Prayer – Lighting the Night With Joy (Part 1)
Nehemiah served as the cupbearer to the king in the court of Artaxerxes. One day, preoccupied with bad news from home, he was caught by the king wearing a sad expression on his face. This exposure filled him with great fear. “So the king said to me, ‘Why is your face sad though you are
Making Family Traditions
Christians have done an admirable job of cooperative training of our children. We have banded together to organize Sunday schools, Vacation Bible Schools, midweek clubs, membership classes, camps, and Bible clubs. However, in our keenness to adopt the schooling model for Christian education, we often overlook the great value of non-formal means of passing on
Baseball and the Baptist
I grew up with baseball. I was thinking, maybe we could reach more baseball fans if we used their terminology. Sometimes we are guilty of using Christian “shop talk” that the unbeliever does not understand. Without further explanation, the following is an attempt to “relate” to all those baseball fans out there. Batting Practice Also
M is For Maverick (Part 1)
Certain people in history say or do something special or different and as a result they become eponyms. An eponym is a person whose name is in the dictionary because that name has a special meaning based on something significant in a person’s life. For example, the word “doily” comes from the Doily family in
Prayer: Team Up and Take Down
One of my earliest athletic experiences involved a brief career as a junior high wrestler in the 89 lb. weakling weight class. Brief as it was, my time on the mat taught me an unforgettable lesson. Three minutes is an eternity when your face is buried in the armpit of a pungent pre-teen who has
But God
When children are small, they seem to have a curious fascination with climbing things. Perhaps there is a sense of power with climbing to unreachable heights, or a deep sense of fulfillment with the accomplishment of the impossible. Whatever the case, the greater challenge is not discovered in the climb, but rather in the descent.
It Takes Guts!
Many of you write to me each week about things besides the issues I raise in this column. In reading your email I often remark to myself, ‘Boy, ministry today takes guts.’ How do you do it? Some of you make bungee jumping look easy. Sure, there are plenty of pastors making big compromises and
Strange But True
I have a friend who has a great statement regarding the church and ministry. When we are talking about something that is just beyond belief, he says, A I can ‘ t make up the stuff I know. ” I’ve had some weird encounters in my time. Every preacher has at least one A truth
The Believer: The Glory Of Surrender Part 2
James emphasized to us the glory of suffering. James would say to us, “Be willing to suffer and don’t worry about the future. Never worry about what God has planned. It is all in His good and gracious hand. But just be willing to suffer for the Lord Jesus.” We should not suffer because we
Will the Male Leadership Please Stand?
I’m sitting here as I type, wondering how in the world I, as a 25-year-old female research assistant, have any authority to admonish pastors and ministry leaders. But, when your pastor (and co-founder of 2ProphetU) asks you to do something, you say, “Yes, sir.” However, a conversation this afternoon in his office sparked this article,
Refresh My Memory…Please!
“Do this in remembrance of me!” –Jesus Along with my receding hairline, one of the side effects of the aging process has been my fading memory. I’ll be in mid-sentence and suddenly become stumped by the loss of an essential piece of information stopping me dead in my tracks. Someone once described this to me
Is Pastoring Harder Today?
There seem to be a lot of churches anxious to dump their pastor this year. And an almost-equal number of pastors confess to being ‘half-burned out’ and are looking for a way of escape. Perhaps I’m hearing about the worst cases, but it sure looks like pastoring is tougher than it was 40 years ago.