I’ll never forget the moment that I was slapped in the face by the most fashion conscious city in America, Los Angeles. Near the end of my four years there, the city began to wear off on me. I started to “up my game.” Bought some nicer clothes, some flashier shirts, some tighter jeans. The usual. After a good amount of purchases, I thought I’d finally arrived. Then I made the fateful mistake of bringing...
The global missions landscape is far different today than it was fifty years ago. Transportation has become steadily more efficient and cheaper over the past five decades which has set up off a migration bloom all across the globe. This migration bloom has led to large-scale movement of the world’s unreached people groups (UPG’s) into countries with large evangelical populations. While we bemoan the difficulty of gaining access to some of these peoples, our eyes...
I have just recently returned from Scotland and there have been a lot of interesting adjustments in the process, like a reverse culture-shock. But one of the things that has particularly stood out is the fact that I haven’t known any of the worship songs at the chapel and church services that I’ve attended since returning home. Before moving to Scotland I attended Grace Evangelical Free near Biola where our worship pastor would create songs...
As we go about our week we often run into people in our community who are not believers and are not connected to any church. During the course of small talk, the topic of church is broached and we then ask our new acquaintance if they go to church anywhere. They say, “No, my wife (or husband) and I have been looking around for years now and nothing has clicked.” We then tell this person...
Jens Schröter. From Jesus to the New Testament: Early Christian Theology and the Origin of the New Testament Canon. Translated by Wayne Coppins. Waco: Baylor University Press, 2013. xiv + 417 pp. Hardcover. $59.95. ISBN: 9781602588226. From Jesus to the New Testament is a translation of Jens Schröter’s 2007 work Von Jesus zum Neuen Testament. The volume comprises a collection of sixteen independently-written essays united by their focus on early Christian history and the formation...
When I first came to the mission field I spoke with a teammate who told me about a man named Mamadou who I would meet shortly. He told me, “Mamadou is a Muslim background believer from Africa. And just so you know, he fasts more than he eats.” When my teammate relayed this information to me, I thought he was being facetious. Then I met Mamadou. Mamadou has been following Christ for over 30 years....
Edited by James H. Charlesworth; with Brian Rhea and Petr Pokorný. Jesus Research: New Methodologies and Perception. Eerdmans, 2014. 1053 pgs. $35.00 (Paperback). ISBN 978-0-8028-6728-5. The recently released compendium, Jesus Research (2014), is a collection of papers originally presented at the Second Princeton-Prague Symposium on Jesus Research (2007). The volume combines the insights of at least 40 of the world’s leading scholars—a true “Who’s Who’ of specialists in Jesus Research” (Charlesworth, 1). Due to the...
This last weekend, 11 freshman stood in front of our congregation, affirmed their faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and expressed their intention to journey with our church through life, at least until they move away for college. As part of this moment, we anointed each student with oil and said, “Because you belong to Christ, you belong to us, and we belong to you.” It was incredibly beautiful. Before the service, I...
When I heard that we were receiving communion as a church staff, I was thankful. I needed it. I was wearied from two stressful weeks of constant ministry. Lots of counseling, lots of planning, lots of situations in which I had no idea what to do. I was tired. That morning, it had taken everything within me just to get out of bed. Hearing that we would receive communion was a ray of sunshine in...
Nearly two years ago I wrote a blog post entitled, Church Security Teams? Verdict: Unbiblical, that seemed to be quite popular. Although, if I had my druthers it would have been popular because people agreed with it. But seeing as the article garnered a paltry two Facebook likes and the comments were rife with disagreement, it seemed to be popular (or should I say unpopular?) for my brazenly stupid idea of suggesting that church security...
© 2024 — Highend Theme
Created with in London, UK.
Recent Comments