Articles
Finding Peace in Life’s Uncertainties
How’s your way working? I know a lot of different readers have a lot of different things going on in their lives. I’m just wondering how your way is working for you? I know some of you are married, but a lot of you aren’t married. What if you never get married? Have...
Unlocking the Power of Redemptive Leadership
A charismatic leader in a church with a wide influence on the various assistant pastors, directors, and small group leaders used his influence too often in unChristian ways. He had an eye for who “fit” and who had the “DNA.” He also perceived those who disagreed with...
3 Mistakes Churches Make in Prayer Ministries
Okay, you’ve read and heard this verse many times. But let’s read it closely and carefully one more time: “All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer” (Acts...
The Megachurch Down the Road Is . . . Fading?
This topic surfaces in almost every church consultation or interview we do. People in smaller churches believe that megachurches have taken—or “stolen” as they often say—their families. The matriarch in one interview certainly thought so. She named almost a dozen...
Ministering to Married Couples in Crisis
Practically everywhere we turn today, we find someone we care about experiencing some sort of marital crisis. And the fallout does not just impact the couple themselves. Children, extended family, church community, and overall cultural health are all negatively...
How Social Media Changes Us
Social media likely shapes the people you love and disciple more than you do. What are you going to do about it? I think there are, simply speaking, two wrong ways to approach social media: 1) uncritical embrace and 2) passive ignorance. These are two ends of a...
Embracing Advent: A Season of Yearning and Anticipation
As the calendar year winds down, as the days darken and grow short, as Christmas songs spill from crowded stores and children set about making wish lists for Santa, the church’s year dawns. On the fourth Sunday before Christmas, Advent begins. The first day of Advent...
Don’t Wait Until You “Have Time” to Develop Healthy Habits
It’s easy to believe that once you graduate, get married, get a better job, settle down, or [insert whatever other milestone you’re hoping to reach next], you will have more time to focus on Bible study, prayer, and other spiritual disciplines. Quite the opposite is...
Engaging God through All Things
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made. John 1:1–3 I’ve never been much of an empirical thinker. While I was growing up, the languages of physics, chemistry,...
What Does Christian Meditation Look Like?
What does the word meditation mean to you? Some see it as spiritually dangerous or discount it as simply not for them. In reality, meditation has deep roots in the Christian faith. Psalm 1 sets a precedent for Christians regarding meditation. Originally written as an...
A Way of Life Developed in God’s Freedom
There are moments when a single truth seems to cry out for focused proclamation. For me one of these moments came in the early 1980s; freedom in Christ seemed the truth in need of focus. When I looked at the people I was living with as pastor—fairly affluent, well...
Discovering Your Inherent Worth
As I’ve wrestled with understanding my own worth, I’ve heard a lot of self-positivity messages reminding me no matter my body type, job, parenting style, or social status, I’m valuable and “worth it.” In many ways, it’s refreshing. We see posts on social media or even...
Understanding the Process of Recovery
Recovery isn’t a fixed state; it’s a process. Recovery isn’t a destination. If you’re “in recovery,” you’re on a journey whose direction of travel is toward self-direction, health and well-being, and the fulfillment of your potential. In recovery, we develop the...
Unlocking Joy through Brain Science
A few years ago, I (Chris) wrote a book with neuroscience specialist Dr. Jim Wilder, addiction recovery specialist Ed Khouri, and educator Sheila Sutton called Joy Starts Here. In our book we describe joy this way. Joy is the twinkle in someone’s eyes, the smile from...
We live in a political world.
That is the opening line to Bob Dylan’s 1989 song “Political World.” The poet laureate of rock ’n’ roll ends the song with these lines: We live in a political world / Everything is hers or his / Climb into the frame and shout God’s name / But you’re not even sure what...
A Remnant Among the Ruins
The hot Haitian sun beat down on our metal tap tap as we bounced along the dirt road of a small town just outside Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. My hands wrapped around the metal bars, I squinted into the high noon sun as we came to a slow stop, our driver pointing towards a...
Music is Spiritual
In 1 Chr. 25:1, the Chronicler recorded that, “David and the chiefs of the service also set apart for the service the sons of Asaph, and of Heman, and of Jeduthun, who prophesied with lyres, with harps, and with cymbals.” And again, in verse 3, the Chronicle mentioned...
What makes a community thrive?
As Christian leaders, we tend to assume we already know what thriving communities are; we then simply go looking for instances in Scripture that confirm our knowledge and agenda. Over time, we cease learning from Scripture how to think and instead use it as a tool to...
The Church’s Imperfections and the Captivating Call of Jesus
Lord knows how many times I have tossed churchly keys and thrown myself on a couch of religious despair. I have felt the expansive loneliness of not being able to turn apprehension about the church into prayer. I’ve been embroiled in the ups and downs of church my...
Don’t Preach a Sermon on Giving!
Preach a series of sermons on giving. In my twenty years as a senior pastor, I learned that a stand-alone sermon on stewardship, even if preached twice a year, had little impact on people's giving. But the first year I preached a four-week series on the biblical...
