Articles
Revival happening now!
"As revival closes in on the one-week mark at Asbury University, reports are circulating of other colleges and universities where revival fires have ignited. As of Tuesday, groups of students from at least 22 higher education institutions..." Read the full article...
Moving from Spiritual Insecurity to Spiritual Confidence
Spiritual Confidence Plenty of experts teach strategies to become confident in our bodies, confident in dating, confident in professional environments, confident in social settings, and more. However, few people teach us how to become spiritually confident. Since our...
How The Gospel Enables and Empowers Sexual Purity
Growing up in a churchgoing family, Kate had been taught that maintaining her sexual purity for marriage was of “utmost importance.” She had been taught many rules and regulations, but without being given any reasons for them. Having sex outside of marriage was a sin,...
The Bible’s Investment Plan
The Bible contains more than 2,300 verses that deal with money. Jesus talks about money in eleven of his thirty-nine parables. This topic matters to God. What he says in the Bible is what we’re called to live by. Invest in God’s Word first. Invest in God’s work...
Liturgical Renewal
In the aftermath of the recent fragmentation and decline of the church, a growing number of evangelicals in the United States are seeking to find identity and spiritual renewal in the retrieval of ancient church tradition for contemporary faith, especially in the area...
Doubt Your Doubts
When we are seeking to understand something as big as God, it’s normal to have doubts along the way. We don’t typically have much choice in whether we struggle with some doubts in this process, but we do make choices in how to deal with the doubt. My claim is that...
This I Believe
In every generation, we face the danger of longing for the past while fearing the future. And this mix of nostalgia and fear leads us into a state of complacency—a mission-less faith. We file in and out of the sanctuary week after week, content to recite the same...
Being and Becoming
I love the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. I realize that we live in an age where fewer are making that statement. However, I love the church. I am painfully aware that those who don’t love the church, who wish the church would disappear forever, feel that way in...
Why Are Women Leaving the Church?
Women have always attended church at higher rates than men, but that may be changing. From 2003 to 2019, women’s attendance dropped from 48 percent to 31 percent. In that same period, men’s church attendance dropped from 37 percent to 31 percent, meaning that women...
Do Christians Really Need to Attend Church?
It’s one of the most common statements you’ll hear regarding church attendance: “I don’t need church to have a relationship with God.” What’s at the heart of this contentious remark? While one can certainly “have a relationship” of some kind with God without attending...
Discipline, Discipline, Discipline
A 2007 study showed that 88 percent of people who set New Year’s resolutions failed, although 52 percent of the study’s participants were confident of success at the beginning.1 If you are tired of trying to renew your mind and get closer to God only to fail in the...
Beginning with God
One of the ways I got around sabbath-keeping for so long is that I dismissed it as “a Jewish thing” that had very little to do with me. It was certainly a nice idea, but I wasn’t convinced it was something important from God for me. I am not alone in this; it seems...
Guided By My Shepherd
I will fear no evil, for you are with me. (Psalm 23:4) Psalm 23 is a good word for every stage of our lives. In it, David reminds us that “he guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake” (Psalm 23:3). My Good Shepherd has it in his heart to guide me along the...
Self-Care and Mourning: How to Overcome Grief Without Losing Yourself in the Process
Even though all of us struggle with grief at one time or another, we all tend to feel as though we’re facing it alone – and along with the grief of missing a loved one, we often also experience chills, aches, sleeplessness, and fatigue. Some days, it may even feel...
Teaching Your Teenager to Ask Questions
Success in life is greatly impacted by how we relate to people. If teenagers do not learn positive social skills at home, where will they learn them? The reality is that many adults lose jobs, marriages, and mental health because they never learned how to relate to...
Abiding Dependence: The Central Work of Jesus
The central work of Jesus as He lived His daily life was to rest in and to stay with the Father. Jesus held to an attitude of reliance, of abiding, the Father in the Son and the Son in the Father; He breathed, lived, spoke, and moved as one with His Father. Jesus had...
Recapturing Your Calling
One obstacle that every leader confronts is discouragement. I’ve often heard something like this: “Jim, can I tell you something? I’m feeling defeated. I find myself in front of the church preaching, putting on a happy face, but inside I’m discouraged, worn down,...
Bad Motives for Productivity
I love motivational posters. You know the ones; there’s a photograph of a mountain or an eagle above a single word like “Teamwork” or “Discipline.” I find these posters humorous because they’re usually found in spaces that are completely incongruous with the scenes...
When God’s Plan Doesn’t Make Sense
It’s almost anniversary time again. I call it the death-i-versary. The date on the calendar prompts me to take notice of the reality of the fatal crash. A reminder of the motorcycle accident that ushered my husband of 28 years into heaven. Saying goodbye to a loved...
Making Room in Advent
Advent, which means “coming, or arrival,” is a gestation process. It is a season of allowing Christ to be formed in us as we also are formed in him. It is also a threshold time, a season of transition between what is and what will be. As participants in Advent then,...
