Skip to main content

Popular posts from this blog

Teaching the Story Arc of the Bible

Each of the Journey campuses has started teaching a gospel class - a class that answers basic questions about following Christ and being a member in our church. This class has attracted a large number of people who are "peaking over the fence" - checking this whole Christianity thing out. That is both exciting and challenging. It gives us the chance to share the Bible with people who don't necessarily come to it with faith - as well as challenge those who do trust the Bible to get on mission with us. Our first lesson was on the story arc of the Bible - what is referred to as the diachronic view of scripture. Simply put, it is a way of looking at scripture as a complete story - with one major primary theme: God in Jesus reconciling the world to himself. Teaching a diachronic view of scripture to postmodern culture, though, presents some unique challenges. In prepping to teach, I wrote out the following thoughts. I would be glad to get any thoughts you have on this to

Milestones Ministry Discipline Forum Audio

In 2007, I taught a parenting forum at The Journey .  I posted the audio for that forum here, but The Journey has since cleaned up their media archives and this forum was taken down.  For some reason, though, this blog entry continues to be one of the most popular on my site. So, in an attempt to offer something of value, I am going to update this blog to reflect some of the best information we explored at that forum years ago.  Many blessings to you in your parenting journey. ..... Too often we as parents discipline out of wrong motives or for wrong goals. We want others to think we have it all together. We don't want to embarrassed in public places. We sure don't want to look like those "other" parents who have no control over their kids. How do we enter into parenting with true humility and raise "good" kids who are no more than legalistic moralists or moral relativists? The gospel tells us that we are both more broken and sinful than we care

The Gospel, Faith, and Asking Jesus into Your Heart

Kelly, our wonderful  Trailhead Kids leader, sent me a link to a great blog over at Sojourn Church.  It is titled " 9 Reasons not to Ask Jesus into your Heart ."  You should read it because it is clear, succinct, and right. I am not a fan of asking Jesus into your heart.  I am not a fan of committing your life to Christ or making him Lord of your life or asking Jesus to be your friend, either.  Strange thing for a pastor to say, right?  Wrong. After I became a believer and started working in a Christian high school, I came to see just how short those kinds of sayings fall from leading people to the real gospel.  As a new believer (and a lover of all things English), I loved my job, most of the things about my school, and, of course, my students.  One of the key frustrations I had, though, was that so many of my students claimed to follow Jesus but so few of them seemed to know him or love him. So, about two months into the school year, I decided to have the students wr