I hope you laughed out loud when you read the above caption. I certainly did. I suppose it points out a sad truth--we know very little about discipleship.

In John 10, Jesus speaks extensively about how the good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. They know his voice, and they heed his call. 

What could perhaps be missed is that the…

When will this cursed economy ever recover? I certainly have my views on the economic and political causes of this prolonged recession, which has been the worst since the Great Depression. But whatever the causes, the effects of this economy have been devastating. 

• There has been prolonged joblessness and extended unemployment. This inability of even…

This Sunday I am speaking on "Passionately Sharing Jesus," which is part of our vision statement. We can "share Jesus," but what does it mean to "passionately" share Jesus?

Passionately sharing Jesus implies that there are other ways that Jesus can be shared. Jesus can be shared out of duty, out of obligation, or out of response to a command. These are not bad motivations. We have been commanded by Jesus to "go, make disciples" (Mt. 28:18-20). But is there…

Jesus is our model for everything, including serving others. Paul says that our attitude ought to be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who took the “very nature of a servant” (Phil. 2:5-8). Jesus lived a life of service, healing people, feeding the hungry, casting out demons, and more. 

In Matthew 20:24-28, in dealing with a selfish dispute with James and John…

As a minister, I have performed a number of weddings. And whenever marrying someone, we have to discuss what type of wedding vows they will make--traditional, an updated variation, or something they or someone else has written. All can be great (Becki and I had my older cousin and longtime minister help us write our vows). There is, however, something quite profound about the…

A couple of days ago, I wrote a blog post that highlighted some of Rodney Clapp's points about capitalism and the family in his book, Families at the Crossroads, and his chapter, "Advanced Capitalism & the Lost Art…

Before Jesus went to the cross he said to his disciples, he talked about the love that disciples ought to have for one another:

34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (Jn. 13:14-15; cf. 1 Thess. 4:9-10; 2 Thes. 1:3; Heb. 13:1; 1…

I n his excellent book, Families at the Crossroad, Rodney Clapp has a chapter entitled, "Advanced Capitalism & the Lost Art of Christian Family." Clapp points out that American families have, of course, benefited in…

I apologize to my readers for the lack of posts this week. I have had fever, a sinus infection, and bronchitis. Not fun.

Anyway, I wanted to write a bit about blessing others. The concept of blessing people in daily life is something that goes back to the Abrahamic covenant, where God blessed Abraham so that he could be a blessing to others (Gen. 12). This is…

"How are you?" 

"Busy."

That is the standard response for most of us. No one responds to this question and says, "Well, I'm not doing much of anything right now. I'm actually very unproductive." And we wear this busyness almost as a badge of honor. Kevn Vanhoozer et. al, authors of…

Those of you who follow this blog know may recall that one of our new converts, Cyndi Moncada, led us to start serving at the Divine Children Christian Center, a daycare center in East McKinney. The woman that runs this daycare center is Yalonda Moore, a woman who received a kidney transfer and because of this, dedicated her life to serving…

Earlier this year, we made a video of the story of High Pointe teen Sean Dulock during our "Harvest Sunday" (outreach giving day) presentation. In this story, Sean shared how he had become addicted to video games, and so he threw them all aw ay in preparation…

Above is a video from John Dickson, author of The Best Kept Secret of Christian Mission. In this video and book, Dickson talks about how sharing the gospel involves more than words and "presentations."…

Below are most all of the passage in John that use the word "sent." I have included all those referring to Jesus, with a few that refer to John the Baptist. (Thank you to www.Biblegateway.com for help with this.) Missio means "to send," and thus being missional is about being "sent" into the world to take up the mission of…

I just finished reading The Missional Church in Perspective, a work which outlines currents trends in thought in the missional conversation since the publication of Missional Church. It is an excellent reflective…

Today I dropped by the Divine Children Christian Center, the daycare center that one of my small groups has adopted. One of our new converts, Cyndi Moncada, used to take her kids to this daycare center. As we teach people to follow Jesus, we teach them to take up Christ's mission of seeking the lost, serving the community, and sharing the good news. So when…

One of the things that postmodernism has taught us is the important of language. Somewhere in the 1980s I can remember when politically correct language started entering into mainstream consciousness. Blacks became African-Americans. Airline stewardesses became flight attendants. Chairman became chairperson. There was a growing awareness that language shapes and sometimes…

This past week our nation narrowly avoided an economic meltdown when the US House and Senate passed a debt limit increase bill and President Obama signed it into law. The entire nation was frustrated over how long and messy this process was; however, it does give us some insight into human nature.



What does this crisis show? First, it shows…

Whenever I tell my story of how I got into ministry, I always include Let's Start Talking as part of this story. My dad left a very profitable career in industry when I was 14 years old to go to Oklahoma Christian University and help start the electrical engineering program there. It was a sacrifice, but one which my parents willingly made. They wanted to…

An article came out today on Time.com entitled "5 Reasons Borders Went Out of Business." Here is the article below. Under each point I make some commentary on how Borders' problems in some ways are paralleled in the church. My comments are in italics.





Forty years ago, when Borders opened its first store in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the book industry was a different…