In general, we have a good idea of what international missions is. It’s about following God’s call, it’s about a heart for the nations, it’s about a surrender and commitment. It’s an exciting, life-changing journey, hopefully for you and for the people you’ll be ...
We all know that there is a cost to missions for those who go. Spiritually, emotionally, physically… missions, for all the impact, takes something from you. That’s why long-term, international missions is such a helpful indicator of discipleship. It innately reflects a level of ...
It’s a rat race out there. Fast-paced, hectic, demanding. It strains us, it pulls at us, it takes from us. Life is moving all too fast. It wasn’t like that two weeks ago, though, at least for my family. We were in Africa, back where I grew up. It was slow-paced and highly relational. ...
I want to talk about a rather obscure word for a very important concept that affects just about everything about life in the local church. Polity. Small word. Big implications. Let’s dive in. So…what is polity? Polity is church government. Polity, at its root, answers the question ...
Now that we've examined elders in our last two posts (part 1, part 2) in this series, we will turn our attention to the biblical role of deacons in the local church. In this post, we’ll examine three primary questions: What is a deacon? What do deacons do? Who can be deacons? What is ...
In this second post of a 3-part series on elders and deacons, we’ll briefly look at 2 questions about elders from Scripture: Who can be an elder? What do good elders do? Who can be an elder? This question is best answered by looking at the qualifications God’s Word gives for ...
In this first post of a 3-part series on elders and deacons, we want to examine the two local church offices outlined in Scripture. We’ll spend two posts looking at the topic of elders and one post on deacons. In this post, we’ll briefly look at 5 primary questions about elders from ...
A couple weeks ago, I preached a message entitled “The What of Prayer.” We talked that day about how we generally tend to pray about what is right in front of us rather than big, life prayers. The former isn’t bad, of course, but the latter sure is necessary. The former is often ...
I was in the third phase of my first entry-level triathlon and I was whipped. I’d been going about an hour, with much of the run portion ahead of me, and I sure was tired. It was then that I heard encouragement from a passing runner that blessed me, but also made me pull back. The words were ...
There are shades of darkness. There is dusk, as the sun heads off to sleep and darkness just starts to fall on the land. Then there is night in the city, where the darkness is punctuated by isolated lights. And then, there is the darkness hour of the night, in the darkest places, where there is no ...
