Mentoring Can Help Us Grow in Our Faith and Increase Our Impact People sometimes ask me to mentor them. I’m honored that they ask. I want to say yes. Instead, I decline as respectfully as I can. Why? It’s because God hasn’t called me to be a mentor—at least not in the traditional sense. He’s […]
We Must Do Better at Our Religious Meetings “Why do you so hate the church?” Shocked, I furrow my eyes and scowl at my friend. “I don’t hate church.” “But you’re always criticizing it in your blog.” This gives me pause. True, much of my writing about church doesn’t celebrate what she does well but […]
Some People Don’t Have Biological Offspring, but Everyone Can Have Spiritual Descendants Paul wraps up his letter to the church in Rome with a long list of people Most of these names stream past our eyes as unfamiliar. We’re tempted to skim. But slow down. Consider Rufus (Romans 16:13). That name only appears in one […]
Celebrating the Spirituality of Everyday Life Are You a Spiritual Person? What parts of your life are spiritual? Sorry. Trick question. All parts of our lives are spiritual. Seriously. It’s just that most people don’t know it. Most people think of church as a spiritual activity and everything else is not, as in secular. They […]
Why We Shouldn’t Join a Church A few decades ago American Express unveiled the tagline: “Membership has its privileges.” Their ads implied that great benefits awaited those who qualified to carry one of their exclusive cards. To start, there was a high annual fee and, as I understand, minimal annual levels of usage for their […]
Today’s destination is a charismatic church. We’ve not been to many so I’m excited for the experience. Consider these four discussion questions about Church #34: 1. We arrive ten minutes early. With only two cars in the lot, my anticipation sags. We walk in, surprising six people who aren’t expecting visitors—or anyone else. Yet Jesus […]
The Holy Scriptures Are So Much More than a Sacred Icon or Guidebook for Living I revere the Bible. Every morning I reserve time to read its words and study its meaning. It informs who I am and reforms what I do. It exposes me to God and his ways. This is why I love […]
Discussing Church 2 The church is three years old and meets in a strip mall. Their goal is to “grow deeper, not wider.” Everything about this church is the opposite of last week. Consider these four church discussion questions for Church #2: 1. I park near the door. I later realize they leave the prime […]
Carefully Choose the Messages You Hear I listen to a lot of podcasts each week. Since I work at home and my wife doesn’t, I often eat lunch by myself. This is an ideal time to listen to podcasts. I also listen when I take my daily walk—at least each day when the weather is […]
Be Careful Who You Invite into Your Life Who influences you? Who are the people that guide your decisions and inform your perspectives? We must be careful who we let into this most critical mental space of our lives, for if we are unwise in who we let shape our sensibilities, we risk letting others […]