“I hope you leave Sunday morning deeply encouraged by the gospel — and I also hope you leave kind of tired.” I’ve had more than a few puzzled looks come my way as I’ve said that sentence in my church’s prospective-members class. Many Christians understand corporate worship according to the gas-station illustration — church is…
Category: Health
I Want God’s Wrath on My Enemy
Audio Transcript There are dark stories of people who get taken advantage of in this world and who want to take revenge or see God’s vengeance pour down on those enemies — the case today in this email from a listener named Jemma, who lives in Australia. That’s all we have, her email. It’s short…
What Makes Jesus Marvel?
What makes you pause, stare, admire? What leaves you in awe? Your reverence reveals what you love and who you are. What amazes us speaks. The Gospels whisper secrets about what astonishes men. Their pages gasp with wonder, fill with emojis, punctuate with exclamation points. We get to see men and women stare wide-eyed, stunned…
Good Leaders Come and Go
We are all interim. I have often reminded myself of this fact in recent years. When I started seminary, I also applied for a ministry assistant position at a local church. Their youth pastor had left earlier in the year; they asked me to interview for the leadership role in the ministry as the “Interim.”…
Come to Church to Get
How many people do you know who have left a church for bad reasons? The music wasn’t their kind of music. The sermons weren’t short or engaging enough. The children’s programming lacked the entertainment factor of other churches. The church was a little too big (for those looking for more attention) or a little too…
Have You Misread Romans 8? Clarifying Three Beloved Verses
Romans 8 is one of the most beloved chapters in the Bible. It holds precious truths that encourage and sustain the soul through the most difficult seasons of life. Rejoicing the heart again and again are verses like these: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). “We…
How Not to Respond to Suffering
Audio Transcript Happy Reformation Day everyone. I hope you joined our Here We Stand series this month and are enjoying it. It’s a remarkable gift to have the Bible in our own language so that we can read it for ourselves — and to read the book of Job for ourselves, which we begin tomorrow…
Do You Look to the Reward?
Not many of us are farmers. Not anymore. And relatively few in this room have served as soldiers in combat. But many more of us have tried our hands at competitive athletics — the kind you train for, and not just show up to play. You may not have been aware of it at the…
Of Dragons and Goblins: How Monsters Shape Our Imaginations
Halloween gives us monsters everywhere. Even though these fictional creatures are usually ugly and frightening, people seem irresistibly attracted to them. But the popularity of monsters goes well beyond Halloween. Surprisingly, monsters often appear in some of the most beloved children’s stories. Lewis’s Narnia teems with dragons, giants, and sea serpents. Tolkien’s Middle-earth holds many…
Perfectionism Makes Me Indecisive — What Can I Do?
Audio Transcript On Thursday, we looked at perfectionism through the eyes of a high school student. When are good grades good enough? Great question. Today, we’re back to the topic of perfectionism and how it makes us indecisive in our later years. How do we overcome the paralysis of perfectionistic indecision in important life decisions?…