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What I Have Appreciated In Youth Ministry
I’m no longer a youth pastor, but I’ve been recently reflecting over my tenure in youth ministry. It hasn’t been all happy thoughts. In fact, much of it has been disappointing thoughts. I think being in youth ministry is one of the hardest areas of ministry, because you’re working with people who are usually not…
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What’s Your End-Goal?
This is something I’ve thought about quite a bit in regards to leading our church. What do we want our church to be like in 10 years? For the months of September and October, I met with our church leadership team and then our church body on a weekly basis to hammer through some of…
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What Do People Want?
I read an article a few days ago questioning what young people long for in worship services. You can read it here. I have mixed feelings about such articles. I, too, long for the type of worship service he says young people are longing for. Yet, I wonder if young people at large really do…
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Is God Really All That Powerful?
One thing I’ve heard quite a bit is that statistics show that 3 out of 4 new church start-ups in America fail. How can this be? Where did the power of God go? This statistic sounds totally pathetic to me. I’m sure there are several reasons for such a statistic. However, I fear many of…
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Jesus Isn’t Headed For Hell–But Everyone Else Is In Trouble With God
When people hear someone preaching that humanity is headed for hell unless they repent, most people take offense and say something along the lines of, “God is a God of love, but you are portraying Him to be the very opposite!” The funny thing is, this has always been God’s way of showing that He…
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Per Audra’s Request
Audra thinks I’m being too mean to Andy Stanley. She’s probably right. Actually, I don’t so much have a problem with Andy Stanley, as I do with the general state of the modern church that thinks that we must all strive to be a “success” as we see his church. It bothers me greatly that…
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Arminians Gone Wild
That’s kinda the imagery I think of when I consider seeker-driven churches. It’s this mindset that we have to do and spend all we can to convince/attract/appeal to the unchurched to come to church/God. It’s like our theology of free will propels us to do all we can to get people to choose to come…
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Andy Stanley Is Mistaken, Part 2
So now that I laid the groundwork for my disagreements in the last post, I’ll get into the disagreements themselves. In summary, I believe the best way to fulfill the Great Commission isn’t by doing all you can to get the unchurched to show up at church, but rather to get the churched to go…
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Is Humanity Evil?
Or have we moved beyond such depravity as a species? Today’s way of thinking immediately dismisses the notion of people being evil. We think mass murderers/pedophiles can simply be redeemed. Actually, I agree with that. My understanding of evil includes the possibility of redemption (which is why I am a Christian), but I believe that…
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Biblical Controversy
I see two different types of controversies in the Bible: Passages that are controversial when you compare them to other passages in the Bible. Passages that are controversial when you compare them to today’s culture. Unfortunately, many people don’t see the difference between these two types of controversial passages. With the first type of controversial…