It’s easy to skim along the surface of life these days, bouncing from distraction to distraction. What I want in life is depth. I want to have a life that counts. Not “successful,” but one that counts for eternity. To that end, I’ve been a bit of quest recently for how to live a deeper…
Genesis 3 narrates the fall of humanity into sin. The terrible consequences of sin manifest themselves in a broken relationship with God, each other, and created order (3:16-24). Adam and Eve are kicked out of God’s presence in the Garden of Eden (3:24). Enmity and strife makes its way into their relationship (3:16). The world…
Ministries are a collection of systems and also contain a host of projects to be done. How do they relate? Before looking at how projects and systems relate, it's important to review what they are and the differences between them. Projects in ministry are time bound. Projects have deadlines. Because projects have deadline, this means…
Tasks are not projects, which are not initiatives. Having distinctions like this in work can be really helpful in planning your week and making progress on things. Of course, I realize that the way I classify things may be artificial and unique to me, but it has helped me bring clarity to my work. So…
Most churches are small. And most will stay small. If most churches will stay small, why are so many pastors using large church strategies and systems to pastor their small church? And how can small-church pastors apply strategies and systems that work for small churches? Those are the kinds of questions that Karl Vaters seeks…
This is my third installment in reflecting on our cultural moment and how we can begin responding as the church. In the first part I talked about secularism, and in the second part, I talked about what it means to be a post-Christian. Today, I want to talk about the third profound shift we’ve seen…
January 2022 was a great reading month for me. Here are the books I read that month: Family Firm by Emily Oster Pretty good book on making decisions as a family. The first section on coming up with family values and having those guide your decision-making as a family was the best part of the…
A couple weeks ago, I wrote about what I think “secular” means. Today, I want to explore the concept of our country being “post-Christian.” The idea that America is now “post-Christian” gets thrown around a lot, but what does it actually mean? I think there’s a lot of confusion about our current cultural moment because…
The New York Giants have just fired another coach after two years. Unfortunately, the team’s recent cycle of hiring and firing coaches is tied directly to a deeper cycle of leadership incompetence at all levels of the organization. The Giants have lost 100 games in the last 10 years and have been the second worst…
There is a lot of hand-wringing in the church today because the United States is becoming more “secular” and “post-Christian.” When we, as the church, analyze the culture, we often equate secularism with atheism. We believe, erroneously in my view, that America is becoming more atheistic and hostile to Christianity. While America may be getting…
Raising Lazarus 