Group Life and Personal Evangelism
I’m currently working with Ed Stetzer on a new book, Transformational Groups. In the book we will share some significant lessons learned from a massive research project conducted on small groups. Ed and I recently sat down with Micah Fries, the Director of Ministry Development at LifeWay, to discuss some of the insights we’re gleaning from […]
Common Errors in Contextualization
The Jesus-centered church is a church that affirms certain characteristics from its surrounding culture while still holding faithfully to the gospel. The purpose of contextualization is to glorify God by reaching sinners with the gospel of Christ. And every church executes some type of contextualization to this end. But as we all know, good efforts […]
Five Time Stewardship Practices
The wise stewardship of our time is a very spiritual matter. The Lord has graciously given us a predetermined amount of time, and we are responsible to utilize it with wisdom. As Oswald Sanders points out in his classic work Spiritual Leadership, each of us has the same amount of time each day as the […]
Time Stewardship
A few evenings ago, I walked into Eden’s room to discover her piggybank was emptied and a dollar bill was lying on the floor in several pieces. I have been slowly teaching Eden about money and the stewardship of it, so obviously I still have some work to do. While we all know that ripping […]
Enron & Your Church
The Enron scandal is perhaps the most documented case of corporate greed, cover-up, and dishonesty. The lack of integrity displayed by Enron executives robbed people of millions of dollars and led, at that time, the largest corporate bankruptcy in U.S. history. In the midst of the scandal, proudly displayed in the lobby at Enron were […]
Longing for Dad
Adrian Greiner is best known for playing Vince on the HBO series Entourage. Growing up in Brooklyn, Adrian struggled with the void of a fatherless home. In his early twenties he produced a documentary entitled A Shot in the Dark chronicling his search for his father. HBO aired the documentary in 2007, presenting the intense […]
Transformational Discipleship: The Research Behind the Book
Earlier this year, Philip Nation, Michael Kelley, and I coauthored Transformational Discipleship. Based on the research behind the book, we discovered that transformation is most likely to occur in the life of a believer when the person has truth applied to his heart by godly leaders while in a teachable posture. We called this the “transformational sweet spot.” The transformational sweet […]
His Name Is His Character
In the Jewish culture and thought, naming something was not done casually. A name was much more than a word or a combination of sounds. The name was intended to convey the nature and the essence of the thing or the person being named. Thus Jesus was given the name Jesus “because He will save […]
His Name Is His Mission
Each time Kaye and I discovered we were having a kid, the naming process began. Each time, we picked out a girl name and a guy name so that we would be prepared regardless. We talked about middle names, put the initials together to see what would be spelled, and sounded out the whole name. […]
For His Name
In Psalm 23:3, David declares that the Lord leads us in paths of righteousness for His own name. He renews my life; He leads me along the right paths for His name’s sake. Everything God does, He does for His own glory, for His own name. Many people stumble over this truth, in part, because we can’t stand that character trait in […]