Illustrating Truth
As pastors, we yearn for the perfect sermon illustrations and stories to add clarity, profoundness and entertainment to the spiritual truths we are trying to portray. Yet we sometimes are too hasty in...
View ArticleThe Leadership Lie
It’s time that we told the truth about leadership.John Maxwell, along with many others, is commonly known for teaching and writing about the idea that leadership equals influence. But, lately I’ve been...
View ArticleWomen are the Weaker Sex ... and Stuff
“Women are the weaker sex.” I have heard it before in locker rooms and get-togethers where men only are involved. Surely it is meant to reassure themselves that they are important, but it has always...
View ArticleAn Unlimited Future
We have the capacity to influence others in tremendous ways. In fact, no matter how old we are, how messed up we’ve been or how many resources we lack, the one area of unlimited potential for us...
View ArticleFighting the Fear
Twenty-six. That’s when it usually happens. It’s often earlier for women and later for men, but somewhere between the ages of 20 and 32, the human animal loses its mind. The carefree swagger and...
View ArticleTo Give or To Lend
Micro-lending, it is called. It offers small loans to peasants in underdeveloped countries to assist them in growing their grass-roots businesses. Like $50 to a woman in Nicaragua who makes...
View ArticleRight-Brain Preaching
Let me come right out and say it: The future belongs to right-brain leaders and right-brain communicators. I’m neither a brain surgeon nor the son of a brain surgeon, but my bookshelves are filled with...
View ArticleGiving People What They Need
What do you hope to see happen in the men and women in your young adult group? Freedom? Healing? Transformation? What is it you want for them? A second chance? A new life? Fresh hope?Of course you...
View ArticleThe What Now
More than two and a half years have gone by since I wrote “I Stand for You,” and I’m beginning to reevaluate what I wrote. On that early April morning up on my roof in Durban, South Africa, it all made...
View ArticleThe Necessity of Boredom
For those of us who plan worship experiences, one of our biggest fears is that people will walk away unmoved, unchanged or unimpressed. We all wish that we were secure enough to believe that simply...
View ArticleCrazy Muhammad
My dad’s name is Sead because his family is Muslim. My mom’s name is Marta because her family is Christian. My family lived in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which meant we were all...
View ArticleA Way to Draw More Christians Back to Church?
When my husband, Jim, and I went to Zimbabwe, we had fellowship on the spot with a man named Bekele who explained to us painful details of his personal testimony, even though we had all just met. We...
View ArticleThe Truth of the Kingdom
In the last decade, a rising generation was begun using a new language for its faith. Instead of using terms like “getting saved” or “being justified,” this generation finds itself attracted to Jesus’...
View ArticleThe Ancient/Future Dilemma
In an old gothic church in south London, images of the city are projected on white sheets that surround a worship space. The images are gritty and urban—towerblocks and street scenes. On the floor is a...
View ArticleGoing All In With Commitment-phobes
So the other day I had to change my cell phone carrier. Before I could gain the nerve to sign a two-year AT&T contract, I found myself explaining to the sales assistant how I opt for reoccurring...
View ArticleWhen Does Relevance Become Irrelevant?
Unfortunately, I think our inability to shape culture—and, instead, play catch-up with culture—through philosophies of relevance is the result of having the wrong types of people leading key positions...
View ArticleThe End of "I Don't Know"
Today, a song came on the radio that I didn’t know. I held my iPhone next to the car door speaker and used Shazam to identify the artist and title of the song. Just like that, I knew what I wanted to...
View ArticleThe Numbers Game
For several years I attended, with eager zeal, a Protestant evangelical megachurch. I heard repeated periodically in these circles a maxim: “It’s not about numbers.” Leaders of this congregation would...
View ArticleAre You What You Sing?
Will we create and advocate for epic, melodic and popular musical composition with catchy hooks, or will we let the creative musical element subside and choose songs primarily based on the depth of...
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