Church
Love Does Indeed
I am presently at a conference called THRIVE in Northern California, hosted by Bayside Church. Yesterday Bob Goff of Love Does fame spoke. Here is his deal if you don’t know. He is one of the most inspiring people you could ever meet. I had the privilege of hanging out with him a couple of years ago…
Read MoreAre All Religions True?
One of the things modern people often say about different religions is that ‘they are all basically the same’: they teach about being a good person, about a higher being of some sort, but all lead to the same place – just different paths to the same thing. While this position sounds good, we must…
Read MoreHow You Can Change in 2017
This is long post. I like to write four or five paragraph blog posts because I know our attention spans are short, but I also wanted all of this info in one spot. So here is a post that I think will be helpful for the New Year! The best book I read this year…
Read MoreOvercoming the Monster: What Story Are You Telling?
In Christopher Booker’s book The Seven Basic Plots, he outlines the fact that every story we tell ourselves as human beings – since the beginning of time, whether around the campfire or in a big budget superhero movie – all fit into seven basic categories: 1 – Overcoming the Monster – The protagonist sets out to defeat an…
Read MoreWhy Church Leaders Need To Stop Hanging Out With Each Other
It is pure invention that popes, bishops, priests, and monks are to be called the ‘spiritual estate’; princes, lords, artisans and farmers the ‘temporal estate’. That is a fine bit of lying and hypocrisy. -Martin Luther (1483-1546) I love my friends who work in churches (pastors, directors, etc.,) but I have come to realize that…
Read MoreQ & A Friday: Is there a profile for a church planter?
Hey Mark. I was looking for some advice on church planting. I feel a strong call to plant a church in my city. I was just wondering how do I know if I am called and gifted to start and lead a church? This is a delicate question for two reasons. First, because I don’t…
Read MoreTransformation Trios: how they work & the 15 questions.
In light of another pastor/leader I admired years ago having moral failure and being removed from ministry this week by his church, on Sunday I talked about the accountability that I was pursuing in my personal life to help me grow closer to Jesus devotionally, and to help guard against sin and temptation in my…
Read MoreDebunking myths: the church is against science!
If you go back through history, the church and science were at times at odds with one another; those disagreements, however, have been gravely exaggerated. When atheists speak of the church’s persecution of scientists, we hear stories of people being burned at the stake for scientific theories; we hear about Galileo, Copernicus and Giordano Bruno…
Read MoreHow serving makes us like Jesus
People generally want resurrection without cross. People want to see a great movement of God without personal sacrifice. But that’s not the way it works. When you study revivals and renewal movements throughout history, they have great healings, miracles and social reform, but they are also coupled with great suffering. And one thing that often…
Read MoreBe Humble. Stay Hungry. Always Hustle.
I am reading a book right now by Brad Lomenick (a leadership consultant and founder of Catalyst) called H3 Leadership. The thesis is simple. Good leadership takes 3 ingredients: Be Humble. Stay Hungry. Always Hustle. I shared these three concepts with our staff last week. If you are a leader, pastor, church planter, business leader,…
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