Giving Answers (1 Peter 3:15)

" /doh " by  striatic  is licensed under  CC BY 2.0 . Have you ever had someone ask you a question that you should have had an answer to, but at that moment you drew a blank and just did the best you could?  Of course, afterward the answer seems so obvious and you wonder why you didn't say that to begin with.  That is what happened to me this past Sunday. What's worse...this question was about outreach. We had a new family visit the church and afterward began asking many questions about the church.  I, and a couple of others, introduced them to life groups and told them our philosophy concerning our life groups (that they are inter-generational on purpose).  They seemed genuinely interested in finding out about all aspects of our church. Toward the end of our conversation together, they asked the fateful question:  "What does your church do for outreach?" I thought and shared our current situation with the uncertainty of "3rd Street Ministry"....

If you have been around me for any amount of time and asked me a question about the Bible or a Bible verse, you have probably heard me say the phrase:  "Context is everything."  Many people's answers concerning Scriptures in question are often found in the context of surrounding verses.  In today's meme driven culture that focuses on snatching singular verses out of context for the sake of producing doubt or shame in one's faith, this is an important truth to remember. However, faithful and well meaning Christians, who only wish to build faith in Jesus Christ, have erroneously done the same and caused unintentional harm to the body of Christ because of misinterpretation of Scripture.  This misapplying of the Scripture has a profound effect on a person's view of themselves, on their view of God, their ministry within the body of Christ and their worthiness of Christ's sacrifice.   Let me give a common example that is consistently misinterpreted: Therefore, ...

Recalling 9/11 If you were an adult 20 years ago, chances are you know exactly where you were when our world changed forever.  However, chances are you may not have realized what forces were put into motion following the tragic events of that day. Where was I?  I had just become a Youth Pastor in Albuquerque, New Mexico a few months prior (A position I still hold to this day.).   I remember being disoriented driving into work that morning.  I lived about 5 minutes away from the church at a local apartment complex at the time.  During my brief drive in, my radio was filled with chatter over a plane hitting one of the twin towers in New York.  I truly thought that it might be a radio drama that I had cut in on.  Somewhere during the drive it hit me that these were real reports.  At the time, the official word was that it was a tragedy and the cause of the crash was unknown. Shortly after arriving at work, the second plane hit the other tower an...

Is there such a thing as a "demotivational speaker"?  If there is, then I might be available for speaking engagements.  Read this post and see if I fit the bill for your congregation or youth group. Well, that's how I feel, at times. I have had wonderful people in our congregation tell me that they wish they could hear an uplifting message from me instead of all the hard sermons that seem to flow from my lips.  (I must add that it wasn't offered up as a criticism, as much as an observation.)  And to be fair, many of our sermons have focused on some hard passages of Scripture in the last few years.  We have gone through Judges, the Kings of Israel and Judah, the Gospel of Matthew and are currently in 1 Corinthians. I have been at camp and at conferences and have heard awesome men and women of God share messages and give testimony of God's greatness in their lives that make me wish that I could be like them.  I see the youth and adults flock to the alta...

By Canonreflex (Own work) [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.  Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.  For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, His body, of which He is the Savior.  Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the Word, and to present her to Himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies.  He who loves his wife loves himself.  After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church--for we are members of His body.  ...

It happens all the time.  I just had another conversation from a faithful member concerning sin in their lives.  If you think this blog is about you...it is...but it's about me too.  So don't worry, I will happily go through this trial with you. I was told how their particular sin was hindering their lives.  No matter how many times they tried to defeat this sin, it came back and bit them in the butt again.  Every single time they failed over the sin, they felt like a hypocrite.  And there was no place more evident for these feelings than when they were at church in community with other believers. Don't worry...I go through the same thing. I mean, how can anyone honestly sing praises to God when we've struggled so mightily just this last week with sin and failed the very God we say we serve?  Doesn't that make the time of praise full of just empty words devoid of any true meaning?  In our minds, it becomes just a...