I’m re-reading Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership: Seeking God in the Crucible of Ministry by Ruth Haley Barton for the third time in 2015. No book has brought such transformational change to my leadership and walk with Christ as this one. I’ll be doing a full review of the book later this week. Here’s […]
How to Be Free from Pornography
I recently met with a friend of mine who is a new Christian. He’s in his mid 20’s and has a pretty incredible testimony—giving his life to Christ after an upbringing of abuse, drugs, crime and promiscuity. I asked him what areas of his life he still needed to surrender to Christ and his answer […]
Why Churches Should Not Publicly Observe Mother’s Day
At church growing up, they would always have all moms stand up and then ushers would walk around and give each mom a carnation. While I understand the heart behind this, there are several significant reasons this and other Mother’s Day observations / celebrations should not be done in church: 1. Many women have had […]
Podcast Interview with Baltimore Pastor Chris Lockemy on Race, Riots
Episode #4 of the “Behind the Curtain” Ministry Podcast is here! In this episode, I interview Pastor Chris Lockemy from Epic Church in Baltimore, MD. Chris planted his church in 2005 and gives an on the ground “Behind the Curtain” look at the Baltimore riots from the perspective of a white church planting pastor who […]
God is not Pro-Israel or Pro-America, He is Pro-God
Two Scripture passages jumped out at my from my sermon this past Sunday that go in the face of some popular thinking amongst American Christians. The first was Joshua 5:13-15. The Israelites have just entered the Promised Land after their 40 years of wandering and are preparing to do battle against the wicked civilizations within […]
Being “Gutsy” for God or Simply Wrong and Offensive
Within the past year I’ve told God I’ll say anything he wants me to say, no matter how scary or counter-cultural, as long as I know it’s from him. If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you know I write about a lot of (what some might call) “gutsy” things for a pastor such […]