Wednesday is for Prayer How can we cry out for deliverance and rescue if we don’t know the precipice-like nearness of our peril? Make haste, O God, to deliver me! O Lord, make haste to help me! (Psalm 70:1) As I read the opening verse of Psalm 70, I confess I was unmoved. I couldn’t … More Desperate Need: The Key to Spiritual Growth
Thursday is for Discipleship “Lower the bar on what it means to be a church. Raise the bar on what it means to be a disciple.” –Neil Cole Whatever you think of the overall approach of Neil Cole [That’s Neil pictured on the right.] and the Organic Church movement, this mantra is hard to argue … More What Does it Mean to “Raise the Bar on What it Means to be a Disciple”?
Wednesday is for Prayer The words of Bonhoeffer, because we tend to forget what is most basic to the Christian life of humility and service. We tend to forget to “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” (Matthew 6:33) “The cross is laid on every Christian. The first Christ-suffering which every man must … More A Christian Never Lays Down His Cross.
Monday Discussion Peter K Nelson is a friend and now the pastor of a wonderful church in Goshen, Pennsylvania outside Philadelphia (my favorite and hometown city!). In 2010 he published a book on Spiritual Formation that I have found helpful and which breathes a great spirit of pastoral care. I asked Peter if he would … More Spiritual Formation: When Am I Going to be Holy?
Thursday is for Discipleship When you find something good, share it with others. Here’s a great video from Neil Cole to challenge your thinking on making disciples. This video will go by so fast, you will want to watch it twice and both times it will be a challenge to go out and make disciples. … More Sowing Seed or Seed Substitutes? The Problem We Haven’t Understood
Thursday is for Discipleship “A conversion is an experience of deep continuity and discontinuity. Although through conversion we are certainly not called to abandon the world or escape from it–Jesus insists on this in his prayer of John 17 (see v. 15)–we nevertheless recognize that there is a profound discontinuity between the values and mores … More Is a Person Converted if Their Life Does Not Change?
Thursday is for Discipleship “I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ.” —Philippians 1:12-13 Paul writes from prison and addresses the entire … More Mature Discipleship Lives for the Advance of the Gospel
Weekend Musings “But be doers of the word and not merely hearers who delude themselves.” (James 1:22) It was a problem in the first century so our problem (in the American church) is not new. Two questions: “Why do we have so many deluded Christians?” “What can we do about it?”
Friday is for Heart Songs It is almost beyond dispute that the 21st Century church in America is filled with base elements and is a shadow of what Christ would have us be in holiness and purity. We are less than what we ought to be, less than what we could be, and spiritually impoverished … More The Carnality of the American Church
Missional Living Thought Primer: Is it likely that in any church service, there are many present who have not had a life-changing conversion experience?* They may carry Bibles; they may call themselves Christ followers; they may believe they are ‘saved’; they may speak fluent “Christianese”; but they have never truly placed their trust in Christ as their atoning … More Speaking Fluent Christianese Isn’t a Substitute for Knowing Christ
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