The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill—this is the story we need right now. This podcast is a long, hard look in the mirror for much of the church in America today. It’s an incredibly well produced, thorough exploration of not just the Mars Hill story with Mark Driscoll, but also the narratives that have …
“Longevity of bad belief doesn’t make it ‘wisdom.’ It just makes it harder to correct and change.” One of the most often repeated phrases I hear to justify or dismiss poor thinking or bad behavior is “that’s just how I was raised” or “that’s what I’ve/we’ve always done or what I’ve always thought.” That’s unacceptable, …
There is something about adulthood and the rhythms of everyday life that conditions us to constantly have our gaze fixed at eye level and falsely believe that it is somehow productive. The world calls this eye-level, self-obsession “wisdom.” I remember about seven years ago, when I was first married and working a job that was …
In the midst of fearful times, don't fall prey to the subtle idolatry of fear. The steadfast God of peace is always with us, no matter the circumstances.
1. Make your goals measurable. 2. Make your goals attainable. 3. Be kind to yourself in how and why you set them. Don’t let your goals and resolutions for the new year be derailed by being overly ambitious, vague and immeasurable, or unkind to yourself in the place in your heart that they come from. …
Does your desire for correction outweigh your compassion? Does your passion for right belief overpower your ability to simply be present with someone who is in pain and just needs to be listened to? These are sobering questions. A couple of weeks ago, the weight of them really hit me as I listened to one …
Sometimes we forget that the purpose of our preaching is simple: to proclaim “Christ and him crucified”—to make God known to people, and to point those people toward Him, not ourselves. We forget that the power of the Gospel rests not in our words but in the Word of God, His story, and in the movement of His Spirit.
Life is not about getting what we deserve. In Christ, it never has been and it never will be. Were it so, Jesus would not have died for our sins. He would not have hung on a cross in agony to pay the penalty of death due to us. He would not have freely and …
Almost all of us, believer and non-believer alike, have encountered some presentation of God that we find difficult to swallow. Maybe it’s something about what we think God has done, what we assume He must be like based on X, or maybe it’s the age-old question of how to reconcile the problem of evil with …