My birthday was this week, and last Saturday my parents surprised me by showing up at my birthday dinner, all the way from Maryland! We had a great, relaxed time being together during the week. After eating breakfast together this morning, they packed their car and drove away. Candace was already at work, and the…
An Open Letter to Crossroads
Crossroads, On Monday morning, the day after one of your high-school graduations, I opened up facebook and found my newsfeed exploding with new profile pictures. And these new profile pictures weren’t just your everyday “selfies”. They were your profile pictures, and they included “the whole gang”. The contrast between the “selfies” most people identify themselves by and…
Bearing Each Other’s Sin Burdens
Galatians 6:2 says, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” While the principle of this verse applies to all sorts of burdens, the context surrounding this verse shows us that God is speaking of sin burdens specifically. In 5:16-26, the apostle Paul describes the inner warfare of a Christian between sin’s desires…
Worshiping through Fellowship
In the first post of this series, we looked at the priority of worship as Redeemer’s primary pillar. Worship encompasses everything we do, and that includes our fellowship. Worship is our giving of glory to God in response to seeing the glory of God. Fellowship is our commitment to partner with one another in Gospel…
Thankful for Family
This Thanksgiving, I am especially thanking God for family. This past year has been filled with transitions and changes, but the presence of family has been fixed and constant. I am thankful for my wife, Candace. I am thankful that God gave her to me two and 1/2 years ago. She is my family, and…
Different, Not Divisive – Romans 14:1 – 15:13
In case you haven’t noticed, Christians have a tendency to disagree on personal and corporate matters. I probably have some different convictions on personal matters than you do (e.g. movies, music, sports, alcohol, clothes, & Christmas trees). And you probably have different convictions on church matters than I do (e.g. songs, videos, preaching style, etc.).…
Criticism. How to Give It
Criticism is the act of evaluating & passing judgment on the merits of someone’s attitude or actions. In today’s culture the very idea of criticism carries a negative connotation. It is not uncommon to hear one say, “Who are you to criticize me?” The idea behind this kind of spirit is that one person does…
Stick With It
This week we have been enjoying the teaching of Pastor Kim Kira from Lighthouse Community Church in Torrance, California. Kim is not only a church-planter & pastor, but he is also a skilled biblical counselor. The conference he is leading is called “God-Centered Counseling: Where the Eternal Gospel Meets Everyday Life.” On Tuesday morning he…
Help a Brother Out!
This summer Jamie and I mapped out a plan to run in a 10-mile adventure race in Georgia on Saturday, October 13th. Our friend Elizabeth B joined in, as well. So for the last few months we have been training for the challenge. Race-day finally arrived this weekend and we traveled over to Cumming, Georgia…
LOL
Recently I studied First Corinthians chapter thirteen (“The Love Chapter”). The Lord reminded me of some very important principles of Christian fellowship as I walked through that passage verse by verse. But the dominant principle proceeding from the text was this: LOL. That’s right! God told me to LOL. That is, LOVE-Out-Loud. In the church we…