The Word and the Work: Thoughts on Preaching, Pastoring, and the Christian Life

                                                                                                           But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world. 1 Cor 7:32   Everyone loves to talk about discipline.  Discipline in schools, discipline for your kids, church discipline.  Right? Actually no one likes to talk about it.  I am only talking about it because God is convicting me of a ...

I want you all to think about your pastor.I love my pastor.  I believe he is a mighty man of God that preaches truth. I am sure most of you feel this way about your pastor.  I have many men in my life that I look to as mentors and role models even in ministry.  Now, I want you to imagine that something drastic happened.  Imagine your pastor was caught doing something morally reprehensible.  I do not want to get into specifics but just tag him with the worst thing you can think of for the sake of the example.  No doubt about it he is guilty of this act.  Here is the question.  Does his action discredit wholly the message he preached? Will it end your walk with Christ because of what your spiritual leader did?  If it would cause you to walk away from your faith, then I want to tell you that you never had any faith to begin with.  Do not get me wrong, a pastor caught in sin is heartbreaking and it will shake a church, but it should not dest...

How many people can honestly say that they know what it is like to get their backside worn out by their Mom or Dad?  I know I can.  Don't worry Mom the statute of limitations on child abuse has run out so I can talk about this without fear of you getting locked up.  I have had my behind WHUPPED more times than I care to remember, and looking back I remember some of them quite well so I want to share. My Mom will tell you she remembers the last time she spanked me.  I remember it too. Mostly I remember thinking that somehow I got in trouble for being really good at a game.  My best friend Michael, myself, and some other kids were playing hide and seek and me and the aforementioned Mikey decided that the best place to hide would be on the roof behind the chimney.  Great plan.  Nobody could find us.  Except for Mom that is.  I remember her yelling something about getting a certain part of my body down off the roof right this instant.  Aft...

Wow, Have I fallen behind keeping up with this blog.  Why? Well, for example, right now I have a two page paper one day overdue that is needing to be written. Poor planning and procrastination caught up with me again.  However, this is not what I intended to comment on today.  Today, God has asked me a question I am having trouble answering:  Is it possible to have contentment and still have ambition?  Hmmmmm.... I would say that it is.  Maybe that is just wishful thinking or arrogance, but I do believe there is a way to walk that line.   Right now I am as happy as I have ever been with the way my family life, career, and even my educational situation as I have ever been.  Yet, there is still so much I want to accomplish.  I still have ambitions.  These two things do not have to remain mutually exclusive. The real test is motivation. Is my ambition tied to the mission God has for my life?  If it is then I have nothing to rep...

So here it is, Monday morning.  It is a glorious morning weather wise here in North Central Virginia.  We have had a wonderful two weeks of weather. I even think the 2 feet of rain was okay on Saturday.  This morning I have been pondering a few things.  After staying up late to finish some last minute homework I watched some old Disney cartoons and it got me thinking.  Am I a horrible person for laughing at the way Chip and Dale always get the best of Donald Duck?  I mean after all they are continually bullying him and taking things that are not theirs.  The particular cartoon I watched last night Donald was being a good conservationist and planting acorns to grow some trees, but Chip and Dale needed said acorns for their winter food supply and took it upon themselves to take them and hilarity ensued.  This was obviously before their Rescue Ranger days.  If you don't know what Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers is then yo...

I have been privileged in my life to know some great and godly men.  The men that I have matured under have undoubtedly been more of the Old School flavor than the new.  This sometimes puts me at odds philisopically with others of my generation of ministers.  I used to wonder if maybe I was carrying on in the  fashion of a movement that was dead and gone, but I have come to the conclusion that this is not the case. Understand, I am not throwing rocks at this more modern way of teaching, leading, and preaching.  Some of my very best friends are of this cut and I would no more doubt their faithfulness than my own.  I do know, however, that through this new church attitude there are thousands being left in the lurch.  For every coffee house style church plant there is probably two old country churches that are faithful, and they need someone to preach to them too. Funny modern church service parody here.   Sure, it is not easy to butt our heads aga...

You ever had it?  You ever had that moment when something that never made sense to you finally clicked in your mind?  Maybe it was algebra, maybe operating some vile piece of computer software, or maybe it was finally getting your universal remote to be truly universal.  These are simple examples, but there is nothing that compares with not knowing something one second, and then instantly you know it.  Most likely when you have these moments it is a piece of knowledge that will stick with you forever.  There are two reasons that this subject is on my heart this morning.  The first is that I was witness to one of these moments recently.  Holy Spirit decided to jump into our TeamKID meeting and really bring home some understanding.  A group of around 20 kids between 7 and 12 really understood what was being taught.  Usually a few get it, but this time it was a vast majority.  There must be a need in this particular area because the youn...