Michael Jordan once said that the most peaceful moments of his life were on a basketball court, because that's the only place he knew exactly what to do. And to me the most peaceful moments in my ministry are in the pulpit because that's when I really know what I'm going to do.
I'm a preacher first and a writer second, although my role is changing a bit at the church. I'm going to bring on a co-teacher, but I'll still be a pastor and a writer.
It's important to preach like there's a broken heart on every pew. That's always been a phrase that stuck with me. Not everybody is having a tough time, but you can bet your buck that there's a good tenth of your church that's going through a hard season. There really is a broken heart on every pew.
I try to help people see they're going to have these times in which they turn away, in which they deny Christ and their faith grows cold, their convictions weakened; but Jesus is waiting.
I try to help people see that God uses pain, that pain is one of the ways God shapes us into the kind of beings He wants us to be for eternity.
Theres some inherently unique characteristics of Christianity, the chief of which is that Christianity teaches that we are saved by what Christ has done for us, instead of we are saved by what we do for God.
Christianity teaches salvation by grace through faith, every other religion teaches salvation through works and merit.
I don't think God is a gender. He presents himself as a father but he comes to us with the tenderness of a mother. In some of the parables, he is the housewife who cleans the house looking for the lost coin. So I think we can miss the point if we get too concerned about the gender of God.
It works well for me to go ahead and prepare the sermon with a chapter in mind. What that does is to force me to be very thrifty in my language, tighten up my words and not ramble so much. It puts some fiber in the sermon.
If I'm a young mom or young dad, I can find a great source of strength. God has promised that He will help me to be the mom or dad that He wants me to be. He has promised to be with me every step of the way. He has promised that He will never leave me or forsake me. These are wonderful promises that I can learn to trust and build a life on.
I think there is something about a story that is enduring. Stories take on a life of their own.
Maybe you've had the experience where somebody's asked you a question and you give an answer, then later in the day you think, "Oh, I wish I'd said that!" I tend to journal these things and put the answers in sermons.
Bread of Life? Jesus lived up to the title. But an unopened loaf does a person no good. Have you received the bread? Have you received God's forgiveness?
I am very confident in preaching.
My main concern is with the anxiety that has settled upon America.
A story does that: it will reach out and hook somebody and hold them for just a few moments while you unpack this story in their presence.
My conversations with Trump supporters have left me with more questions than answers.
It deeply concerns me that somebody who knows little or nothing about the Christian faith would hear Mr. Trump call himself a Christian and then make a decision based on the Christian faith, based on his behavior.
When I was a young kid, my dad, a man of few words, told my brother and me, "Boys, Christmas is about Jesus." I thought about what he said, and I began asking the Christmas questions. I've been asking them ever since. I love the answers I've found.
For those who never pray, maybe now you will. For those of us who attempt to pray, maybe we can pray more.
Does God understand you? Find the answer in Bethlehem.
To me that's always a little satisfying - to find an underdeveloped topic and start developing it.
We're also a multi-site church, so we have other pastors on other campuses who want to read the message before the video plays on the weekend services. So it just works better for me.
The English name Jesus traces its origin to the Hebrew word Yeshua. Yeshua is a shortening of Yehoshuah, which means "Yahweh saves."
I want a real take-home quality to the sermon, so I built the whole sermon series around the word grace, those five letters.
