Hello from Cali!

Sorry for the lack of blogging the last couple of days. I’ve had the great privilege to be on the campus of California Baptist University speaking at their annual Spiritual Emphasis Week. Jana and the kids are here in Riverside, CA, too, and we spent today at the San Diego Zoo.
The theme of the week [...]

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“Walk” Sermon Series Now Available

I changed the format of the blog a little in order to add something new, should you be interested. If you click on the “Resources” page of the blog, you will see a link to download a sermon series I preached a month ago.
The series is called “Walk.” You can read the description on that [...]

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Where Are All the Preachers?

Don’t get me wrong: I like Mark Driscoll. And Andy Stanley. Heck, I’ll say it: I like the creativity and admire the delivery of Ed Young. These guys are amazing communicators and it’s no wonder they have a tremendous following.
But there’s something in me that’s a little uneasy about a church going so multi-site that [...]

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The 3 AM Statement

This post from Ben Arment reminded me again why I love One Point Teaching and Preaching. In that philosophy, you teach one major point. Everything leads to or comes out from that single point. It’s the one thing you want people to walk away from your Bible study, church service, or teaching moment with, echoing [...]

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Lost

Did I get you with the title? Ha! What a sneaky communicator I am. I’m in Lubbock, TX, today with the super-cool folks from Paradigm. I’ll be here the next 2 Thursday nights doing a sermon series from Luke 15 called “Lost.”
Last night I talked about how in the book of Luke one of the [...]

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The 1 Question That Can Change Someone’s Life

I believe there is a single question that has the potential to change someone’s life. And no, it’s not “If you died tonight are you absolutely sure you’d go to heaven?” (although that one has changed plenty of people’s lives, too).
Questions that change people’s lives are introspective ones. They are questions that force someone [...]

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Why I’m Not a Fan of the Virtual Pastor

As I was serving on a panel last week at the Connect Conference in Nashville, the question from the crowd came up about satellite campuses. Lots of churches are doing it – creating satellite campuses and then projecting in a taped sermon from the pastor at the main campus. There are some huge advantages to [...]

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7 Steps of Bible Study Preparation

Yesterday I mentioned that as part of my presentation at some recent conferences, I put together the 7 steps I use for Bible study preparation. I’m not assuming these are universal, but they have helped me organize my time and hopefully make my teaching style engaging, relevant, and self-revelatory. So here you go:
1. Read the [...]

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Pinning Down Depth

I had a really productive time at the Threads Connect Conference last week in Austin. The second of these conferences is in Nashville this week. For both of these conferences, I’m leading a breakout session that is trying to find the practical implications of one of the 4 key markers of Threads.
Those key markers, the [...]

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5 Great Things About My Week

Leaving Collegiate Week today, headed back to Nash-vegas. Upon reflection of the last 6 days, here’s some great stuff about the experience:
1) College students. I don’t get to hang around them enough. College students are incredibly generous, perceptive, and hungry to give themselves for something that matters. A church or ministry loaded with folks like [...]

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