God at work…

It’s easy to become a whiner.  Life gets hard.  Challenges arise.  Obstacles interfere.  “God, where are you?  Why aren’t you making my life easier?”
At those times it is helpful to hear about how others negotiate trying times.  People like Nick Vujicic in this video put life in perspective and eliminate the whining.  Watch this and [...]

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Whatever

When our daughter was in high school and feeling omniscient, she had a phrase that she used to repel any attempt to enlighten her or explain some idea. The word was “whatever,” and it was guaranteed to stop any further conversation as she served notice that she had no interest at all in what was being [...]

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Funeral

I found out last Friday that a friend had died.  I knew her at a previous church for which I worked.  She had been an insulin dependent diabetic since age 3.  I was always impressed by her personal discipline.  Had she not been, I doubt she would have survived until her late 50’s.
The recent death [...]

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Predicting

I was working on a sermon recently that was exploring the idea of being prepared for the Second Coming, whenever that happens.  The language of the New Testament seems to indicate that the First Century disciples believed that the Second Coming was imminent.  Some were, apparently, quitting their jobs in order to wait.  Others were [...]

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New Book

A few months ago I bought a book on a whim from InterVarsity Press.  IVP is a really great publishing company, and they consistently print thought provoking and balanced books on a variety of subjects.  Fabricating Jesus is no exception to this.
The author, Craig Evans, is Payzant Distinguished Professor of New Testament at Acadia Divinity [...]

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Kindness

Gavin Whitsett wrote the book,, Guerilla Kindness, and was the father of the Random Acts of Kindness movement.  Whitsett said that he wanted to remind people of the kind impulses that all of us had.  In a world that is often rude and unkind, it’s nice to have the reminder.
The Bible also reminds us of [...]

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It was meant to be….

I hear it all the time.  It comes in some version of “it was meant to be.”  People who are not God followers tend to talk about fate or some amorphous Cause that created a situation.
Believers credit God with the green car they just bought or the perfect job they just got.  The Christian version [...]

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Jim and Casper

I just finished Jim & Casper Go To Church, by Jim Henderson and Matt Casper, and I would add it to my <em>must read</em> list for churches.  It is a keen observation at how churches look to outsiders—in this case an atheist named Matt Casper.  A quote from the Foreword lays out the direction of the [...]

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Ignorance is not a good thing!

“The only thing worse than training your people and having them leave is not training them and having them stay.”  Henry Ford.
 
 Organizations that do not train their people are poured in ideological and methodological concrete.  In some respects they are like a university that never allows research or thought that is dated after a particular [...]

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Joy

In his book, Letters to Malcolm, pages 92–93, C.S.Lewis wrote the following:

Dance and game are frivolous, unimportant down here; for ‘down here’ is not their natural place.  Here, they are a moment’s rest from the life we were placed here to live.

I have been working on a summer sermon series about the Fruit of the [...]

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