A Case Study in Church Discipline Leaving for a week of vacation in South Carolina with my brother Karl and his wife Dawn. Stephnie and I are looking forward to spending time together with two of our favorite people in all the world. We haven’t had a week off in some time and for the … More Church Discipline: A Case Study
Jesus didn’t say he would make us cooks. (Nothing against cooks!) He said he would make us fishers of men. To follow him means that we fish for men. A discipleship process that by-passes the start of the process misunderstands the whole process. For more see: We’ve Got Discipleship All Wrong.
Thursday is for Making Disciples [Update: Don, who asked the question that started this blog post, now lives in heaven. I look forward to seeing him again.] I had just finished recording the message for this past Sunday and our second campus when Don (he always says “from Tennessee”) asked an important question. The message he … More Changing the Conversation with Your Neighbor
Thursday is for Discipleship Yesterday you led a friend to Christ. It was a genuine conversion. He saw his sin. He saw his Savior. He desired the Kingdom and when it all came together, he embraced the King and the Kingdom, repented of his sin and placed his faith in the resurrected Christ and His … More So He Converted. Now What? (or What do you feed an infant Christian?)
I am working on a seminar I will be doing on at the Great Lakes District Conference of the Evangelical Free Church. I’ve been asked to do a seminar on taking the gospel into our neighborhoods. I thrill to this type of seminar, because … I know that the people who show up really want … More Making Jesus a Live Issue Behind Every Door in Your Community
Our Big Problem For some time I have been convinced that a big problem in the American Church is that we have a mindset that implies that Jesus can be added to our already basically intact worldview. I am convinced this is a faulty way of thinking about discipleship. Jesus doesn’t want to be added … More Stop Adding Jesus to Your Life!
Monday is for Discussion Terry Ivy, a friend with a fantastic ministry training church planters via the internet in India, wrote a great post titled What Kind of Leaders are We Creating? Recently, I have had some opportunity to reflect on both his post and my response to it through some men that I’m mentoring. … More Eight Ways to Develop Young Leaders
Thursday is for Discipleship 1 After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to go. 2 And he said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord … More “Deadliest Catch™” Knows More About Making Disciples than We Do!
Tuesday is for Teaching Pastoring a multi-staff church and multi-site churches and consulting with similar churches and other pastors, I am periodically drawn into the forest of a church’s counseling load. And in many instances, you see the people of God falling into the same traps and unproductive paths of thinking that sabotage real progress … More The Right Thing Is Not Always the Effective Thing.
Today is for Discipleship It is hard to imagine a more straightforward and simple attempt to tell others about the Savior. Jesus calls Philip. Philip follows. First opportunity he gets, Philip runs to tell Nathanael that he has found the Savior. He feels compelled to tell Nathaniel about having found the one who is the … More Evangelistic Simplicity
