1 Corinthians 9:16, Matthew 28:19-20, Psalm 96:2-3, 2 Corinthians 5:20, Matthew 5:16
George MacLeod of the Iona Community related a conversation that he had with a Marxist who had never heard an explanation of basic Christianity. The man listened with wonder and surprise. Finally, ...
Tom and Angela had lived in their neighborhood for about twelve years without really getting to know many people. They lived in a cul-de-sac of eleven houses and had limited communication and interact...
Merciful God, you have moved and changed our lives in amazing ways, yet we have kept these stories to ourselves. We confess the times we have kept these stories to ourselves out of fear of rejection a...
Here is my grid for how I think of what to say when given the platform by a friend out of trust – a friend who is not following Jesus: I want to honor the friendship by doing exactly what he’s asked ...
Speaking to people does not have the same personal intensity as listening to them. The question I put to myself is not 'How many people have you spoken to about Christ this week?' but 'How...
We email, Facebook, tweet and text with people who are going to spend eternity in either heaven or hell. Our lives are too short to waste on mere temporal conversations when massive eternal realities ...
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconci...
In Christian terms, evangelization and humanization are not alternatives. Nor are the 'vertical dimension' of faith and the 'horizontal dimension' of love for one's neighbor and po...
The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard once told a parable to illustrate the urgency of the gospel message—and the need for all believers, not just clergy, to share it. A traveling circus in Denm...
Context This week’s lectionary text from Mark encompasses two distinct healing narratives, each of which has plenty of material for its own sermon. So the first decision for the preacher should be wh...
Context This week’s lectionary text from Mark encompasses two distinct healing narratives, each of which has plenty of material for its own sermon. So the first decision for the preacher should be wh...
A Multi-faceted Church Who loses by the church and parachurch’s lack of unity and cooperation? Absolutely everyone : congregations, ministry organizations, ministry leaders, individual believers . ....
God with us, your very nature demonstrates that you reach out to us. You are the God who sends, and you’ve sent us to spread your love to others. However, we get too comfortable keeping our faith to o...
1 Corinthians 9:22, Luke 7:34, 1 Thessalonians 2:8, Matthew 5:16, 2 Corinthians 5:20
It was impossible for me (Doug) to become Mark’s friend. He always avoided eye contact with me though I would smile and say hi as I passed him in the dorm. I had no idea what was going on in his heart...
Preaching Commentary An Introduction from Luke Our passage begins with a note from the author (Luke) to his reader (Theophilus), which reminds us that Luke-Acts was initially meant to be two parts ...
Because I was raised in England, drinking tea is a central part of my cultural identity! Whatever the situation—a celebration, a welcome, a crisis, an afternoon break—the response of a good Brit is to...
Have you ever put together an "elevator speech" or "pitch" for a job or a project? It's a 30-second (or less) statement of who you are or what you're selling which you coul...
I remember being with a Christian student on a beach during an evangelism training week. Bob and I met several religious skeptics and began talking about all sorts of things. Eventually the conversati...
Matthew 9:35-10:8, Deuteronomy 6:6-8, 1 Corinthians 3:7, Acts 1:null
Preaching Commentary Here Comes the Crowd Though he was challenging and divisive, Jesus always could draw a crowd. Some came because he had miraculously healed the lame or fed thousands. Others wer...
Christians and non-Christians have something in common: we’re both uptight about evangelism. Our fear as Christians seems to be How many people did I offend this week? We think that we must be a littl...
Gracious God, You call us to be salt and light but we often keep our lights hidden away. We do not use our words or actions to encourage others to pursue a life with You. We take the Gospel for oursel...
Acts 2:1-21, Luke 24:49, Acts 1:8, Acts 1:15, Exodus 20:null, Acts 2:9-11, 1 Samuel 10:10, Ezekiel 7:1-14, 1 Kings 19:11-12, Joel 2:28-32, Genesis 11:7-9
Preaching Commentary Clothed with Power I have a daughter who cannot acquire enough clothes. Every birthday, Christmas, or special occasion is an opportunity to shop online for something new. Fashi...
Matthew 10:40-42, John 20:21, Acts 1:18, 2 Peter 2:13, Luke 17:10, John 3:18, Matthew 28:19, Ephesians 5:20, James 5:14, Colossians 3:17, Acts 3:6, 1 Corinthians 6:11, Acts 20:35
The Transitive Property of Welcoming In elementary school math you learn various basic principles of working with numbers…the commutative property, the associative property, the distributive property...
Matthew 9:35-10, Deuteronomy 6:6-8, 1 Corinthians 3:7, Acts 1:null
Here Comes the Crowd Though he was challenging and divisive, Jesus always could draw a crowd. Some came because he had miraculously healed the lame or fed thousands. Others were there for the scandal...
John 13:34-35, 2 Corinthians 1:12, 1 Thessalonians 2:8, 1 Peter 3:15-16, 2 Corinthians 5:18-19
Trust is sweet. It is better than gold. Trust is always a gift of the heart, and therefore it just may be the most precious thing in life, next to love. Trust between two people is so valuable and pre...
AIM Commentary Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? The Samaritan Woman in a Male-Defined World In the ancient world, your place as a woman was defined by your connection...
In our postmodern culture which is TV dominated, image sensitive, and morally vacuous, personality is everything and character is increasingly irrelevant.