Tag: Blogs

The Formula For Endurance – Endurance is more spiritually important than we sometimes think. In the book of Hebrews, for example, the writer exhorts the suffering and persecuted church over and over again to endure. Remain. Persevere. Stay in the fight until the end. But how do you do that? What’s the formula for endurance? It’s surprisingly simple…

How Does God Define Success? – If success is defined from God’s perspective, where faith in Christ and faithfulness to Him is what matters most, then the men and women of Hebrews 11 not only understood what true success is, they applied that understanding to every aspect of their lives.

Is Driving School Buses Kingdom Business? – When we say that all work matters, do we really mean all work—even driving school buses? Is that really kingdom business?

Happy Fear – For most of us, fear is an emotion we want to avoid, and that we will even pay to avoid. It’s a negative, painful, distressing feeling. And yet, the wisest man in the world, Solomon, said: “Happy is the man who fears always” (Proverbs 28:14). What kind of fear is this that makes a person happy?

Do You Think It Happened Or Not? – The resurrection is the hinge on which all of Christianity turns. It’s the foundation on which everything else rests, the capstone that holds everything else about Christianity together. Which means—crucially—that when Christians assert that Jesus rose from the dead, they are making a historical claim, not a religious one.  

4 Piercing Truths About The Way God Works In The World – If you were to skim Deborah’s song in Judges 5—thinking that you already knew all the details of the story from the previous chapter—you’d miss four piercing truths about the way God does his work in the world. 

It’s Time For The Masters

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The Power Of Consistency – When we lead people in the way of discipleship, one of the issues we must deal with is the boring nature of it all. I mean, there’s only so many ways you can “spice up” the habits that characterize consistent growth in Christ.

How To Wake Up – In a sermon on How to Begin Every Day with God, based on the text, “My voice you shall hear in the morning, O Lord; In the morning I will direct it to you, and I will look up” (Psalm 5:3), Matthew Henry gives eight reasons why we should wake up with prayer.

5 Resurrection Realities That Reorient Our Evangelism – Evangelism rises or falls based upon the reality of the resurrection. If Jesus did not rise from the dead, there is no good news to share: sin and death still reign, we worship a dead and decomposing deity, and Christians should be pitied because we are deceived and pathetic. On the other hand, if the resurrection is true, every Christian should be compelled to share this good news liberally and with great joy.

Increasing Humility – A clear indication of maturing in Christ is increasing humility. The closer we draw to Him the more we see our need for Him, because the closer we draw to Him the more we grasp His holiness and our sinfulness.

Some Unlikely Heroes – This is not the first time the garbage men have spread cheer through the Kroner home. It’s been ongoing. Every week, the garbage men show up. Quincy runs to the window, pulls up a chair, and looks through the window. They dump the garbage can, set it down, turn around and wave at Quincy. Sometimes they’ll honk, too.

A Clean House And A Wasted Life – If you do the things God tells you to do, messes will inevitably follow. But take heart: According to the wisest man who ever lived, these messes are not proof of a wasted life, but of a productive one.

Could This Be The Greatest Shot In March Madness History?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3_IT622Sbc

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The Redemption Of Boredom – But whether you love chemistry or not, we’ve all been there. For you, maybe it was Shakespeare, or sitting on hold waiting for the cable company to answer your call, or one of those pointless, endless meetings at work that a two paragraph e-mail could have covered. Have you ever noticed how many boring moments there are in life?

Young People’s Greatest Problem Is… – At least, according to Matthew Henry. In his little book, Sober-Mindedness Pressed Upon Young People, Henry says, “I have seen more young people ruined by pride than perhaps by any one lust whatsoever.”

Can Your Congregation Answer The Questions Of A Post-Christian Society? – Christians are often stymied because they simply don’t know how to apply biblical truth to all of life. As a result, they are continually in retreat before competing ideas. The dominant theories in virtually all fields are secular, and sometimes explicitly anti-Christianity. In order to obey the cultural mandate, we need a strategy that empowers us to show where those theories are mistaken, and then to craft positive biblical alternatives.

4 Reasons To Write Down Prayer Requests – As I thought about this a bit more I’ve decided to always write down prayer requests. If you are one of those tech savvy dudes you can use something like OneNote to keep a record of these. I’m not one of the cool kids so I still use pen and paper and stick little notes in my Bible.

C.S. Lewis Said It: God’s “Goodness” Cannot Be Wholly Other – For years now I have been insisting that the main reason I am not a Calvinist (or any kind of divine determinist) is that, taken to its “good and necessary consequences,” Calvinism makes God morally monstrous.

Why Did Christianity Grow? – A few years ago I made my way through one of his best known books, The Rise of Christianity. Stark, in debunking a number of historical myths, tries to explain from a sociological perspective “how the obscure, marginal Jesus movement became the dominant religious force in the western world in a few centuries.”

Tim Hawkins – 8% Body Fat

 

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It’s The Little Things – It’s the little things that members of a church or church plant do that help the ministry thrive—and without which the growth of the local church would be greatly hindered.

22 Benefits Of Meditating on Scripture – Some great thoughts here on encouraging you to meditate upon God’s Word.

The Life & Mission Of St. Patrick – Patrick’s work firmly planted the Christian faith in Irish soil and left a deep imprint on the Celtic church that would grow up from this soil. 

Poptarts, Budweiser, and Leadership – Poptarts and Budweiser. I am endorsing neither, but one of these brands has experienced 25 years of consecutive decline and one has experienced 30 years of consecutive growth.

A Glimpse Of Grace: This Is NOT A Disney World – We would all love to live in a Disney World, where everything and everyone are clear-cut and perfect. The “bad guys” are always caught, and the problems always solved. Someone else picks up the litter and delivers our snacks.

Legalism Is Your Spiritual Illusion – If you’re living in a narrative that tells you God’s love for you is contingent on your performance, you’ve been told a lie. There is not a scripture in the Bible where Jesus tells us that God only loves us when we get it all right. 

It All Points To Christ

https://vimeo.com/121265107

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The Hard Question Of Missions – If we are committed to serving a country and truly helping its people, we should consider one of two things: 1) moving there long-term and dedicating ourselves to learning the practices and the ways of the people as we try to help them, or 2) if we aren’t willing or able to move there long-term, entrusting the ministry to nationals as much as possible.

The Cost Of Relativism – But it’s increasingly clear that sympathy is not enough. It’s not only money and better policy that are missing in these circles; it’s norms. The health of society is primarily determined by the habits and virtues of its citizens. In many parts of America there are no minimally agreed upon standards for what it means to be a father. There are no basic codes and rules woven into daily life, which people can absorb unconsciously and follow automatically.

6 Ways To Become A Welcoming Church – Most churches do consider themselves to be friendly…but are they really?

Can “Authentic Christianity” Be Found Today? – When I read the New Testament I get several impressions about what the apostles thought authentic Christianity looks and feels like in its corporate expression.

Rough Country – Review of Robert Wuthnow, Rough Country: How Texas Became America’s Most Powerful Bible-Belt State (Princeton University Press, 2014).

5 Things You Are Doing Wrong Every Morning – Our morning tasks are much more significant than we’d like to admit, and our bad habits tend to accumulate over time. The morning sets a tone for how the rest of the day is going to go, and even a handful of small mistakes can take its toll on your productivity in the afternoon and beyond.

Why Principals Matter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0Nc-98-2lA

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10 Ways To Hate People – 10 ways to hate people, which Paul says comes very naturally to us (Titus 3:3).

Why The Reality Of The Resurrection Means You Don’t Need A “Bucket List” – For the Christian, death is not the end of adventure, but our exit from a world where dreams and adventures shrink, and entrance into a world where dreams and adventures forever expand.

Three Muslim Misconceptions About Christians – Here are three misconceptions that most Muslims have about Christians that keep them from even considering the gospel.

A Pattern Among Fallen Pastors – Lessons For Us All – These findings are applicable for pastors, plumbers, stay at home moms, and anyone else who seeks to follow Christ.

Facebook Research And Setting Our Minds On Things Above – What people read in their newsfeeds impacted their moods, posts, and interactions. And surely much more than their online behavior was impacted. What they filled their minds with impacted how they lived.

A Young Theologian Reflects On An Incurable Cancer Diagnosis – After my diagnosis, I prayerfully immersed myself in Scripture, especially the Psalms. New biblical and theological questions were becoming urgent… I decided to honestly take on the tough theological and existential questions rather than dodge them. They are the questions that I live with. And frequently, they are the questions that other Christians who have experienced loss live with as well.

Meet the Gutsy Dad That Started a Car Wash to Help His Son Find Purpose

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7 Confidence Boosters In Evangelism – Our evangelism-less experience doesn’t spring from ignorance; it springs from a lack of boldness and confidence in Christ.

7 Millennial Traits That Baby Boomers Need To Learn – Millennials are flooding into corporate America, and many baby boomer managers, entrepreneurs and leaders are re-evaluating what it means to be a millennial–what their needs and passions are.

Christian Media Barely Reaching Beyond The Faithful – Christian broadcasters have a devoted following, with about two-thirds of weekly churchgoers and evangelicals saying they tune in to Christian radio and television on a regular basis. Christian books have a similar use by churchgoers and evangelicals and Christian movies remain popular, with about 4 in 10 Americans having seen one in the last year. But many Americans ignore Christian media. 

Secular Society And The Allure Of Isis – Although having a greater stake in one’s own community may help to deter some from experiencing the kind of alienation that can lead to the embrace of radical ideologies, the fertile ground for religious terrorists coming from the West is far more likely to be the secular character of Western culture itself.

You’re Not Crazy – Serving Christ gets hard. Harder than we expected. Harder than we can endure, even for one more day. We are tempted to think, “No way can this turn out well. My life – the only one I have – is going to end up on the junk pile. I must be crazy to be out here doing this, taking these risks, getting hammered with this criticism, paying this price. The body count in ministry is high, and I’m the next casualty. How on earth did I ever get here?”

A Brief History of “Missional” – Just because we talk about being missional doesn’t mean we are. It is easier to talk about missional living than it is to live it out.

Disciple Making

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A Bestselling Book On Tidying Up! – The top-ranked book in the self-help section of the New York Times bestsellers list is The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. That’s right, a book on tidying up has become a bestseller. I suppose anything with “life-changing” in the title is going to attract attention, but that doesn’t fully explain its popularity.

How to Think About Persecution When You’re Not Very Persecuted In light of the brutal murder of 21 Christians in Egypt this weekend, I received a good question yesterday about suffering: “How do we apply the passages on persecution when we in the West don’t have much of it?”

Answering “No” To One Of These Questions Will Kill Your Evangelism – Evangelism is a scary word for many Christians. Whether it’s because we fear rejection, feel unqualified, or are uncomfortable with making a truth claim in a pluralistic culture, we often shy away from evangelism, either by retreating to the realm of personal testimony or by avoiding spiritual conversations altogether.

12 Fiction Books That Will Shape Your Theology – When we think about the role of reading in our spiritual formation, we generally think of non-fiction books that help us understand scripture and theology, but fiction powerfully shapes the ways in which we think faithfully about God and the world.

The Wake-Up Call That Is ISIS: Who In The Church Is Answering? – Just go ahead and ask the 21 Coptic Christians who knelt before ISIS, who are waiting to be beheaded, for their heads to literally roll because they are “people of the Cross” — and yeah, the Cross may not make you friends with ISIS or the self-help gurus or any of the feel-good channels … or the people down the street, across the lunch aisle or across the office.

4 Ways To Involve Everyone In Evangelism – Many people have slipped into the mindset that evangelism is a gift that some believers have and others do not. The reality is that when someone becomes reconciled to God, He sends them out to reconcile others. That’s not a gift—we all have the responsibility to take Christ to others.

Detroit Man Walks 21 Miles A Day To Work

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXK1cS6_qkw&feature=youtu.be

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