Mark Driscoll is trending again. This past week I read an interview transcript by John Piper on the subject of Mars Hill and Driscoll. I also read that Driscoll is beginning a new bible study series on Ecclesiastes that will be hosted on his website. I have often wanted to share my own experience at Mars Hill, and now I have the chance to do so. This is my personal story about Mars Hill. Just over 3...
It’s 12 am and you are preparing a sermon for tomorrow. It’s 4pm and you are preparing for community group that will take place in your living room in a few hours. You have reached an impasse. You could take the easy route and give that nicely packaged sermon or group discussion that you have memorized. You could also take the easy path and deliver that spiel that you know sounds nice, but you know...
I grew up, like most Christians, immersed by Christian culture. Left Behind books, Kirk Cameron movies, Tee-shirts with Christian knock-off slogans. Half of me lived in this realm, the other half lived in secular culture. Stephen King, Jim Carey movies, and non-knock off tee-shirts. All people, Christian or not, care about culture. We want our lives to have meaning and purpose within our culture. We’d like to make a difference for the good. People do...
I became what some might call a Calvinist my junior year in High school. Going to a Dutch Reformed private school where I took a “Reformed Perspectives” class certainly aided this process. I had resisted of course. Coming from a Non-denominational Bible church, I had a gut reaction against such notions of predestination and all that depravity and sovereignty talk. However, the day came when my heart was changed and I suddenly found myself agreeing...
Sometime after I graduated High School, but before I went to college I was fervently trying to decide what I was going to do with my life. As the fog began to clear and I could see that the LORD was calling me to some type of ministry, I began to devour books and podcasts. Somewhere through piles of books and the mass amounts of podcasts, I came across an interview of Matt Chandler by...
Fullerton, CA The downtown area of this small Los Angeles suburb is home to over a dozen bars ranging from Mexican cantinas, Irish pubs and average American bars. Every Friday and Saturday evening, the streets swell with college students, business executives, the poor, the rich, and everyone in between. These bars are filled with these people who are much more interested in just crazy cocktails, boozy beverages, or getting hammered drunk. No, these people in these...
For this weeks post I would like to take a couple of moments to coin a phrase. At least that was my intention before I preformed an extensive search of all available writing the world has ever known in order that I might claim this unique phrase as my own. (In other words I used quotation marks in the google search engine.) Sadly, I was not the first to use this phrase but the writing...
About a month ago, I wrote a post giving reasons why I believe Christians should be good storytellers. After I had shared it on my Facebook wall, one of my close friends commented, in a joking manner, that I should have written the article as a story. While he was only making light of the post, he unintentionally pinpointed one of the greatest temptations facing many evangelical churches today, to which many unfortunately succumb. This...
I’ve recently found myself surrounded by stories – I’ve been reading them, telling them, listening to them, and living them. It all started when I read East of Eden by John Steinbeck. I had heard that it was a good story, but I was entirely unprepared for its power. I found myself lingering over numerous sentences, admiring their ability to beautifully capture an idea with the perfect metaphor. I laughed, cried, and cringed with each character,...
I’ve recently been thinking about the Strange Fire Conference put on by John MacArthur, since there has been quite a big uproar about it on the blogosphere in Evangelical circles. John MacArthur, being a staunch cessationist (believing that sign gifts from the Holy Spirit were only part of the early church, and have ceased), hosted a conference on the dangers against the Charismatic movement, and the necessity to guard against the false doctrine that the...
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