Wake Up Call on Evangelism

I am starting to see a parallel between the last 100+ years of evangelism and Acts 1:8. In Acts 1:8 Jesus tells his disciples that they will be witnesses in Jerusalem - Judea - Samaria - and the ends of the earth. The last 100 or so years of church growth has been a lot [...]

Moving From Contemplating the Biblical Navel to Real Application

I am guilty of writing a bunch of thoughts, opinions, and various and sundry other ways of contemplating the biblical navel and end the discussion gaining little more than having thought about something a little more or with a slight nuance. How many of you feel your life has never been the same since reading [...]

Complacency in the Kingdom

How often do we get complacent because we think we have to do everything in a big way or not at all and so we opt for not at all? Have we forgotten that sowing seed is never a small thing even if only one plant grows from dozens of seed that were cast upon [...]

Crucifixion of Jesus Christ - The Bigger Picture

The temptation when teaching about the crucifixion is to talk about the Romans, Roman courts, Pilate, Crucifixion, and prisoner release customs when dealing with the first 15 verses. Then in the verses that follow to discuss the suffering of Jesus and how he died for our sin (15:16-47). I want to suggest an alternative approach [...]

Rethinking Relevant Church - Taking on Goliath’s Challenge

What is it that makes the church/Christianity relevant? Some Christians must think being loud and obnoxious is what it takes to be relevant. I am very thankful that is a small handful of people. Some Christians think we are relevant when America is considered a Christian nation. I am glad that God’s kingdom is much [...]

Gospel of Mark - Feeding 5000 and Walking on Water (6:31-56)

Jesus Feeds 5000
We go from a Markan sandwich to Jesus feeding 5000. How ironic. The better parallel is pointed out by Witherington (Gospel of Mark, 213) of the two meals - one that led to John’s death and another that shows the miraculous and powerful nature of the kingdom that John preached about and prepared [...]

Gospel of Mark - Common Mission & Message (6:6b-30)

Mark is certainly a delicious book with all of the sandwiches he leaves throughout the narrative. We have another sandwich in Mark 6.
Crust - Jesus Sends out the Twelve (6:6b-13)
Meat - John the Baptist Beheaded (6:14-29)
Crust - The Twelve Return (6:30-30)
The inner part always illuminates the outer part. What does that have to teach us [...]

Doing Church vs. Being Church

People talk about “going to church” or what happened “at church today.” Those are all kind of misnomers. The problem is we begin to identify Christianity as the sum total of what happens in an auditorium two hours a week rather than as an identity issue of the individuals and the community of those who [...]

Thoughts from the LeadNow Conference in Orlando

Missy and I went to the LeadNow conference for leaders of 20 and 30 somethings and I have to say it was pretty phenomenal. Speakers included Dan Kimball, Donald Miller (author of Blue Like Jazz), Erwin McManus, Todd Phillips and several others. I want to deal with what was presented in several posts but first [...]

Bible Study - Seeing the Big Picture

I have always been one for details. When I study a passage I tend to break things down as small as possible. When you do that there is only so much information you can handle at a time. What is the background? Who is speaking? Where are they located and how might that affect the [...]