Soon after my conversion to Christianity, I began laboring in the work of ministry…I convinced myself during my initial days of salvation that busyness equaled holiness. If I was idle, I was sinning and God was mad at me. Couple …
When I was a young Christian, the Holy Spirit put in my heart such a yearning for Scripture that I began reading through the New Testament every week. By the end of my second week, I was astonished at what …
Don’t just think you are quoting the Bible, know you are. These six guidelines will help you teach with accuracy—and fill in the gaps with contextual understanding. Don’t assume that you know what a passage means based on how others …
We are too quick to want to start movements and too slow to join them. We live in a culture of advocacy. We are overwhelmed by causes banding together to fight deep injustices. It’s in our faces and our social …
Lessons learned throughout your life will become the underlying assumptions to guide you. Eventually, your ministry philosophy will hinge on these life leadership lessons. While all leaders operate from a ministry philosophy, effective leaders articulate it well. Here is a …
See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are! But the people who belong to this world don’t recognize that we are God’s children because they don’t know him. …
Like the discipline of doing nothing, the discipline of praying simply requires a great deal of faith. It is difficult to pray simple words, phrases, or nothing at all and believe that our Father is intimately attuned to our needs, …
Read more‘Abba, get me a bagel” and similar prayers that work
Neighboring is a lost art, but people have not lost a heart for it. Not by a long shot. That was the case for Lance and Sherri Ford. They wanted to reach out to their neighbors, and not just once …
Read moreHow Cornbread May Be the Bread of Life in Your Neighborhood
To be able to be present with people in this chaotic world you need to embrace times of absence. We need to put away our phones, put away our to-do lists and deadlines. We must be intentional about being still …
The school bus pulls heavily away from our house, and I turn from the door. Through the house I go, switching off lights and turning down the radio that plays constantly to the menagerie in my son’s room. Then I pull …