Mark Dricsoll is no stranger to the national spotlight. Over the last few years, he’s become widely known as the innovative pastor of Seattle’s Mars Hill Church, a booming congregation of over 13,000. He’s a best-selling author with books to his credit on everything from ministry to marriage to leadership. His Acts 29 Network is a growing group of churches across the world seeking to duplicate his approach to ministry. His public disputes with other national Christian figures like John MacArthur have over the last few months been further evidence of his notoriety. But Driscoll’s recent track record hasn’t been so positive. Allegations of plagiarism and manipulating the publishing […]
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Our son Will decided to go into the military his first year in high school. It came as a surprise to my wife and me because neither of us had much military service in our families. But we lived in a military town at the time so our first thought was that Will had been influenced by his surroundings. His true motivation turned out to be much deeper. When he told us of his plans we came right back at him with the typical parental response: “Son, are you sure? That’s a dangerous profession. Don’t you want to do something less risky and more predictable with your life?” […]
Read More“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God.” (Exodus 20:2-5) The First and Second Commandments define worship in terms of priority and purity. The highest value we have as humans is to offer our praise and worship to the One who made […]
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You don’t expect a blizzard to strike Columbia, SC, but that’s pretty much what happened Tuesday night. The temperatures plunged below freezing. Sleet followed by snow started falling at levels we only see every decade or so. Within a few hours the Midlands came to a complete standstill. Traffic couldn’t move. People stayed inside. Everything was battened down as though a hurricane was blowing through. By yesterday morning, though, people came out to play. We get this kind of weather so seldom that there’s a holiday feel to it, and most of us couldn’t wait to get out of the house. Snow days aren’t just a reprieve for […]
Read MoreThough Abraham Lincoln was neither baptized nor joined a church of any kind, he was the most spiritually minded president in American history. His faith was wrought on the anvil of anguish, both personal and national, and because of this he has much to teach us in our own age of anxiety. (Timothy George, “Lincoln’s Faith and America’s Future”) Timothy George is Dean of the Beeson Divinity School at Samford University and one of the real leaders in Southern Baptist life. He taught me Church History at Southern Seminary in the early 80’s and I’ve been an admirer of his spiritual insight and historical understanding every since. Here’s the link […]
Read MoreI spent last week in the Middle East, hanging out with some of my church’s partners in that region of the world. These are American families who’ve responded to a special call and committed their lives to front-line gospel work. Their ministry is to a region of the world that isn’t just casual toward the Christian faith but actively hostile toward it. In last week’s post I called them “white martyrs.” A martyr is someone willing to give his life for Jesus. A “white” martyr is willing to travel into the unknown in order to take the gospel to people who don’t know Jesus. But our partners don’t show […]
Read More“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” – Jeremiah 29:11
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I spent this week away from my church in one of the great cities in the Middle East. I’m blessed to serve a congregation with a world-wide vision for the gospel and they send me on a regular basis as their representative to distant places. So I left last Sunday to visit with some of our partners in ministry working in a difficult and dangerous region. I’ve been on many mission trips and worked on a lot of different projects. This one was different. It didn’t begin with a specific task that needed to be done. Instead, I went in order to spend time with each one of our […]
Read MoreWalk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. (Colossians 1:10) An encouragement to align our lives around a single great principle: Is the way that we’re living pleasing to God? In Genesis 6:8, we’re told that in the ancient world, when wickedness and violence was everywhere, one man decided instead to live in a way pleasing to God. The Message translates the verse in a way that really resonates in my heart: “God liked what he saw in Noah.”
Read MoreI started holding separate worship services in 1995 at my previous church in North Carolina. The church was a traditional, downtown First Baptist church, and its worship style wasn’t connecting with the surrounding community—composed mainly of young, military families from all over the country. So our leadership did what many churches did in that era and started a contemporary worship service. I use the term “contemporary” loosely. What the service consisted of was a platform in our downstairs fellowship hall made of a piece of plywood on four concrete blocks. We put a keyboard on it along with a wonderful young couple from our congregation, and they led us in […]
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