Today I want to say a word about Christians and accountability groups or accountability partnerships. I am not sure if Christians have always spoken as much of accountability as we do today or if this has been a happy result of organizations such as Promise Keepers. I guess I have not been an adult Christian…
A couple of summers ago we were a day away from leaving for vacation when my cell phone went missing. For a few days we looked for it passively, keeping half an eye out for it as we went about our business in the house. We tried calling it to see if we could hear…
Years ago I was standing in the foyer of the church I attended at that time and a person who was new to the church came to me and, rather quietly, asked “What do you guys believe about smoking? Is it okay to smoke in this church?” I laughed a little, not because it was…
This weekend I spoke at a youth retreat in Northern Michigan. I won’t get more specific than that because, well, I can’t. I followed some vans full of teenagers from Flint and stopped where they stopped, about an hour and a half north. We settled in at this rather nice little Christian camp in what…
Theology remains something of a bad word in Christian circles. I’d believe that the success of a book like The Shack has proven this to us yet again. Many people seem eager to embrace some form of Christian spirituality but have little desire or love for theology. Theology is linked in people’s minds with frigid,…
On Monday I wrote about freedom and offered a pretty weak effort, I think. It’s been a tough few days around here with everyone except me being sick at one time or another (and mostly all at the same time) and I fear that my article on Monday reflected a lack of attention. There is…
At my church last night I preached a message that was part of a series we are doing on various points of theology. The topic I had to address was biblical manhood and womanhood. It’s something of an uncomfortable topic to have to preach and one we, as Christians, are too often intimidated by. I…
It seems that life is filled, at almost every turn, with trials and difficulties. Some of these times of trail are light while others are terrible and weighty. Strangely, some of these trials are caused by times of great joy while others are caused by great pain. The birth of a child can prove to…
At Grace Fellowship Church we’ve been praying for something big and we’ve been praying it for quite some time. We want a meeting place of our own. It’s not that there is anything inherently wrong with the school we meet in now, but more that we can foresee how our own building would be beneficial…
In recent days I have received several emails dealing with spiritual gifts. Unfortunately, due to constraints on my time, I’ve been unable to spend a lot of time answering these. Today I want to spend just a few moments at least sharing some basic biblical teaching on the spiritual gifts. Much of this is drawn…
A couple of months ago I was having one of those mornings. I was in a grumpy mood to begin with and was grumbling as I headed downstairs to find that the children’s lunches remained unmade. With just a few minutes before they had to be out the door and on the school bus I…
I kind of feel like I should be screaming in joy and wonder right now. Like I should just scream out “I CAN’T BELIEVE I’M DOING THIS! THIS IS AMAZING! THIS IS AWESOME! CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS?!”Just a few short hours ago I was in my home town of Toronto, on the shores of Lake…
Some time ago I mentioned that I had been asked by a magazine to submit an answer to this question: “What is the greatest hindrance to the gospel today?” Since the magazine has now been published, I can print the answer at my site. So here goes… You know the oft-told story, I am sure.…
Continued from yesterday… Every now and again my son decides the time is right to build a paper airplane air force. He raids my printer to get the stacks of paper he’ll need and then opens up The Dangerous Book for Boys to try out some of the designs printed in that book. But after…
On July 23, 1983, Flight 143, an Air Canada Boeing 767, lifted off from Montreal’s Montreal-Dorval International Airport on its way to Edmonton, Alberta. On board were 69 passengers and crew. Sometime around the flight’s halfway mark, while over the tiny community of Red Lake, Ontario, near the border of Manitoba, an alarm sounded in…
You’ll have to excuse me for re-posting today. It was a tough night dealing with a sick kid and then this morning I had to take the kids to school and then shovel out after a pretty good snowfall. As I was shoveling this morning I thought of a post from last winter and thought…
I have written often about the issues of doubt and assurance. They are, I think, issues that are well worth spending time on. Many fine Christians spend much of their lives doubting their salvation while other nominal Christians live in reckless assurance of their right standing before God. Meanwhile, many people today teach that doubt…
It’s a question you’ve probably asked. Why is it that when you are looking for a house, driving slowly down a darkened street straining to see the numbers on the fronts of the homes or on the mailboxes at the end of the driveways, you automatically turn down the car radio? Why do you need…
The Call by Os Guinness is a book that was on my list of things to do for a long, long time before I actually settled down to read it. But once I got into it, I was amazed at just how much wisdom it contains. At one point Guinness discusses the importance of living…
The “Reading Classics Together” effort has taught me that blogs (even this blog) can offer a kind of excitement and accountability by community that helps me do things I wouldn’t otherwise have the discipline to do. And from what I hear, it works for some of you, too. Many of us would never have read…