In one of my training classes a college student inquired about how to reach his highly ambitious friend. How could he talk to a person who is driven for success? Does the gospel have appeal to someone like him? So, we sat and deliberated for a time about his dream-driven mentality. Soon, ideas began to percolate about where conversations […]
The question of seeing God’s ultimate leading in our lives has profound ramifications. This second part (Part 1) espouses on the weathervane words of Jesus in John 3: “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born […]
I asked my dad to take this photo, because lo and behold the weathervane above me is one of my own creations (7th grade metal shop). To this day, it still works. I don’t know what it was that led me to choose that project, an instrument to detect the way the wind is blowing, […]
Standing by a melting glacier (Alaska) felt like a profound experience. Huge geological forces like these have a way of setting my mind in motion on what they illustrate metaphorically. As a mission guy, I could not resist penning some paralleling thoughts on today’s shrinking North American church. Like global warming, we should not close […]
Recently, I have had three pastors convey how unfruitful their church has been evangelistically. One was candid enough to admit that their 120 plus church had not reached even one person with the gospel—all year. The other two scenarios were not much better. When you see inclose what is actually happening (or not happening), the tale that I […]
While posting the Soul Whisperer YouTube series, one routine comment that we have gotten prompted this blog. At times, Christians on Facebook will see our appeal for mission training and reply: “We just need to follow the Spirit.” Let me be quick to affirm that following the Spirit’s lead is a biblical concept and applies to all conversations, and it appears to […]
Not to be confused with the God figure of C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, Reza Aslan is the author of the 2014 New York Times bestselling book on Jesus called Zealot. Through his revisionist eyes, readers will be led to believe that the New Testament writers with full-hearted intention got the story all wrong. Jesus is […]
Blog recipients: To supplement one of our YouTube videos, we linked this chapter from Soul Whisperer. Enjoy! — Chapter 18 — PERSPECTIVE SHIFTS The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see. —WINSTON CHURCHILL I don’t know if this reflects a masochistic desire for pain, or sheer stupidity, but I […]
Paul and the Gospel: There are so many things to learn from God’s chosen “instrument” to the Gentiles (Acts 9:15). What a calling! When God looked down from heaven, it might seem like he chose the wrong guy. Yet we know in God’s infinite wisdom, this was no mistake. God saw in Paul many things that […]
Meditating on the story of the adulterous woman caught and corralled by a religious stone-throwing community, I puzzled over why the Gospel writer captured the detail, “But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger” (John 8:6). Initially, I surmised that it was just one of those mindless actions that had […]