This is my thoughts from bullet #1 of my previous blog post. I am a Christian. I’ve heard the gospel plenty of times before. I’ve believed in Jesus as a result. But I still need to hear the Gospel. I need it repeated to me over and over, because part of me wants to find salvation in my good works or my spiritual insights or my passion for God or my whatever. I want to think that as long as I try to love God and everyone else, I’m cool. I don’t want to think of myself as a damned, wretched sinner who desperately needs God’s grace. I believe we all need to hear it. We all need to bow our knees before our Savior and humbly worship him. When we get a hold of the Gospel and, more importantly, it gets a hold of us…all of a sudden the style of worship at church or the conveniences of this life are so insignificant. Instead, we fix our eyes on Jesus, and our life is now his to do as He pleases. We stop living for this life, and instead start living for eternity. When this happens, our Gospel message will be more readily received by those we preach it to, because we are actually living it out. Yes, I think it’s just as, or even more, important for Christians like me to hear the Gospel over and over...

One person explained it to me like this: 1. Christians don’t need to hear it explained or expounded upon on Sunday morning. Most people who show up to church on any given Sunday already know it. 2. And when it comes to non-Christians, other faiths have revelations about God too; Christianity doesn’t have a monopoly on truth. 3. It is narrow-minded, judgmental, and arrogant to think that people must become a Christian to be saved. Jesus is surely more gracious than that. 4. People in other religions (Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, etc.) may be following Christ through their religion without knowing it is Him they are following. If so, they don’t need to become Christians. 5. Rather than teaching young people that Jesus is the only way to the Father, you should allow them to determine these types of things on their own. It is not our place to say who is or isn’t going to heaven. 6. In light of this, I would not be overly concerned with telling people that Jesus is the only way. . I have also been told: 1. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me. 2. Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. 3. There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.  All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. 4. But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. 5. I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes. 6. How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will...

I haven’t posted anything for a bit, but that is because my family has been going through a pretty difficult process of leaving our church of 5+ years. Through this process, we have been stretched in our faith, beliefs, and ability to show restraint and kindness when chastised for leaving. As a result, I feel great! Thankfully, most people kindly showed their appreciation toward us, and we will miss everyone there! I am thankful that now the process is over, a sense of peace is here. It was extremely hard to leave the youth group, knowing that they have many questions. We love them dearly, but have had to place them in God’s hands. We started the youth ministry from scratch, and enjoyed seeing God grow the ministry and the youth. They are the best, and I’ve never felt closer to a group of teenagers than them–I look forward to how God will grow them into His purposes and plans. Surprisingly, I feel great peace that God will take care of things no problem! Now we must start to look for a new church family. We will try our best not to “church shop,” but instead try to understand where God would place us. The next couple of weeks, I plan to share what God has done in my life as a result of this change, and I’m sure I’ll also reflect on the journey of finding a new church. Pressing forward in...

I would like to share with everyone the summary of what I shared in youth group last Sunday. I sent this out to the youth as a reminder of what we talked about, and would love to hear comments about how you see what it means that Christ died for us: During the holidays, remember what we talked about Sunday night….why did Christ have to die? I can’t answer this question fully. I don’t fully understand it. But we can look at this from any number of levels/perspectives. Here are some of them: God’s law must be upheld—there must be a death punishment for sin. God, being not only a God of mercy, but also of justice, could not ignore this or make himself a liar–sin can’t be left unpunished. God allowed for Jesus’ undeserving suffering and death to serve as the punishment due to all mankind. The punishment, which was once our responsibility, went to Jesus instead. The power of sin (death) is a curse upon humanity that we cannot defeat, because it is more powerful than us. Yet, the power of sin (death) couldn’t hold Jesus down, because he never sinned. Jesus proved that by allowing death to capture Him, but he overcame death by rising again. And He now chooses to share and celebrate the spoils of His victory over death with all who call upon Him for salvation! God hates sin vehemently, and rather than pour out his wrath on us, He poured out all the built-up wrath against the sins of the world onto His Son, so that He may offer forgiveness to us instead of destroying us. Jesus was tortured and wasted in our place. Satan has taken humanity captive through sin. He claims ownership on all humanity, because we’ve all sinned. Jesus offered to place his life into Satan’s hands–for Satan to do whatever he wanted with Jesus–in exchange for ours. Satan couldn’t get the Son of God to sin, but he figured he’d get rid of Jesus anyway, and then continue to maintain his control over us, once Jesus was out of the way. He thought he’d done it when he killed Jesus. Jesus, instead, defeated Satan after Satan and the...

Ok, maybe not just here in Alabama, but it makes for a compelling blog title. Check this out. It’s a real filing by a law firm to move a trial to a later date. Enjoy!

Let me start this post by warning you–I’m sure this will be much longer than a typical blog post. I would like to flesh out a series of thoughts I’ve had recently. I would appreciate anyone’s feedback to what you read. These thoughts have originated because of two separate events in my life recently. One deals with a friend who has an eating disorder. Another deals with some people I know who live within the homosexual lifestyle. For awhile, I’ve been considering the the idea that we all have some issue of depravity within us. For some, it’s very noticeable and apparent, such as an eating disorder or addictive tendencies, and so those people often go through intervention for their issues. For others, the depravity is much more secretive, and oftentimes even more destructive. For example, if someone has a serious problem with gossiping, that destructive behavior can destroy an entire church and cause many people to never know Christ. Whereas the homosexual may only destroy their own life and the lives of his/her partners. My passive/agressive behavior or my bitterness may destroy everyone I come in contact with…so I must come to recognize the depravity in me and must assume that everyone else has severe depravity in some area(s) too. We must realize that our depravity, even if it is not so noticeable, is probably even more deadly than the ones we typically label as depravity (i.e. homosexuality, drug use, sex outside of marriage, murder, etc.). I would like to probe this a little further as well and compare the depravitous behavior in both homosexuality and your typical eating disorder. I would like for you to see if these similarities are true for your own depravities as well: Both the homosexual and the anorexic must not give in to their depravity. For the homosexual, to do so is to exist in a relationship that is not God-honoring and contrary to God’s will and intent. It is to participate with another person in a way that was only intended for the sacred relationship of marriage. This unnatural union can also lead to other perversions of God’s natural sexual law if more permission is given it. The same is true...

I would like to be the first (even though I may not be the first) to say “Congrats, Marko!” on your recent firing/release from President of Youth Specialties by their parent company, Zondervan. While many others are offering their condolences, I can’t help but want to throw a party for the latest person in ministry who has had to struggle with the complexities of serving in a corporate-America environment. While Zondervan is indeed a publicly-traded company, many of us  serve in churches who try their best to act like they are, too! Those of us who do so recognize that as much as we’d like to make ourselves to be the holy righteous minister in the evil, corporate church world, it simply isn’t that simple. We know deep down inside that our churches are trying to carry out God’s mission. We understand that we can’t caricaturize them that way, even though our differences were so severe that it resulted in our firing, our resigning, or our perpetual suffering as we continue to serve in that environment. Case in point: When we leave, we feel torn away from the work we felt God had us do–the only work we knew how to do. We walked away from deep relationships, and we discovered a deep loneliness/lostness–we weren’t in the trenches, doing what we’ve always done. As much as we want to demonize the institution, we are constantly reminded of the redeeming qualities we found there. And now what to do? Go to another church and start it all over again? Or work in the “secular world”? It all feels second-best. Either way, it probably means subjecting ourselves to the corporate mindset. But then we remember what Paul said: “They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.” So it really doesn’t matter where we go, does it? Wherever we go, whatever we do, we do it all for the glory of God. Yes, as Mike Yaconelli would say, “Congrats, Marko! Congrats on getting fired for the glory of God!” You’ve joined an elite group of people who are struggling to serve God faithfully–even after being pulled away...