegiance or […]
Living a life for Jesus is living contrary to our culture Jesus often warns his followers to not be hypocrites. As an example of who not to emulate, he usually singles out the religious leaders. This is a sobering thought for anyone on a church staff or who has a following of spiritual seekers. Don’t […]