Often times, we look forward to Christmas with great expectations. But frequently, Christmas comes and goes and leaves us feeling empty; like we missed out on it. Part of the reason for that stems from what we’re looking for and how we’re trying to obtain what we want at Christmas. Imagine being the first readers…
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Ray Ortlund Jr. once posted a provocative blog entitled, “One Anothers I Can’t Find in the New Testament.” His list is both somewhat amusing and gut-wrenching: How often are we Christians really good at doing these “one anothers”? I know. It’s sad. But if the church is going to be a harbinger of the new heavens and the new…
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Work makes up a significant portion of our lives. One would hope God’s Word would help us think about and approach our work in healthy ways. It does. Four God-Honoring Ways to Approach Work: 1. We were made to work God made galaxies, animals, plants, and human beings. All of it is called his ‘work’…
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Anxiety and anger are staples in our lives. There probably isn’t a day that goes by where we don’t feel a twinge of worry or some shred of underlying irritation. Why is that? And what do we do about it? 1. The anatomy of anxiety and anger “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your…
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The Bible is very nuanced in its discussion of money. Within its pages, money falls into two different categories. It’s either a “danger” or a “blessing.” If money is a life-pressure, it’s not my financial position that needs to change. It’s my attitude towards it and my relationship with it that needs to change. How…
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I’m in a blog series trying to make the case what a church ought to provide its people is: lots of gospel, lots of safety, and lots of time. Today I want to hone in on the necessity of the gospel being central in the life of a church. A lot of people think the gospel is the…
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“Why do I do the things I do?” Answering that question is the key to unlocking our busyness problem. We have “heart motivations” that drive why our calendars and to-do lists fill up. We have to rethink our lives at a deep level to discover what those heart motivations are so we can address them….
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Establishing a church culture of “gospel + safety + time” is critical to the church’s health and effectiveness. Why? Let’s make an assumption. The assumption is this: the more a church is like the way the Bible says a church should be, the healthier and more effective it will be. Or to put it in…
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What does your church offer? When someone asks that question, they’re usually asking about what programs and ministries the church has to offer. Now churches should be able to tell people about the various ministries that occur each week, but it would be really cool to see a different first response to that question… “Well…we…
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Before we can answer the question, we have to make sure something is clear: the gospel calls churches into existence. That is, the gospel creates churches. Think about it… The gospel is the good news that Jesus has come into our world, lived the life we should have lived and died the death we should have…
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