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Sep 29, 2010

Theology Shapes Parenting My understanding of raising children has been changed by my understanding of God and how he responds to his children. God is so gracious, loving, kind and patient with his children. I look at my own heart, and I don't see the same attributes that I see in God the Father, but I strive towards them as the goal. The more I learn about God and his communicable attributes (Attributes God and man share in) the more I learn how to be a Father, and how far I fall short. When I look at his incommunicableRead More...

Sep 22, 2010

Did you grow up in a church where it was the norm for men to wear suits and ladies to wear skirts? Was it considered sinful for women to wear pants? Were you told that rock music was sinful and that anything with a drum beat would lead to dancing and that dancing would lead to fornication? Were you told that if you listened to the band Journey you would inevitably end up doing methamphetamines and kill your parents? If so, you grew up in what I would call a fundamentalist church. What is a Fundamentalism? Mark Driscoll offers someRead More...

Sep 09, 2010

Gospel Centered Family: Bringing us all to Jesus Growing up as a child, I was a total nightmare for my parents. I used to love tell them them “no”, manipulate, connive, con and lie to them in order to get what I wanted. Fighting with my older sister was one of my favorite past times and it sometimes went into fist fights. My poor mom and dad were put through the ringer in terms of being tested as parents and I am surprised they didn't sell me off. I told my wife that I never wanted toRead More...

Aug 25, 2010

  Fundamentalism Breeds Self Righteousness   When I first became a christian and got serious about my faith, I did so in a pretty Fundamentalist setting. I was taught that if I didn't "show up when the doors were opened" that I was a sub par christian. I started looking around on Wed's night prayer meetings and Bible study nights to see who was there. I began to get very self righteous very quickly as I noticed that many people who were there on Sunday were not there at other events. I came up with the acronym SMORead More...

Aug 17, 2010

Back in March of 2009, I was blessed to attend a church planting boot camp at Mars Hill in Seattle. I listened to a sermon about how to endure from Mark Driscoll that greatly impacted me. You can watch the video here. One of his points was that we need to endure emotionally. Most of his sub points had to do with how to deal with critics. One of the points that hit me between the eyes was "Turn your critics into coaches." You can see all of the sub points to the sermon below which I ganked from this blog. Read More...

Jul 26, 2010

In Mark 1:15 Jesus begins his ministry by proclaiming  “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God​​ is near. Repent and believe the gospel!”. This call to repent and believe is something very important to the scriptures and to the Christian faith. Apart from this call, Christianity would be no different than other religions. Theologians will call this the "External Gospel Call" because it is something done openly to all people. God has called everyone, everywhere to repent and believe the Gospel and it is our job as Christians to share this Gospel call with people.Read More...

Jul 20, 2010

When you go visit a hotel you expect everything to be clean, orderly and that everything is done for you. Its perfectly OK to put your feet up and have someone else serve you, because you paid for the service. For you moms out there, how would you feel if this was the attitude of those in your house? If you spent the majority of your time cleaning, cooking, serving the family to only have them sit around waiting to be served by you. In a house it should not be this way. As family members who love one another,Read More...

Jun 30, 2010

Todd wrote a fantastic position paper that you can read here. I strongly suggest that you do, but I would like to give a few brief points and excerpts from the article to hopefully cause you to read it for yourself. You will normally conform to and practice the faith you are converted to.  This is to say, your personal expression of your faith, will reflect what has been modeled for you.  Think about it for a minute.  If you are converted by a Pentecostal tradition, that will most likely be the one you identifyRead More...

Jun 29, 2010

On July 11th Sacred Journey will be starting a brand new mini series on the topic of evangelism and mission called Unvangelism. Unvangelism is a word some of us played around with to sort of poke fun at modern American "evangelism". Most forms of evangelism are not overly helpful or even based off the paradigm Jesus laid down when he was here on earth.  The marks of American "evangelism" tend to have the following characteristics: Very awkward and scary to do Usually has guilt and a sense of urgency attached to it Comes off to the unchurched as aRead More...

Jun 25, 2010

In Christianity, there are many different streams of theology and practice that we can swim in. In some Churches the marks of maturity are how many spiritual gifts you possess such as speaking in tongues or prophecy. In some circles, the marks of maturity are viewed as adhering to external commands such as abstaining from drinking, smoking, cussing or listening to non-christian music. In some circles the marks of maturity depend on how well you understand the five points of Calvinism and how well you can articulate reformed theology. I would argue that none of these things necessarily point toRead More...

Jun 22, 2010

At Sacred Journey we have been working through the book of Philippians at our Sunday gatherings. This book has tons of rich theology and practical teachings to help us live out the Christian faith. In this past Sundays meeting we covered a section in Philippians 4 which talked about not being anxious but instead adopting the posture of humility and going to God without our anxieties. Paul goes on to tell us to put into practice the things we have learned and received heard and seen in him. This brings up something very familiar to my own life and walk withRead More...

Jun 16, 2010

  Have you ever said the phrases? Where do you go to church? Let's go to church. After we leave church, we will go to lunch. It is important to be in fellowship by going to church.   Many if not all of us have used the word Church in this manner. From a quick glance, nothing seems wrong with these phrases, and to a degree there isn't. The is a subtlety in these phrases that stem from a deeper issue and a shallow understanding of what th Church is. Oftentimes we have an oversimplified view of theRead More...

Jun 09, 2010

In sporting events there are people who play the game, referees who make sure the players play by the rules and people who sit in the stands and watch.  The referees and spectators never feel the sting of defeat, the excitement of winning or the struggle involved in training for the sport. The spectators and referees are very similar in this aspect because they are not involved in doing, they just simply watch.   The referees are involved to one degree or another, but not in the same way that the players are involved. The referees don't haveRead More...

Jun 04, 2010

  In every situation or argument there is a pendulum that swings to the left and to the right. In most, if not all situations the center is the safest place to be. I am attempting to coin the phrase “ballanced theology” concerning this issue of being towards the center of issues.  I would love it if I was in the center of every issue and I never got imballanced in my own beliefs.  I know this is impossible, and that I will invariably be inconsistent in my own beliefs at one point or another butRead More...

May 28, 2010

In my previous post I explained the issue of killing sin in the "sweeping webs" fashion instead of attacking the sin by "killing the spider". In this post I would like to dissect the issue in greater detail and offer some solutions as well. It is very easy to attack sin by simply sweeping the webs away and very difficult to actually do the hard work of finding the spider and killing it. Just like the spiders in the basement, they hide and can be more difficult to find but the webs are usually pretty large and easy to spot.Read More...

May 23, 2010

In my basement, I built myself an office to work out of. From time to time, I will break out the vacuum and do my best to decimate the spider webs that have built up over time. I successfully defeat all of webs and feel prideful in my victory. It was quite effortless, and I know inherently that the webs will return in time. I managed to destroy the webs, but I failed to kill the spiders.    How often have we done this in our own lives? As Christians, there are things in our lives that we wishRead More...

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