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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 de...

Thoughts on the Church being the Church

So, a strange thought came to me in the shower the other day. Being a pastor is like being a Chinese buffet. Everyone shows up with different and specific expectations and everyone walks away disappointed. This thought didn't come to me because I was feeling sorry for myself, because I'm not. I love what I do because of who I do it for (Jesus), and I have no internal need to meet everyone's expectations of me. My job is to please the one who loved me and called me to himself. (And, awesome thought, he is already pleased with me and will continue to be because I am covered with Christ, the delight of God!) The thought actually came to me as I was thinking about how the church today has lost the experience of being the church. O ur cultural Christianity has essentially taken all the “one another's” of scripture and robbed them of their community experience. Like Colossians 3:16. It says Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching a...

Why we should boycott boycotts

I found out that the AFA (American Family Association) has called for a boycott of McDonald's (you can read about it here ) because McDonald's has joined the national Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. I, as a family-friendly, socially-moderate, theologically-conservative follower of Jesus, think we should boycott this boycott. Why? Because I like McDonald's fries. OK, not really. I actually do not like Mickey-D's and haven't eaten there in years. The real reason is that I think the boycott is counter productive to actually advancing the gospel in our culture. Boycotts, and more importantly the mindset behind them, are actually turning the cultural tide against the progress of the gospel. The AFA clearly sees this as a battle in a culture war. On the AFA’s boycott website , they state: “[This boycott] is about McDonald's, as a corporation, refusing to remain neutral in the culture wars. McDonald's has chosen not to remain neutral but to ...

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