4 Types of Leadership Teams Every Ministry Leadership Team Should Understand: Insights from Larry Osborne’s “Sticky Teams”

How does the growth of a church and its leadership team impact how its leadership team functions and what leaders should expect? Leaders who have been a part of a staff, whether paid or unpaid, that’s grown numerically, understand that growth changes certain aspects of the leadership team. But how? Well, Larry Osborne, in his […]

Specific Answers to Prayer: An Amazing Story of God Hearing a Prayer for a Refrigerator for a Family in Need

The married couple was in a long season of one crisis after another. The wife had undiagnosed Lyme Disease while pregnant and was extremely sick. After she gave birth, she continued to have a lot of health issues. The child was born with life-altering health issues. Since both the husband and the wife were teachers, […]

5 Steps To Take When You Experience Loss: Insights from Jerry Sittser’s “A Grace Disguised”

Jerry Sittser and his family were headed back home from an event when a drunk driver drove head-on into their minivan. Although he and three of his kids survived, tragically, his wife, mother, and one of his daughters all died at the scene of the accident. While most people don’t, thankfully, have to go through […]

Praying Against the Respect for Marriage Act Because I’m for the LGBTQ+ Community

It’s not loving to create laws that promote falsehoods, confusion, discrimination, and harm, while reducing the institutions that help people flourish the most. That’s why, out of love for all people, including the LGBTQ+ community, I’m praying against the Respect for Marriage Act. I know this isn’t a popular position in our culture or, most […]

Douglas McKelvey on What to Pray When a Dream Dies

Douglas McKelvey’s Every Moment Holy vol. 1 provides liturgies, or prayers, for all kinds of different situations. I thought I’d share the one he wrote for “The Death of a Dream.” In it, he skillfully and beautifully puts into words what so many feel when this happens and how they should process it in the […]

My Conversation about “21 Days to Childlike Prayer” on the “100+ Significant Moments in Christian History” Podcast

Last August, I had the privilege of sitting down with Mike Woodson, the pastor of Christ Church, to talk about 21 Days to Childlike Prayer for his fantastic “100+ Significant Moments in Christian History” podcast. I’ve enjoyed Pastor Mike’s podcast for quite some time. He does an unusually excellent job of summarizing history in substantive, […]

6 Questions Every Leadership Team Should Be Able to Answer: Insights from Patrick Lencioni

One of the major tasks of any leader is creating clarity. Patrick Lencioni, in his classic The Advantage, argues that in order for leaders to create clarity, leaders need need to make sure everyone they are leading is clear on six questions. These questions, he argues, aren’t unusually insightful. Rather, the insight is that “none […]

C.S. Lewis on the Importance of Accessible Communication

Our business is to present that which is timeless (that which is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow) in the particular language of our own age. . . . We must learn the language of our audience. And let me say at the outset that it is no use at all laying down a priori what the […]

Hope For The Hungry: The What, Why, and How of Our Churches Efforts to Grow Food to Feed The Hungry

In March of 2020, as the world was shutting down for COVID, our church, Redemption City Church, started growing food on our church property to give away to meet food shortages in our area. Nearing the end of the third growing season, with a lot of ups and downs along the way, we have grown […]

Christ and Culture: The Call to be Salt and Light in a Decaying and Darkening World

Alasdair MacIntyre, in his book, After Virtue, argues that Western culture is in a situation very similar to the cultural moment when the Roman Empire fell. Rather than being governed by reason, faith, or some combination of the two, our culture is governed by emotivism. Emotivism is the concept that moral choices are simply expressions […]