This post on prophets, priests, and kings as leadership typology is excerpted from my book The God Who Goes Before You. You can purchase the book here. Does my personality as a leader land me in the category of prophet, priest, or king? And, if it does, what does that mean for my leadership in the […]
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Leadership: Priestly Leadership in the New Covenant
What does priesthood in the Old Testament have to do with church leadership today? Quite a lot, as it turns out—though perhaps not in the way you would assume! Priestly leadership isn’t about becoming a priest; it isn’t even about becoming a caregiver or counselor for the people of God. To understand the implications of […]
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Leadership: The God Who Goes Before You
Today, The God Who Goes Before You is finally available in bookstores! This book on leadership develops a fresh definition of pastoral leadership that is thoroughly grounded in the storyline and canon of Scripture. As the book unfolds, what Michael Wilder and I have developed together is a vision for the leadership of God’s people […]
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Leadership: Kingly Leadership in the New Covenant
This post is excerpted from my book The God Who Goes Before You: Pastoral Leadership as Christ-Centered Followership.You can order the book here. What does kingship in the Old Testament have to do with church leadership today? Quite a lot, as it turns out—though perhaps not in the way you would assume.
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Leadership: Leadership as Followership in the Life of Moses
This post was written with Michael Wilder and is excerpted from our book The God Who Goes Before You. You can order the book here. Incompetent Leaders, Omnicompetent God The opening verses of Exodus invite readers into a story that stretches backward through Abraham to the very beginning of time. Moses wrote that “the Israelites were […]
[Read More...]Leadership: Leadership as Followership in the Life of Moses
This post was written with Michael Wilder and is excerpted from our book The God Who Goes Before You. You can order the book here. Incompetent Leaders, Omnicompetent God The opening verses of Exodus invite readers into a story that stretches backward through Abraham to the very beginning of time. Moses wrote that “the Israelites were […]
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Leadership: Shepherd Leadership as God-Centered Followership
This post on shepherd leadership is excerpted from my book The God Who Goes Before You. You can order the book here. The Failure of Israel’s Shepherds Have you ever faced a situation where someone did such a poor job on a project that you declared, “I’ll just do it myself”? That’s not too different from […]
[Read More...]Leadership: Priestly Leadership in the New Covenant
What does priesthood in the Old Testament have to do with church leadership today? Quite a lot, as it turns out—though perhaps not in the way you would assume! Priestly leadership isn’t about becoming a priest; it isn’t even about becoming a caregiver or counselor for the people of God. To understand the implications of […]
[Read More...]
Apologetics: How Aristides Spoke Truth to Power in the Second Century
Imagine yourself as a follower of Jesus in the opening decades of the second century. Nearly a century has passed since the first followers of Jesus claimed they saw their leader alive three days after they watched him die. Now, the Christian faith has reached nearly every urban center in the Roman Empire. And yet, […]
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Sermon: The Wisdom that Comes from Peace
“Peace be with you.” Christians all around the world repeat these words every week—but what would our lives look like if peace really was woven into every part of our lives? The book of James provides us with a clue: “The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace,” James writes, “by those who cultivate peace” […]
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Sermon: Learning to Live in Awe
“For this reason,” Paul declared in his letter to the Ephesians, “I fall to my knees before the Father” (3:14). When people fall to their knees in the Bible, we tend to assume that the primary purpose of their prostration is prayer—and that was indeed part of what Paul was expressing here. But that’s not […]
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Church History: The Centrality of Scripture in the Ministry of Macrina
Two years after the Council of Nicaea in the year 325, Macrina the Younger was born. She—as Coleman Michael Ford has pointed out— lived between two worlds. One world was the age of Christian persecution by the likes of emperor Diocletian and others. For many Christians in the three centuries before Macrina’s birth, persecution leading […]
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Meditation: Worship as Remembering Our Place
“The captain has turned off the seat belt sign.” My wife and children are at home, but I am not. The conference has been long, the flight has been delayed, it is late, and I am longing to see the lights of Louisville. Sparkling crystals of light unfurl beneath me, not evenly scattered across the […]
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Writing: If You Want to Remember It, Write It By Hand
Words and writing matter. In the opening chapter of the Scriptures, God speaks, and a cosmos bursts into being (Genesis 1:3). When he constitutes Israel as his people, God speaks and writes, and a covenant is born (Exodus 31:18). John described the incarnation of God in Christ by declaring, “the Word became flesh” (John 1:14).
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Apologetics: How Can the Bible be Inerrant if Copyists Made Mistakes?
How can the Bible be inerrant if there are variations among the manuscripts and even between different accounts of the same events? That’s the question we’ll explore together in this post. How Can We Have the Word of God If Some of the Words Are Different? I slumped in an unpadded pew, half-listening to the morning […]
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Family Ministry: When and Why Did Weekly Children’s Classes Begin in Churches? (Part Three)
This research into the history of age-organized catechetical classes in the church is based on an academic paper that I presented to the practical theology section of the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in Providence, Rhode Island, on November 16, 2017. This post is the third in a three-part series. Click here for […]
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Family Ministry: When and Why Did Weekly Children’s Classes Begin in Churches? (Part Two)
This research into the history of age-organized ministries in the church is based on an academic paper that I presented to the practical theology section of the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in Providence, Rhode Island, on November 16, 2017. This post is the second in a three-part series. Click here for Part […]
[Read More...]Family Ministry: When and Why Did Weekly Children’s Classes Begin in Churches? (Part One)
When did age-organized ministries for children begin? If you thought children’s classes didn’t begin until the introduction of Sunday School, you have a lot to learn!
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Apologetics: New Heresies Are Rarely New
At least once or twice every year—usually around Christmas and Easter—popular magazines and blogs seem to go out of their way to locate some shocking fact that supposedly debunks what Christians believe about Jesus. In most cases, these supposedly-shocking data are recycled from one of the many failed quests for the historical Jesus that have ebbed and […]
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Sermon: The Cycle That Only A Cross Could End
“If only I could see God do something amazing, then it would be easier to follow him.” Has that thought ever occurred to you? It’s certainly crossed my mind from time to time! And yet, what we learn throughout the Scriptures is that, even when people did see God do something amazing, faithfulness wasn’t any […]
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