The church I serve is now nearly a year into a vision process that we began with Auxano. One of the key elements we learned is the importance of developing a cohesive strategy that describes how we intentionally plan to make disciples. A key passages that informed our thinking on strategy is the familiar description…
Category: Acts
Tips for Writing Your Own Story
Yesterday I posted the outline of Paul’s story as found in Acts 22:1-21. Today I want to share some simple tips to help you write your personal testimony in a clear way. First, magnify Christ, not sin. Years ago when I served in St. Louis we had an itinerant evangelist come share his story in…
Telling Your Own Story
One of the things I’m working on this year is changing the culture of our church from one that values numbers to one that values stories. Not just any story, mind you, but stories about life transformation. One of my favorite quotes is by G.K. Chesterton, who said, “The only thing that can satisfy the…
The Price of Missions
I think that we’re aware that missions has a price tag, but we usually think of the price in terms of the dollar amount we’ll give to the offering appeal. Denominations will make a large allocation toward missions work, and churches follow suit by devoting a sizeable percentage of their operating budgets toward the same….
Where Does God Reveal His Plan?
The church at Antioch was a worshiping community. They were sincere and devout, making worship the priority of their gatherings. Acts 13:2 reports, “One day as these men were worshiping the Lord, the Holy Spirit said…” (NLT). Here’s an important point for today’s church: God revealed himself to the church in the context of their…
The DNA of the Church
Last weekend we began our annual Global Missions emphasis. Usually, these month long celebrations of missions and missionaries come packaged to church leaders to provide a supporting structure for the challenge to pray, give, and go. For some time I’ve personally been frustrated with missions promotions because they seem to polarize and distance the local…
Get Uncomfortable
Acts 10 is the story of two people. The scene opens with a man named Cornelius, a prominent Roman military leader who was compassionate toward others. You get the feel that he was well respected by those who knew him. He was a good man; in fact, one of only five men in the Bible…
My Place in this World
This weekend I presented the third sermon from my series titled Missionaries You Should Know, focused on Saul of Tarsus, aka the Apostle Paul. What gained my attention from my study of Acts 9 was Jesus’ simple testament in verse 15: “Saul is my chosen instrument to take my message to the Gentiles and to…
Interruptions
I hate to be interrupted. I bet you do too. You know… …the phone rings at dinner; …the door bell rings during the ball game; …someone drops by your office unannounced; …your youngest spills milk; …your oldest has a fender bender; …your spouse locks his or her keys in their car; …it rains; …or snows!…
A Face Like an Angel
During the month of October I’m doing a series titled, Missionaries You Should Know. Last weekend I opened to Acts 6-7 and taught about an interesting character named Stephen. I like him, enough in fact, to have given his name to my son. A lot of things are obvious about Stephen. As a man of…