Giving Answers (1 Peter 3:15)

I'm about to get into trouble.  Maybe with a lot of you.  But for sure with some of you. However, I can't stay silent anymore.  I have watched an entire generation of professed Christians follow the lie of eloquent writing believing because a person identifies as a believer (or a pastor) that it makes him (or her) one in any Biblical sense. The digital age has brought with it more information to our fingertips and touch screens than we could have ever imagined.  If we want to find out about something, we just Google it.  Instantly, 63,498 articles pop up on the subject we just inquired about (give or take 15,438).  It is has the ability to be simultaneously an amazing gift and a destructive force to our faith.  The one thing that all of this information doesn't do is interpret whether the information is good or bad. In this type of atmosphere, heresy is easily fostered and adopted.  You can see it on the web in all of the articles that claim...

Repent!  It was the call of John the Baptist to prepare the way of Jesus (Mat. 3:1-2; Luke 3:3-4).   But repent of what? This seems to be the struggle of our modern day culture who want to have their salvation and their sinful life too.  It is the problem with many millenial Christians who want to reach a world for Jesus but don't believe that acknowledgement of sin and repentance of sin is necessary for salvation to the broken people they are proclaiming Jesus to.  Having been in the world and seeing the image of God in the broken people whom they have met, the idea of repentance seems so unloving and intolerant.  Nowhere is this more evident than in the churches that have popped up proclaiming that they are "open and affirming".  Any lifestyle is equally acceptable and blessed by God, even if it runs contrary to what God has revealed in His Word.  There are whole denominations that are doing Scriptural gymnastics trying to deny what the ...

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.  ...

By John D. (Clemson University (Public), Flickr) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)],  via Wikimedia Commons I would like to tell you a story.  But to do it, I am going to ask that you read all the way to the end, because it might not be what you think it is from the opening paragraphs. Now it is no secret that I am a Clemson fan.  So to say that I am elated over their 2016 National Championship is probably a serious understatement. For fun, I play Bowl Pick'em (where you choose the winners of each of the 41 college football bowl games) and try to get the most points to win the competition.  Each year I create two separate accounts.  With one account, I play against the people of my church.  With the other account, I play against my family. Not to brag or anything, but I destroyed my church family (man that sounds bad...maybe I am bragging a little bit).  However, by the time the championship game came around, I had...

It's been a long time since we talked.  But because of technology, like Facebook, we have been able to keep up with all of you.  The line from the old Michael W. Smith song is true, "Friends are friends forever, if the Lord's the Lord of them."  After being in ministry for the past 15 years and watching all of you stand strong in the faith, I have a profound appreciation of this truth.   So let me begin by saying, we are so glad to call you our friends.  Distance tends to make strangers of us all, life continues to happen outside our shared class schedule we had at TFC.  Family, children, jobs, ministry as well as sickness and trouble have appeared on our Facebook feeds concerning all of you, keeping us informed and helping to know how to pray for you, as the years have flown by. Vacations have been few and far between for us and visitations to our old stomping grounds, because our family is from the area, haven't netted the connection with each of...

Blessed.  Humbled. Stunned silent (if anyone can really imagine that for me). Over the last 15 years, I have had the privilege to be a pastor at Heights Christian Church.  During the last eight, I have shared the task of co-pastoring with Mark.  In 2008, with Mark coming on staff, we had just created our "new" mission and vision statement of "Love God, Love God's People, Love Serving God" for our church.  Our goal was to make a community where making disciples and truly desiring God was part of our DNA. I wish I could accurately describe how I feel about our fellowship.  The people there are more than just friends and fellow believers in Christ, they truly are family.  As a matter of fact, our children's godparents are there.  Our staff doesn't just have meetings together, we pray together, laugh together, get in one another's faces when necessary and more than anything else, love on one another.  Our elders are much the same as we pr...