Today’s Quote – Ministry (Petersen)

Jim Petersen, Church Without Walls: The history of the church, from God’s perspective, is a history of the Holy Spirit using little people. It consists of a mustard seed here and there, some yeast hidden in dough or a seed in the ground. Not many wise or influential people are included. Rather, it has been […]

Leadership questions

What makes a good leader? What makes a good leader in a home? In his outstanding and classic book, Spiritual Leadership (purchase the original edition, if you can find it), Oswald Sanders asks a series of questions that reveal the character of a natural leader. They are good questions for all leaders — whether they […]

Today’s Quote – Church (Guinness)

Os Guinness, No God But God: The overwhelming majority of Americans, more than 85%, identify themselves as Christians. But if the statistical indicators of faith are up, the social influence is down, and the reasons are becoming plain. There has been a carelessness about Christian orthodoxy, a corruption of Christian obedience, a vacuum of Christian […]

Today’s Quote – Family (Younts)

John Younts, Everyday Talk: The purpose of the family is 1) to maintain and nourish the one-flesh relationship between husband and wife, and 2) to prepare children to leave the home of their parents and establish their own homes.

The kind of Father God is

I didn’t have time to develop this thought fully in my sermon yesterday morning, but here are some Scriptures to stimulate your thinking about the kind of Father God is to His children: He is compassionate toward our needs (whether it is sin or difficulty; 2 Thess. 2:16-17) We are recipients of His mercy — […]

Sunday Leftovers (9/13/09)

I fell in love while I was in seminary. Twice. It was while I was matriculating in preparation for ministry that I met Raye Jeanne, fell in love and we married. And during those same years of study, I fell in love with another woman — the bride of Christ — the church. I hadn’t […]

Today’s Quote – Church (Wells)

David Wells, The Bleeding of the Evangelical Church: [In today’s church,] The importance of theology is eclipsed by the clamor for management skills, biblical preaching by entertaining story-telling, godly character by engaging personality, and the work of the ministry by the art of sustaining a career. I believe that these are all unhappy exchanges.

Today’s Quote – Church (Swindoll)

Charles Swindoll, Rise and Shine: The depth of a church is determined by its quality of worship and instruction.…the breadth of a church is determined by its commitment to fellowship and evangelism.

Help for reading through the Bible

A couple years ago, our church read through the Bible over 66 Sundays by reading the key chapter in each book of the Bible. To help our body understand the context in which these chapters were written, we provided some basic background information, which we then posted on the church website. That information has now […]

Updated pages

It’s been a while, but I’ve just updated the “Current Reading List” and “Recently on my iPod” pages.

Today’s Quote – Church (Beecher)

Henry Ward Beecher, quoted in Dynamics of Spiritual Gifts (McRae): The church is not a gallery for the exhibition of eminent Christians, but a school for the education of imperfect ones, a nursery for the care of the weak ones, a hospital for the healing of those who need assiduous care.

Another view of God’s creation

This morning Al Mohler overviewed new photographs that have been provided by the Hubble telescope. These photographs are astounding representations of the vastness of the created world. Every time I see something like this, I am reminded of the words of the psalmist: When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon […]

Today’s Quote – Reconciliation (Chafer)

Lewis Sperry Chafer, Major Bible Themes: The concept in reconciliation is not that God changes, but that His relationship to man changes because of the redeeming work of Christ. Man himself is forgiven, justified, and raised spiritually to the level where he is reconciled to God. The thought is not that God is reconciled to […]

Today’s Quote – Peace with God (Piper)

John Piper, What Jesus Demands from the World: Our peace does not come from our removing the God of wrath from our thinking, but from his removing his wrath from us. He has done that by sending Jesus to die in our place so that, for everyone who believes in Jesus, God’s wrath is taken […]

A final thought about reconciliation

Sunday’s sermon continues to resonate in my mind as I ponder the effect of God’s reconciling work in believers. From the first weeks of my pastorate, many years ago now, until today, I am burdened by those in the church body who are not reconciled to one another. In sincerity (and sinful foolishness) I have […]