Photo by Omar Prestwich on Unsplash Grouchiness about other pastors’ churches? Their size? Their coolness? The number of conversions they see? Their creativity in programming, marketing, and sermons? Nope. Not me. Never. I promise.  I’m always kingdom-minded and thankful for the work that God is doing in and through other churches. God tells us to…
Octavius Winslow (1808–1878) was an English non-conformist who was once a Baptist pastor who later turned to the Anglican communion. He has numerous writings available through Banner of Truth here. I recently ran across how Octavius defines prayer and wanted to share it here. “True prayer is the aspiration of a renewed soul towards God;…
Throughout the history of Christianity, followers of Jesus have consistently stated what they believe. This makes sense given that Christianity isn’t a vague religion with undefined doctrine. There are specific truth claims and particular doctrinal beliefs that mark Christianity off as distinct from other world religions. Where are these truth claims found? In the Bible,…
One of my favorite leadership expressions says that if you think you’re leading people but no one is following, you’re not leading – you’re just taking a walk. A surefire way to get people to stop following is to be demanding and correct them constantly without offering profuse encouragement. As Mark Chanski says in his…
My bride and I love our kids. Honestly. We enjoy hugging and kissing them. We enjoy holding their hands, though they’re quickly seeing that I’m not nearly as cool as they once thought I was! We love seeing them smile and hearing them laugh. We love when they ask questions about Jesus, truth, the Bible…
No one enjoys feeling trapped. When you feel trapped, you feel suffocated, pressed in, like there’s no way to escape. Many Christians live feeling like they are trapped in sin. While we experience the joy of Christ changing us through the power of the Spirit, there always seems to be certain sins from which each…
Redemptive history is an amazing thing. You can see God’s goodness and grace run through the pages of Holy Scripture. Goodness and grace are inescapable realities. You’d think God’s people would respond with gratefulness and thankfulness. And yet, God’s people, the very recipients of God’s goodness and grace, are all-too-often ungrateful, unthankful, and down-right rebellious.…
Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash Sam Crabtree in Practicing Affirmation focuses on eight but for this post, I’ll simply and briefly share four. Alertness. No one was more alert than Jesus. Think about the calling of Matthew the tax collector in Matthew 9:9-13. Matthew writes that Jesus saw him sitting at the booth; when individuals (including…
In this post I’m building on Part 1. I want to focus on this: when the church gathers for corporate worship, and both men and women are given opportunities to speak, what are appropriate acts of speech for men and women? More specifically, if we say it is appropriate for a woman to prophesy when the…
Before we got married, my husband and I agreed we both wanted to use our home as a place of generosity and hospitality. This is still our desire, and we seek to have one person or more over at least once a week. However, as we started this routine, I realized my attitude about hospitality…
Theology Along the Way 