The danger of spiritual role modeling is that the mentored often become like the mentor and stop there, rather than moving beyond to be like Jesus. Paul understood that concept and even though he instructed, “Brethren, I urge you to become like me” (Gal. 4:12) he also pointed them ultimately to Jesus. Spiritual mentoring can…
I’ve recently been out of the country, in an urban area where owning and operating a motor vehicle is cost prohibitive for many. Going only where public transportation can take them, their geographical world is small. They speak often of their “small footprint” a reference to the limited area of space they normally cover day…
Thomas Wolfe wrote a classic book entitled, You Can’t Go Home Again. The idea is that things change. If you are away and return, it is never the same. The Hebrew children spent forty futile years trying to go home again. Their experience, recorded in Numbers, is summarized with the cry, “Let us select a…
I cancelled a flight this week. A major airline has been re-calling hundreds of its planes for inspections and thereby stranding thousands of passengers in airports far from home. I couldn’t take a chance, needing to be back at home at exactly the time printed on my return flight itinerary. How did my calendar get…
Do you think much before you pray? How about thinking as you pray? I’ve observed several categories of pray-ers. Some just begin full speed ahead and spontaneously pray all over the place. Others seem so organized that even the Holy Spirit would have difficulty intervening. Still others simply string together learned phrases without much thought…
I first knew Jim Hollars as a seminary student in my urban evangelism practicum. We became good friends due to common interests. He was a walking baseball encyclopedia and a serious runner. I followed his career as a church planter in Ohio until he developed Parkinson’s disease and took early retirement back to Fort Worth….
A couple of Sundays ago it was 3/16. It was also Palm Sunday. That won’t happen so early again in our lifetime – unless you live another 220 years. The merging of Roman calendar date and biblical reference caused more than one church to emphasize John 3:16 on Palm Sunday, leading up to Easter. No…
The questions were posed in a Canadian Coffee Shop. It could have been anywhere. Why do you Christians send missionaries to convert people? Why do you proclaim that yours is the only religion? Why don’t you just worship your god and leave everyone else alone? Where do you get the audacity to imply I’m wrong?…
How many down times have been uplifted with a song? In my life the answer would be “many” times. It may be a song from my childhood or youth days in which case, it is classified as an old song. It may be a contemporary song that only recently has become a part of my…
It’s working! I suspected that it would. It always has. I’m talking about prayer. I’ve been working with the leadership of Vancouver (Canada) Focus in starting new churches in the metro Vancouver area. I agreed to take on the responsibility for the Frasier River Delta, an area between the city of Vancouver and the U.S….