Passion 2010

The Passion Conferences have played a huge role in my spiritual development as a college student and young adult.
It was at Passion I first heard John Piper speak.
It was at Passion that I first heard about God’s desire for His own glory.
It was at Passion I first got upset with John Piper and with God’s [...]

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Communion

This is a video we produced at Threads as part of the leader kit for our upcoming release called Sacred Roads by Heather Zempel. I think it’s a great resource to use to bring about a reflective mood surrounding the taking of Communion. If you want to use the video in your ministry, you can [...]

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Connect Conferences

more about “Connect Conferences“, posted with vodpod
This fall I’m going to be participating in leading a series of conferences called Connect. These unique gatherings provide a focused discussion about reaching and keeping young adults.  Our hope is to provide an intimate opportunity for key leaders to:
* learn more about young adults
* understand some of [...]

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Walking at Collegiate Week

Right now, I have the honor of speaking at National Collegiate Week, and I’m sitting in North Carolina with about 400 college students and workers. The theme of the week is “Permeate,” and I am tasked with expanding that theme from the word of God. 
The particular direction we wanted to go with the theme was [...]

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Sermon Video: Friends with Money

In case you’re interested, here’s the video from the sermon I preached on Sunday at Friendship Community Church. Great people, and I had a great time. The talk is based on a chapter in  The Tough Sayings of Jesus II. I tried to wear a cool shirt and some jeans with some carefully placed holes. [...]

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Rocky Mountain High

The family and I are leaving today for Winter Park, Colorado, where I am speaking at an Adventure Weekend for Green Acres Baptist Church. We couldn’t be more excited. Our kids have never seen the Rockies, and it’s gonna be a blast.
I’ll be preaching through The Tough Sayings of Jesus, including passages where Jesus called [...]

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Find Your Voice

Saw this great post from History in the Making:
I’ll shoot straight. I’ve been visiting lots of churches over the past two years. And it seems like we’ve got the leadership thing down. We’re “mean about vision;” we’ve “chosen to cheat;” and we’ve learned how to quarantine the pastor from criticism like he’s Vladimir Putin.
But the [...]

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The Church is a String Around Its Own Finger

We are forgetful. Whether it’s a set of keys, an appointment, or, umm…, the occasional child, sometimes we forget things. And our forgetfulness is a great hindrance to our faith.
God seems very concerned to me about that forgetfulness. He doesn’t want us to forget; He wants us to remember. In fact, in a very basic [...]

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Our Full Potential

Some would argue that the pastor is supposed to help people reach their potential. And while there’s an element that’s true of that, that a pastor can help people chase the dreams God has put in their heart, there’s another side to the coin. That side is explained in this short blog from Jared Wilson, [...]

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Is the Seeker-Sensitive Movement Dead?

Last week I wrote about Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, and the church. In follow-up to that post, here’s one about the changing dynamics of church.
There has been a church growth strategy called the “seeker-movement.” The idea has been that we can use the church service to basically introduce people to spirituality without demanding too much from [...]

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