I am increasingly fascinated by the way the human brain works. When I sent that photo of me on the ground (see yesterday’s post), I laughed at my daughter’s response because 1) It’s super sweet that she was immediately concerned for my well being and … 2) It didn’t even cross her mind to question how I got a photo of myself falling from the roof. But I assure you, I am not laughing at her. She’s a bright girl. It’s not a question of intelligence at all. What amuses me about the incident is that I see it as…

A day in my life: An unexpected opportunity to spend a few precious hours with my best friend from college days. He was in state from California to help out with his aging father’s health issues. I love this guy. Wish he lived next door. He and his wife met me and mine for dinner in Indianapolis.  A frustration with some of the “teaching” that goes on in the local school. A lot of mediocrity is tolerated by the administration and parents alike. The mediocrity will continue unless the teachers are confronted. Hopefully this confrontation can be done in a…

Ash Wednesday is upon us and it’s a good time to give some thought to the spiritual discipline of fasting.  Somehow over the years – although never promoted by any church I have been a part of – I picked up the practice of “giving up something for Lent”.  It can be a worthwhile discipline. Fasting is not just for Catholics. Or Muslims. Huston Smith in The World’s Religions writes about the benefits that Muslims find in their sun-up to sun-down fasting during the month of Ramadan. What he says applies to fasting in general and, even if to a…

In his new book The Truth and Beauty, author Andrew Klavan writes about a late-night conversation he had with his adult son, Spencer. Klavan was expressing his frustrations with trying to understand some of the teachings of Jesus:  “I don’t understand the Sermon on the Mount. The thing is, I have this intense feeling that it all does actually make sense somehow. It’s like a beautiful picture, but it’s blurry to me. I feel if I could just turn the lens a little bit this way or that, it would all come suddenly into focus. But I can’t seem to do…

At one point during my youth ministry days, I worked as part of a large pastoral team where the senior pastor was an easily distracted workaholic. He would fire off memos to various underlings throughout the week, assigning random new work projects as they would pop into his head.  But he rarely followed through or checked on progress.  A few months into my tenure at the church, one associate pastor pulled me aside to explain how she kept her workload light with her “3 Memo Rule”. It was simple: she always threw away the first two memos he sent regarding…

Recently I pointed out the sad state of American theology – as demonstrated by the shocking responses to a recent poll. Many American Christians were unsure of God’s omniscience, His perfection, and even the divinity of Jesus. My first response was: We need to be teaching more doctrine from the pulpit of every church! But then I came across the 5 Whys Technique, an approach to problem solving first developed at Toyota decades ago. Once you hear it, it might strike you as common sense: it is simply to keep asking “Why?” until we reach the heart of an issue. …

Apparently the revival continues in Wilmore, Kentucky – and has spread to at least one other campus. I’m praying it makes the leap into our churches soon. I have seen some discussion of whether this revival is genuine or not. It’s a valid question. When I was a student at Asbury Theological Seminary in the late 90s, I witnessed two revivals – one was genuine and the other … not so much.  The first was a smaller version of what has been happening there over the past week and a half and took place in the very same auditorium. How…

One of the greatest failings of the American Church could be summed up in Nancy Sinatra’s famous line: “You keep same-in’ when you oughta be a-changin’.”  We – as individual members of the Body – keep same-in’ when we oughta be a-changin’.  Please do not misunderstand – I am not saying the church as a whole needs to change, at least not in the sense of “keeping up with the times”. Far from it. We need to go back to the Scriptures and we need to go deep. We need to understand that faith without works is dead, that the…

I have a growing conviction that God’s intended domain for the accomplishment of good works is the Body of Christ just as much as the lives of individual believers. I would go so far as to say the Body is the primary domain for good works to happen. Individual missionaries and parachurch organizations which sidestep the local body of Christ will always be limited in their effectiveness.  The truly big work that needs to be done in this lost world requires entire networks of believers – with each individual exercising his or her unique God-given gifts in sync with each other…