-
Owning My Place in Church with Integrity
To finish our January series, “Stronger Me, Stronger Church”, I want to talk about a fundamental part of church life: integrity. Integrity could be described as wholeness of character. It is being who you say you are at all times, regardless of whether you are being watched or not. Merriam Webster defines integrity as firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values: incorruptibility. Being a person of integrity means that your yes is a yes and your no is a no, regardless of circumstances. Jesus put it this way: “But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.”…
-
Learning to Receive Feedback and Offer Forgiveness
Welcome to part three of the mini series “Stronger Me, Stronger Church”. Today we will talk about feedback. Some months back I heard of a consulting group that visited organizations and taught people to give better feedback. After years, they noticed that while it helped, it wasn’t fully successful. So they shifted their approach, and began teaching people not to give better feedback, but how to better receive feedback. They saw more positive changes in the organizations they helped when they created this shift. I want to say that in this article I talk about feedback that is given with a mostly well-intentioned heart and in a relatively healthy environment.…
-
What’s the Difference Between Being Discipled and Becoming a Discipler?
“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” – Matthew 28:19, NIV Followers of Jesus are called to make disciples, not followers. There is a key difference here that I want to highlight in part two of our series, “Stronger Me, Stronger Church.” What Did the Original Disciples Do? First, let’s examine what Jesus’s disciples actually did. In Jewish culture, it was customary for men of different trades to take on apprentices. These apprentices would study under their master and learn to do the same work the master did. Similarly, Rabbis (or teachers…
-
What Are You Expecting From Your Church?
Aligning My Expectations People walk into a church for various reasons. Some are seeking answers, truth, hope, or healing. Others are there out of curiosity, habit, or religious duty. A few walk in desperately hungry for God. However a person may come, most of them have one thing in common: expectations. When people cross that door, they come with an idea of what church should look like or be. This works until they’ve been crossing that door for years. No matter what their expectations were at first, later on they will dictate whether they are thriving church members, or bitter and critical seat warmers. The Importance of Aligning Our Expectations…
-
Advent Reflections: Hope (Have You Lost It?)
Happy December! Tis the season for Christmas, but with it also comes much reflection and thought. For many, this is a month full of joy and expectation, surrounded by family and friends. For others, this month is poignant, bringing to mind the wilted dreams, the disappointments, and the loss of hope. And yet, when all hope was lost, Christ came to birth new hope within us. Come with me and think back upon that first Christmas. God had been silent for over four hundred years. There had been no prophet nor sign from heaven in what felt like forever. Israel’s hopes in a savior who would deliver them and restore…
-
The Turning of the Soil: When God Disrupts to Prepare
What do you do when life turns topsy-turvy? While talking with some friends in my small group, we realized that most of us are currently experiencing a stretching in our relationship with the Lord and our daily lives. We’ve all been feeling this odd tension, where things that used to be perfectly fine are no longer working quite the same. There’s this feeling of discomfort, that the places where we felt steady and established are suddenly not so deep rooted as we thought and there’s this nudging in our hearts that Holy Spirit is calling us higher. As I reflected upon this, I realized that this is what God does…
-
Between the Promise and the Breakthrough
“But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.” – Romans 8:25, NKJV I wonder how many times Abraham felt like giving up. He was promised a great family who would fill the earth and yet year after year went by with no sign of even one child. Or even the entire nation of Israel, wandering in the wilderness waiting to someday enter the fabled promised land God had promised generations ago. What about David before becoming king? He’d been promised a glorious kingdom, and yet he’d spent years upon years in the wilderness, running for his very life and eventually taking…
-
The Roadmap to the Christian Life and the Warning of Spiritual Amnesia
Last weekend I led a Bible study through the first part of 2 Peter. We spent time digging into Peter’s last words to the church and, as we read, two things that kept being highlighted were Peter’s roadmap to Christian maturity and his warning on spiritual amnesia. Here’s the deal: Peter was about to die and he knew it. Which is why he had to encourage the church, leaving them a solid roadmap to the Christian life, and warn them about spiritual blindness and false teachers/prophets infiltrating the church. Today I want to share both of these vital things with you. Let’s begin with Peter’s roadmap to Christian maturity. Roadmap…
-
“Look at Me”: Seeking God’s Face in Chaos
“When You said, “Seek My face,” My heart said to You, “Your face, Lord, I will seek.” – Psalm 27:8, NKJV It’s very easy to focus on the biggest, loudest or most prominent problems in our life. Somehow, problems, worries and challenges act like a magnet and continually draw our gaze. And yet, focusing on the dark of our life only creates more chaos and confusion in our heart. We have this capability of magnifying what we focus on, which if used negatively, can be detrimental to our faith and our life. But if we choose to shift our focus, what incredible things could we magnify in our life? A…
-
He’s Brave Enough for Both of You
It has been said that courage isn’t the absence of fear, but taking a step while you still feel afraid. I have thought about this often as someone who has battled with fear and anxiety. One time, as I was praying, God reminded me that no matter how dark the valley gets, He is still in control. He is still watching out for me and His plans for me are, ultimately, good. I want to take a moment to remind you that, whether you feel brave right now or not, God can be brave enough for both of you. All you have to do is hold His hand. David struggled…
