You may have noticed that I have a new book out that I co-edited with my colleague Dr. John David Trentham. In Practical Family Ministry, we’ve brought together several practitioners to provide you with a plethora of practical ideas to strengthen your church’s family ministry. Sometimes, I’m hesitant to ask you to purchase a book that I’ve written […]
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Church History: Father’s Day without a Father and the Unsung Stanzas of Amazing Grace
Today, for the fourth year, I experience Father’s Day as a father but without a living father. My father passed away in the late summer of 2011. As far back as I can remember, his favorite hymn was “Amazing Grace.” I do not recall this song ever being sung without it drawing tears from his eyes. […]
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Church History: The Story of the Real Santa Claus
Today, St. Nicholas is mostly known as a paunchy old geezer who spends one night each year breaking into people’s houses and stealing cookies before escaping to an Arctic hideaway where elves do his work for him. Kind of creepy when you think about it. The good news is that none of this was what […]
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Family Ministry: What Can You Do Right Now to Start Discipling Your Children?
So what are a few practical discipleship practices that you could start this week in your household? Here’s what we are doing this week in our family—see if any of these practices might work in your household as well: This blog post was adapted from a video that I did for the D6 Conference. Videos […]
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Family Ministry: Learning How to TIE
One of the most important organizational principles in family-equipping ministry is don’t add any new programs. So how do you embrace a new approach to ministry without adding anything new? Find out here: This blog post was adapted from a video that I did for the D6 Conference. Videos provided courtesy of Right Now Media. […]
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Family Ministry: How Do I Train My Children to Have a Biblical Worldview?
One crucial aspect of discipling our children is simply helping them to see all of life in light of God’s glory and God’s story—to see the ordinary things of life, as well as the extraordinary, from the perspective of God’s story. Here are a few practical ways to help your children to see their lives […]
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Family Ministry: Providing Parents with a Bigger Vision for Their Children’s Lives
One of the most important aspects of family ministry, especially in the early stages, is providing the parents a vision for something bigger and better than what they’re doing now. The fact is that most parents are living in a storyline that’s smaller than God intended, because they don’t know who their children really are. […]
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Family Ministry: The First Step Toward Launching Your Church’s Family Ministry
Strangely enough, the hardest first step toward family-equipping ministry for most churches is not an organizational step. The hardest step and the first step, when a church catches the vision for family ministry, is to draw the staff together to make sure that the staff is doing, in their homes, what they’re going to ask […]
[Read More...]PROOF: Win Free CD and MP3 of PROOF!
On August 1, 2014, I will be giving away three free, signed recordings of PROOF: Finding Freedom through the Intoxicating Joy of Irresistible Grace unabridged on compact disc. Here’s how you can win: Anytime between now and August 1, post on Facebook or Twitter any blog article or resource found on ProofofGrace.com. Include the hashtag […]
[Read More...]PROOF: Cutting through the Confusion about What to Call “the New Calvinism” (Part 3)
For part one of this series on naming the “New Calvinism,” click here. Click here for part two. The Unintended Disembedding at the Synod of Dort All this semantic wrestling does, however, bring up another question—one that I think we might profitably explore further: How did Reformed soteriology reach beyond the historic Reformed churches in […]
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PROOF: Old Debate, New Day
It’s an old debate. Calvinism, Arminianism, five points, Reformed, non-Reformed, New Calvinism, Neo-Arminian—and it’s a question worthy of ongoing discussion. The Sojourn Network would like to invite you to Missio Dei Church in Chicago for an important event highlighting this ongoing debate. This is a one-night-only event on Wednesday, August 27th, 2014 and seating is […]
[Read More...]PROOF: The Joy of Undiluted Grace
PROOF: Win a Free Signed Copy of PROOF Today #PROOFIsHere
If you’re interested in winning a free copy of PROOF today, post the message below on Facebook, Twitter, or both: Apart from gospel being proclaimed, no one will respond to the proof God has provided through the cross #PROOFIsHere http://www.proofofgrace.com Tonight, my children will randomly choose one winner from Facebook and one winner from Twitter. […]
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PROOF: Does Overcoming Grace Mean We Don’t Have Free Will? #2DaysUntilPROOF
There’s a roughness along the edges of the Reformed doctrines of grace—a difficult dilemma that may have crossed your mind at some point. People usually express the concern in statements that run something like this: “I just can’t believe that God would drag people into heaven against their will, kicking and screaming!” Such reactions reveal […]
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PROOF: Win a Free Signed Copy of PROOF Today #2DaysUntilPROOF
If you’re interested in winning a free copy of PROOF today, post the message below on Facebook, Twitter, or both: God’s overcoming grace isn’t merely his pardon for sin; it’s his power at work in my powerless life. #2DaysUntilPROOF http://tiny.cc/PRF Tonight, my children will randomly choose one winner from Facebook and one winner from Twitter. […]
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PROOF: A Short Review of PROOF #3DaysUntilProof
The following is a review of PROOF found in the May 2014 issue Towers Magazine, the campus newspaper for The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. A couple of years ago, violinist Joshua Bell showed up at a metro station in Washington, D.C., took out his violin and started to play. The casually dressed violinist played as hundreds of people walked […]
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PROOF: What’s the Point of Predestination? #3DaysUntilPROOF
“It was pretty ornery preaching,” Huckleberry Finn mused when he found himself in church one particular Sunday morning, “and had such a powerful lot to say about faith and good works and free grace and preforeordestination, and I don’t know what all, that it did seem to me to be one of the roughest Sundays […]
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PROOF: The Price of Trying to Be God #6DaysUntilPROOF
Sin is the usage of a gift that God wove into his creation to point to his glory in a way that the Creator never intended. That’s how God’s good gift of relaxation degenerates into vacations that end in frustration because they fall short of our self-centered expectations. That’s how God’s gifts of food and […]
[Read More...]PROOF: What Is Resurrecting Grace? #6DaysUntilPROOF
An excerpt from the book PROOF: Finding Freedom through the Intoxicating Joy of Irresistible Grace: God’s plan has always been to multiply the fame of his own name by giving new life to the spiritually dead (Ephesians 1:4–2:5). The price that this plan required was nothing less than the slaughter of a perfect substitute—a gift […]
[Read More...]Family Ministry: The One Family Ministry Conference to Attend This Year
Looking for a conference to help you to equip and to train families to share the story of faith in the home? Still trying to figure out how to connect your Sunday morning ministry with the rest of the week? Wanting some practical tips for changing the culture of your congregation when it comes to family […]
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