What is your goal for unbelievers who visit your church? Do you have one? Hopefully your church has thought about this issue and communicated clear intentions regarding visiting unbelievers. In I Corinthians 14, the apostle Paul addressed the need to think strategically about how your church ministers to believers vs. “unbelievers” and “outsiders” (I Cor. …
Category Archives: Christian Living
Transitions
Life is full of transitions. As children, we transition from infant to toddler, crawling to walking, and crying to talking. As the years continue, we experience other transitions in education, career, and relationships. Eventually, we all encounter difficult transitions. Many have to make decisions about how to care for aging parents. Others have to navigate …
What “We’ve always done it that way” really means.
“We’ve always done it that way.” There is a certain stereotype in the minds of pastors and church leaders when they hear that phrase. The stereotype I am referring to is of an out-of-touch, die-hard, traditional, older member who can’t see the ridiculous nature of basing decisions mindlessly upon patterns of behavior in the past. …
Continue reading “What “We’ve always done it that way” really means.”
Speaking of the Gospel…
Surely we’ve all heard the quote attributed to St. Francis of Assisi encouraging believers to “Preach the gospel daily, use words when necessary.” It turns out that there is no record of St. Francis ever making that statement. In fact, since Francis was a member of a preaching order, he probably would have disagreed with …
A Strange Way to Shine
Recently, I was reading through the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5. As usual, Jesus reveals how kingdom values are counterintuitive to the world. In Matthew 5:14-16, He states, ““You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it …
Gravity Got You Down?
After my son Bryce’s birthday party last year, I tied a couple of balloons to his doorknob. Almost two weeks later, Bryce and I came in the house after a long day. He went to his room and I went to my room. “Aw man!” I heard across the house. I ran to see what …
Don’t Stand in Their Way
“Jesus said to him, ‘Get up, take up your bed, and walk.’ And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked” (John 5:8). In John 5, Jesus heals a man who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. You would think that everyone would be happy for the man. …
Sticky Situations
Do you have honey in your kitchen? Is it in a “bear shaped” bottle? Is it just me, or when you see a bottle of honey, do you automatically assume the container is sticky? I hate getting my hands sticky. Every time I get a new bottle of honey, I resolve that this time I …
Aren’t You Forgetting Something?
It may be the most creative question in the history of the world. Out of the blue, with no warning whatsoever, my son loves to ask, “Aren’t you forgetting something?” Then he loves to wait in silence to see if I can guess from the 43 billion possible things his overactive five-year-old brain is thinking …
Don’t Try to Parent From “The Cloud”
Do you ever take your work home with you? I do. I don’t bring work home in the traditional briefcase or backpack. It’s all “in the cloud” now anyway –just waiting for me to pick it up. Worse than what’s “in the cloud,” however, is what’s in my head. I don’t have to be sitting …