When he was four years old, my wife and I began to zero-in on the uniqueness of our firstborn son. Matthew’s peculiar patterns started to emerge with greater clarity and confusion, leading two concerned parents into the doctor’s office for testing and evaluation. Learning about Asperger’s Syndrome has been an education. But not just about […]
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The “Useless” Feeling – Part 1
Why do Christians feel useless? Two very interesting ideas pop immediately into my head. First, many believers have never experienced mission success. One day while training a small group on evangelistic engagement, I asked the members what would help them grow in faith-sharing confidence. One guy replied, “Actually reaching someone.” His honesty was poignant and […]
Continue readingMore TagThe Parable of the Point
The Bible teacher charges his people to take the gospel to the world. Metaphorically speaking, each person gathered gets handed a spear. The spear is the only weapon they have at their personal disposal to use for the gospel. Yet something’s wrong. The spear has no point. The shaft is plenty balanced and strong, yet […]
Continue readingMore TagTime Magazine’s Take on the Church . . . Right or Wrong?
This March, Time Magazine ran a one page titled: Preach Like Your Faith Depends on IT. Written by Religion editor, Tom Meacham (I googled his name and discovered that Tom is from the Episcopal Church with many academic writing credits to his name). You don’t always see a page like this in a major magazine; […]
Continue readingMore TagSoul Whisperer Released!
In late February, Wipf and Stock Publishers officially released the book. With this being my first, we have learned that both the publishing and marketing processes take time. Several weeks after the release, the Kindle edition was posted on Amazon, and then weeks after that—the paperback was made available with chapter previews. We also learned […]
Continue readingMore TagThe Gospel Key Live!
Mission can be excitedly unpredictable! During a recent new believers course, God showed up in an unexpected way. Brittany, one of our new believers, knowing we would be discussing outreach, took the initiative to bring her not-yet-believing friend, Jocelyn. In this session, we introduced “the gospel key” (a method I teach on how to speak […]
Continue readingMore TagRemaking Culture
It is so easy to slam the church and Christian culture. But the challenge is changing it. One of the real treasures that arrived on bookshelves this past year is Culture Making, by Andy Crouch. Weighing in on the dynamics with culture, he writes, “You can’t merely repudiate culture. If you are serious about changing […]
Continue readingMore TagPeer Learning
One of the ways to increase faith-sharing effectiveness is to allow Christians to learn from each other. Peer or “experienced based” learning gives others a chance to hear about “live” interactions. It takes us away from irrelevant didactic teaching and moves us into the more intuitive skills of relating. Forming a missions group in your […]
Continue readingMore TagRealigning Dreams
In the famous first calling of the disciples, Jesus the carpenter meets fisherman on their turf (Luke 5:1–11). Bypassing conversation about boards, nails and hammers, he offers a simple invitation to fish, once more. It is just the fact that Jesus fulfills their greatest fishing dream that makes his call so compelling. How many times […]
Continue readingMore TagSoul Whispering Snapshot: Parkor
Sitting down to watch American Ninja Warrior with my son, I picked up a new term: Parkor. My son embellished its street-running pedigree describing it as, “Traveling the distance between two points in a way that is most complicated.” Did you, like me, have trouble wrapping your head around this concept? It is a cross-training […]
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