Book Review: TrueFaced by Thrall, McNicol & Lynch

TrueFaced, by Thrall, McNicol and Lynch is one of the most compelling and convicting books I have read in a long time. I plow through books. I devour words. Few books make me want to slow down and carefully reflect the way that TrueFaced did. God, in his incredible majesty, created us in his image. [...]

Collision: The Line is Drawn Sermon Video

When God’s world collided with Simon’s world, he went from a fisherman to evangelist. When God’s world collided with Levi’s world, he went from a tax collector to a gospel-writer. In this message, we explore Luke 5 and the call of Simon (vs 1-11) and Levi (vs 27-32) and what happens when God’s world collides [...]

Beware the power trip

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:3-4). I read this verse this past Monday morning – the day where I was starting my second week [...]

Our Adoption as Sons

This past Sunday was “Orphan Sunday.” My small group tuned in for the webcast live from Nashville. It was great. In fact, I would encourage anyone reading this to watch the archive from the broadcast at www.gospelmusicchannel.com. Over this blog post and the next, I want to look at a theology of adoption and then [...]

When failure is the path of successful leadership

One of us met recently with the new CEO of a large company who was profiling his team of direct reports. As the CEO talked with us, he focused on the skills and background of each direct report. Impressed with the diversity of the group, we asked “Is there anything that everyone on your team [...]

Leaders with Authority, Leaders under Authority

God, in His sovereignty, has given His church two different accounts of creation in Genesis 1 and 2. Each of these accounts teaches us about humanity and our relation both to God and to the world into which we were placed. Genesis 1 emphasizes man as one created with authority. Consider Gen. 1:26, “Then God [...]

Hypocritical: Part 5 – Get Real

“Hey, how are you doing?” – “I’m fine.” How often does that conversation replay itself in your life? How often is the “I’m fine” reply, coming either from you or from the person with whom you are speaking, a lie? Consider this conversation from The Italian Job and how it defines “F-I-N-E.” John Bridger: How [...]

Hypocritical: Part 2 – A look at Matthew 23

In part 1 we saw the perception the world has of us: we are hypocrites. Before we can consider how to reframe that perception, we must turn to Matthew 23, the seminal passage on the topic. Six times in this passage Jesus calls the Pharisees “hypocrites.” While the entire passage is relevant, we are going [...]

Hypocritical: Part 1 – He’s still working on me

Calling Christians hypocritical is like beating a dead horse. We’ve been down this road before. Once, twice, maybe a hundred times. In unChristian, Kinnaman reports that his study revealed that 85% of outsiders (remember, we was looking specifically at 16-29 year olds) described Christians are hypocritical. That’s a big number. As a result, no matter [...]

The path of Biblical greatness

“I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble.” This quote is not from theologian or pastor who is waxing poetic about servant leadership, but from Helen Keller. She grasps the nature of the call of believers. True [...]