Tag: The Church

Playing a Part

Leave a comment

Last week on our journey through the story of the church, we saw what some of the fruits of our Gospel boldness can be. They weren’t particularly sweet. Persecution never is in the moment. Yet the church kept at it. They did their part while relying on God to do His. When both parts were working like they should, something pretty incredible happened. Let’s take a look at what this was in the next part of our story. Thanks for reading and sharing.

Playing a Part

In 1996 a young man named Bob was drafted out of the University of Tennessee by the Texas Rangers as the 18th pick in the first round of the Major League Baseball draft. Like any person in his position he entered the Majors with boatloads of optimism. He was offered a nice signing bonus and seemed set to make a quick trip through the farm system to his eventual big league debut. He was even invited to join the U. S. Olympic team competing in Atlanta that summer. Early on in the process, however, a doctor for the team noticed in a team photo that his arm was sticking out funny. This led to some testing and it was discovered that he was missing a piece of ligament in his throwing arm. Doctors were amazed that he was even able to turn a doorknob without excruciating pain. The reaction was swift. His signing bonus was cut to 10% of the original offer and for most of the next 10 years he languished in the minors. 

Read the rest…

The Fruit of Boldness

Leave a comment

For the last three weeks we have been talking about the initial explosion of the early church and the boldness with which they pursued the advance of Jesus’ mission. We’ve talked about just how seriously they were taking the church in those early days. Along the way, though, a question has started to bubble up without much of an answer just yet: what happened to them? So they did all this bold Gospel work. What happened? How did things go for them? In this next part of our series, The Story of Us, we’re going to get an answer to that question. It may not be what you expect. Read on to find out how things went.

P.S. My family is taking some downtime this next week, so this will be the only post for this week. Enjoy, and see you in a week.

The Fruit of Boldness

A few years ago, I picked up a copy of David McCullough’s book, 1776. It’s a gripping story of the events of that incredibly consequential year in the history of our nation. The story, however, is not what you might expect going into it. When we think about the year 1776, our thoughts are mostly shaped by the momentous event that happened on July 4th and which we are in the midst of celebrating, with the main events coming on Tuesday. That, of course, was the day we officially declared independence from the British crown, establishing ourselves as a sovereign nation. 

Read the rest…

Morning Musing: 2 Timothy 3:1

2 Comments

“But know this: Hard times will come in the last days.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

The latest Marvel offering, Secret Invasion, is already in its second week and absolutely fantastic so far. My mind is racing with all the Gospel possibilities of the story. I had thought about writing down some early series reflections today, but I’m going wait a few more weeks until the series ends to offer up my thoughts on it. Instead for today, I recently had a conversation with a good friend who was expressing some spiritual and moral concern with the state of our culture. As he looks around at the world, he sees a nation awash in sin and getting worse. You may see that too. Here are some of the thoughts I shared with him. Perhaps they’ll be helpful for you as well.

Read the rest…

Taking Things Seriously

2 Comments

Today, as we continue our journey through the story of the early church in Acts, we come to one of those stories that threatens to derail the whole thing. This is a hard story. It’s hard to understand. It seems totally inconsistent with what we think we know of God’s character. It seems to paint the church in just the kind of judgmental light that is so often shined on it today. And we are going to dive right into the middle of it. We’re going to tackle it head on because I think there’s something happening here that we absolutely cannot miss if we want to get doing church right. So, buckle up and get ready, because this is going to be a wild ride.

Taking Things Seriously

I often start off our time together with a question. I’m going to do that this morning. This question, though, is a little more personal than what I often ask. I want you to think back to your past a bit this morning—hopefully not the recent past if you haven’t yet been around here very long. I want you to think for a minute about whether or not you’ve ever had a bad church experience. 

Read the rest…

A Bold Movement

Leave a comment

This week we are continuing our new teaching series on the story of the early church in Acts. This incredible story helps us grasp more fully where we came from so that we better understand where we are going. After the church fairly well exploded into existence after the coming of the Holy Spirit and Peter’s sermon at Pentecost, a happy end to the story if we were writing it would be for the church to sail on forward to accomplish its mission without anything getting in its way. That is not, however, how life works. Challenges started coming the church’s way left and right; inside and out. How did the church navigate her way through all of these? That’s what we’re talking about today. Keep reading to find out.

Just as a heads up: I’ll be traveling some this week. Posts will still go up, but they may not be as long or as early as usual.

A Bold Movement

Do you remember the first time you got burned? I don’t necessarily mean physically burned. I mean, do you remember the first time something happened to really shake your confidence? When I was six my parents took me on a mild roller coaster ride at Silver Dollar City in Branson, MO, called Fire in the Hole. The idea was that you were on a mine train that keeps nearly crashing into a burning building. At each such junction the train makes a quick drop and turn. It was all inside and didn’t really have any high hills or crazy turns. But I was always kind of a cautious kid, and as we were waiting in line I began to lose my nerve. At this point, my parents were presented with a choice: have one of them take me on the chicken exit while the other enjoyed the ride with my sister who was much braver at three than I was at six, or take me on the ride over my increasingly insistent protests in hopes that I would see that it wasn’t nearly so bad as I was thinking. They didn’t know it—and indeed no parent recognizes this in the moment—but this was one of those parental judgment points where there’s really not a right answer, but whatever you decide is probably going to have lasting implications.  They decided to go with the latter option on that list. When the terror-ride finally ended I was traumatized. As I bawled my eyes out I swore to myself that I would never again ride a roller-coaster or anything even remotely like that. I got burned and I wasn’t about to reach my hand back out there again. My nerve was shot.  

Read the rest…