BLOG

Don’t Be Moral, Be Holy

Don’t Be Moral, Be Holy

Moralism seeks to appease our thirst for praise, our hunger for attention, and our desire for self-gratification. Moralism is the tool that we use when comparing ourselves against others.

read more
Lessons after the Storm

Lessons after the Storm

I am overwhelmed at how our local church in El Progreso, Honduras has responded in this crisis—both in the community at large, but also, and especially, for those of the household of faith.s.

read more
The ABC’s of missions partnerships

The ABC’s of missions partnerships

Money is important for our immediate basic needs, but ministry partnerships are essential for lasting ministry success. I am looking for churches that have a strong desire to be involved in the missionary work, not only send money to missions.

read more
What is God doing?

What is God doing?

God knows the path ahead and has specifically prepared us for it! He prepared you for the path. He is with you on the path. He knows the path. And He controls all of the outcomes of the path.

read more
For Husbands Only

For Husbands Only

Ask many Christian husbands to summarize their biblical duty in one word, and they will answer, “Leadership.” Scripture answers the question with a different word: love.

read more
6 Books Every Assistant Pastor Should Read

6 Books Every Assistant Pastor Should Read

After 10 years of being an assistant pastor, I have come to learn that many of the struggles an assistant pastor experience are predictable, understandable, and usually correct-able. While I have a long way to go in learning, these six books have probably done more for my ability to grow in my role than any others.

read more
Blending Civic Duty and Christian Duty

Blending Civic Duty and Christian Duty

No matter who is in charge of a nation at any given moment, I know God is truly in charge. My hope is not in a fragile human leader but in the Sovereign Lord. I am not going to lose any sleep over who governs my birth nation or the nation in which I live (Ps 4:8).

read more
We Fight Together, Not Against Each Other

We Fight Together, Not Against Each Other

Family doesn’t have to agree on everything; but agreement isn’t the measure of family inclusion. Heaven will be filled with family members who didn’t agree on every point, but who are united in Christ and loved by the Father.

read more
Common Parent Traps

Common Parent Traps

If you’ve been a parent for any time at all, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that your child came into the world with an insatiable faculty for evil. Even before birth, your baby’s little heart was already programmed for sin and selfishness. The inclination toward depravity is such that, given free reign, every baby has the potential to become a monster.

read more
Eight Demons Pastors Fight…

Eight Demons Pastors Fight…

It’s a daily battle, but you can begin trading every one of these “ruts” for biblical realities. Trade inspection for faith that God is working where you can’t see Him. Trade introspection for personal development—reaching forward and forgetting the past.

read more
What’s Being Impeded?

What’s Being Impeded?

Don’t let this time define you or destroy you. Let Christ refine you and grow you through this. We will come out of this and have a testimony to share from this season. Make your time one of growth and relational strength with your Savior!

read more
Who Are You And Why It Matters

Who Are You And Why It Matters

What our post-Christian world needs today is timeless truth—and that can only be found in Scripture. Never forget that our best efforts to help our communities will all pass away, and yet His Word shall never pass away. Why would you not use His powerful Word to help a powerless world? That would be an act of hate—to hide truth from a obscure world.

read more
Believe in the Gospel? Then Start Forgiving Others!

Believe in the Gospel? Then Start Forgiving Others!

Where once existed brokenness, bitterness, and animosity, now exists peace, pleasure, and friendship. At its heart, Gospel-centered forgiveness is a beautiful picture of the sacrifice that Christ made for each of us. Our sin is a chasm that separates us from a loving, forgiving God—a God who grants us radical forgiveness and accepts us in spite of our numerous failures.

read more
Unnecessary Social Distance

Unnecessary Social Distance

Many times grey area differences cause unnecessary and unbiblical separation. The differences many times lead to distain, distancing and even demonizing one another. Now remember, I am not referring to doctrine but rather to “grey area issues.” Why should I accept those who are different than I am on areas that are not so clear? Please allow me to give you five reasons.

read more
Stop Fighting Other Christians!

Stop Fighting Other Christians!

As we preach and teach the Word, and as we disciple people, the Holy Spirit of God will do the changing. So stop trying to make everyone look like you! That is something I must remind myself often. People need to be what God transforms them into, not what I guilt them into.

read more
What About Our Kids? Three Ways to Point Them to Jesus

What About Our Kids? Three Ways to Point Them to Jesus

One of my kids asked me, “are we going to get the Coronavirus?” That was a tough question as a parent! I didn’t want to promise my child something that might not happen and at the same time, I didn’t want to strike fear into the heart of my child. My mind began to scramble and build a structure of words that would best answer this question.

read more
Balancing Family and Work

Balancing Family and Work

Maybe family time is lacking because of Fox News, Netflix, golf, or the device you are reading this on. The reality is that God gave you a family and a calling. He doesn’t give us more priorities than we can handle. But we can give ourselves more priorities than we can handle.

read more
The Church Will Go On, How About You?

The Church Will Go On, How About You?

The Church is resilient through persecutions, plagues, destruction, and politics. It has stood through pastoral failures and financial woes. Through public policy shifts and economic downturns.In spite of the devastating conditions brought on by sinful man, satanic attacks, and a broken world—Christ’s bride continues on.

read more
Dictating or Discipling?

Dictating or Discipling?

Rather than giving your membership a set of rules and regulations to follow, loving leadership steps off of the pedestal of power and enters into the real world of real people. It’s messy, challenges our routines and can be uncomfortable, but I believe it’s Christ-like.

read more
Lamenting or Expecting? A biblical perspective during pandemic times

Lamenting or Expecting? A biblical perspective during pandemic times

I don’t know anyone who would classify the raw circumstances surrounding COVID-19 as favorable from a human perspective. I do not lament the circumstances that God has seen fit to allow in our world. I choose rather to react with a heart rooted in the Gospel because I trust that God is doing extraordinary things according to His will and for His glory.

read more
3 Ways to Care For Your Teens

3 Ways to Care For Your Teens

You may find it increasingly difficult, as time drudges on in the “quarantine era”, to stay connected to the teens in your student ministry. It certainly has been a challenge for each of us. But, at its core, ministry hasn’t really changed all that much; it is still all about people and finding ways to connect people to Christ.

read more
Virtual Services Are Here to Stay

Virtual Services Are Here to Stay

Virtual services, pandemic or no pandemic, are here to stay and will become a considerable aspect of our ministries. We need to figure them out and invest more of our physical and human resources into getting them up to the standards of excellence that the Gospel rightfully deserves.

read more
The Gospel In Guatemala During COVID-19

The Gospel In Guatemala During COVID-19

As many ministries around the world, in early March of this year, DeepStream’s Educational Center, here in the village of Buena Vista, Guatemala, was forced to go off script and began writing a new way of doing life and reaching people with the Gospel.

read more
The Difficult Task of Learning

The Difficult Task of Learning

The life of a church planter is extremely unpredictable. You start deputation with eagerness because all you want to do is get to your city and reach people with the Gospel. No matter how much you travel, and how good the meetings are, your heart is constantly longing to be in the place you’ve been called to be.

read more
Zoom Community!

Zoom Community!

Around mid-March we realized this was unavoidable, so we endeavored to take our Small Groups online during this pandemic. One of our key missional goals is that as a church we “Grow Together”. As a church leadership team we did not think that being inside the building was necessary to accomplishing this task.

read more
Building a Bigger Front Door

Building a Bigger Front Door

Online Church—The very words bring strong emotion to the hearts of many Christians and ministry leaders.

Hope – to the extremely cautious.
Joy – to the tech savvy.
Peace – to the introvert.
Fear – to the majority of pastors.

read more
Preach the Gospel Again and Again

Preach the Gospel Again and Again

Have you lost interest in the gospel? Are you looking for “more interesting” or “more engaging” things to say? Don’t Christians need more than “just the gospel”?

9 Marks (Mark Dever’s ministry) recently published a profound article (see link at bottom) surveying 18 hours of sermons from America’s biggest churches. The author found the gospel to be either completely absent or very minimally present in these churches during the course of four recent Sunday morning messages.

read more
Fearless in a Fearful World

Fearless in a Fearful World

One of the hardest things I have faced in our 15 plus years living in Central America occurred at the end of 2017 during disputed presidential elections here in Honduras. In 2017, I was in a dark place. I first realized that the political unrest surrounding the disputed presidential election was categorically different than the common protesting that is prevalent in our region when the protestors burned the brand-new toll booth to the ground and blocked all exits to the city.

read more
Four Ways the Coronavirus Should Reshape our Thinking

Four Ways the Coronavirus Should Reshape our Thinking

“Oh no… here we go Coronavirus!”—said valiantly my six-year-old, Santiago, when we got out of our car a few weeks ago. We were on our way to the store as the first case of Coronavirus was reported to Mexican authorities. The country was now part of the craziness, fear, and desperation that the rest of the world was and still is experiencing.

read more
Experience Jesus? Not a good idea!

Experience Jesus? Not a good idea!

One of the greatest annual events for tech geeks around the world is unquestionably the Apple reveal in California. Year after year, the company releases its newest inventions—hardware and software meant to revolutionize the industry. Every year something faster and brighter, newer and better is developed for the ease of the consumer.

read more
The Gospel-Centered Pastor

The Gospel-Centered Pastor

We live in an era where the internet causes constant spiritual noise. Christianity is defined multiple times a minute! Christians are thought to be supporters of a particular party, politician, or agenda. Churches are supposed to look a certain way, and have a distinguished kind of growth.

read more
Defending the Gospel

Defending the Gospel

Have you ever asked yourself if apologetics is important? In a broad sense, apologetics is a discipline that involves the defense of any philosophical position. Christians engage in apologetics when attempting to defend any aspect of core Christian beliefs.

read more
The Best Story Ever.

The Best Story Ever.

Has anyone ever asked you this question, what is the Bible about? There could be several different answers to that question. In general, though, it seems to me that there is a popular belief that the Bible is a moral encyclopedia that shows us what “we must do.” It tells us how to live, how to think, how to be a good father, mother or teenager.

read more
The Importance of Gospel Community

The Importance of Gospel Community

Jonathan Morrow in Foundations of Spiritual Formation said, “Spiritual formation is divinely enabled by God through three essential resources: God’s Word, God’s Spirit, and God’s people (the church).” Of these 3 essential resources, which do you think is the most neglected resource, and why is it the most neglected?
I would argue that the church is, perhaps, the most neglected spiritual formation tool. This is based on both the positive emphasis the Bible puts on the need for fellowship in community, and the negative impact we see on those who isolate themselves.

read more
No Family, No Ministry

No Family, No Ministry

Children simply grow up too quickly. Heather and I were out to dinner in January on a date night when the subject matter of children naturally arose. Scarlett’s humor, Savannah’s sensitivity, and Jonathan’s recent growth spurt were the topics at hand when we were suddenly struck by terrible thought.

read more
Gospel-Centered Youth Ministry

Gospel-Centered Youth Ministry

In the rapidly changing culture in which we live, teenagers are always searching for the latest fad or style that will bring them acceptance by their peers. Unfortunately, in a similar bid for acceptance, many of our student ministries have become entertainment and amusement-driven.

read more
Gospel-Centered Discipleship

Gospel-Centered Discipleship

It is generally understood among evangelical Christians that God’s heartbeat is for His disciples to make more disciples of the Lord Jesus. This vital task is accomplished, primarily, by Christian fellowship with other believers in what is commonly referred to as “life-on-life discipleship.”

read more
Developing a Gospel-Centered Vision.

Developing a Gospel-Centered Vision.

I will never forget the question. I had been the pastor of our church for all of two weeks when a leader in our church approached me after a service and asked, “So Pastor, where is our church heading?” It felt strange and awkward, then heavy and humbling. Real people with real lives were now looking to me to set a course for the future of their church.

read more
Neutralizing Gospel-Centered Churches.

Neutralizing Gospel-Centered Churches.

I recently came across a powerful quote from an 18th century English pastor named Job Orton. Ironically, he wrote to the ministers of his day about doctrinal compromise. The struggles of churches nearly 300 years ago are the struggles of churches today.

read more
Preparing Gospel-Centered Sermons

Preparing Gospel-Centered Sermons

There is one common pressure that every pastor feels regardless of the size of his congregation, the structure of his schedule, or the season of his ministry. This tension is felt in the reality that Sunday is always coming. Don’t get me wrong—I love Sundays, and I love what God allows me to do as a shepherd of His flock.

read more
A Fight Against Ministry Numbness

A Fight Against Ministry Numbness

In just the first daylight hours of this week, I have sent out several texts that perfectly capture in a microcosm the wide range of emotional connections required in pastoral ministry. The recipients included a younger couple who just bought their first home together, a dear wife aiding her husband’s battle for his life against cancer, a group of faithful deacons willing to launch out by faith, and a couple celebrating yet another anniversary grieving a still-born child. 

read more
Five Dangerous Trends in Preaching

Five Dangerous Trends in Preaching

In a world where big tech companies push a yearly update of their flagship devices, outdoing themselves with bigger, better, and faster than last year’s model, there is a permeating philosophy of customizing everything for the customer current needs. All of the sudden, past market trends are obsoletes or become merely historical data, and new market research or focus groups tests are performed all over again. While this consumeristic mentality is damaging in so many levels, it does not even compare to the danger that it presents when it infiltrates church, particularly in the area of preaching.

read more