10 Books That Have Reshaped My Faith

10 Books That Have Reshaped My Faith

When I was seventeen, I started growing in my Christian faith. I went back to church with my girlfriend (now wife) and I was welcomed by her very loving family and her very loving church. I visited a Christian bookstore at the mall for the first time in my life when...
What Good Friday Means to Me Now

What Good Friday Means to Me Now

On this Good Friday, I’m reflecting on the cross where Jesus died, and I’m re-reading a chapter in Brian Zahnd’s Sinners In the Hands of a Loving God, about what Jürgen Moltmann called “the crucified God.” Zahnd says, The cross is many...
What John 3:16 Says About a Wonderful World Worth Saving

What John 3:16 Says About a Wonderful World Worth Saving

At our wedding, we played Louis Armstrong’s famous song, What a Wonderful World. That song would later become pretty problematic for me because of some poorly formed theology, some of which you may be familiar with. The world is bad and evil, as are all the people...
My Confession of Faith – A Modern Creed for Worship

My Confession of Faith – A Modern Creed for Worship

I’ve now been in ministry for about twenty-five years. That isn’t long compared to a lot of my heroes who are still living and serving, but it’s long enough that I’ve seen plenty of change happen within the American Christian and evangelical...
Yes, Jesus IS the Answer

Yes, Jesus IS the Answer

Racism has been a part of the human story for thousands of years. The Bible itself contains the history of tribal wars in Abraham’s day, the rise of empericalism and slavery and on into the New Testament when the question of whether the Messiah came to save the...
Good News: Jesus Has Been Enthroned as King

Good News: Jesus Has Been Enthroned as King

The gospel is more than a few steps toward salvation and it’s more than a particular doctrine of justification. The gospel is the good news that Jesus, God’s Son, became the Messiah and Savior of Israel and of the rest of the world, that he died on a Roman...
Experiencing the Empowerment of the Holy Spirit

Experiencing the Empowerment of the Holy Spirit

In the world of sales, there is often the product, and then there is the enhanced edition of the product. Is the upsell worth it? Depends on if you want the basic version or the full-featured version with all the bells and whistles. In my Christian walk, I want all...
4 Reasons Modern Worship Services Should Engage the Emotions

4 Reasons Modern Worship Services Should Engage the Emotions

I hear it all the time and it’s blogged about regularly… Modern worship songs and services are just too much emotionalism and not enough doctrine. Long ago, I wrote a blog post to that very effect. I revisited the issue a few years ago and deleted that old...
How to Have the Anointing of God on Your Life

How to Have the Anointing of God on Your Life

That word… anointing… is tricky. If you grew up in a charismatic / pentecostal environment, you might associate the anointing with a particular ecstatic experience, or with the practice of anointing the sick with oil and prayer, or perhaps with the...
9 Breakthrough Prayers to Pray for the Local Church

9 Breakthrough Prayers to Pray for the Local Church

At Grace Hills, having sensed something of the direction God was taking us as a community, we declared 2017 to be “the year of the breakthrough.” And we’ve seen breakthrough! People have come to know Jesus and have been baptized. Marriages have...
Free Sermon Series Notes and Grapchis

Get Free Inspiration in Your Inbox Each Week Based on Preaching Texts from the Lectionary

Four to five inspirational message ideas each week, plus recommended articles, books, podcast episodes, and more resources.

You have Successfully Subscribed!

Pin It on Pinterest