In times where the “cancel culture” goes both directions (a cultural reaction of taking offense and rejecting someone due to their biases and assertions), it takes maturity to listen with hope, love, and faith. We listen with hope knowing the Redeemer. We listen with love for our neighbor. We listen with faith that God will give us wise, gentle, humble, …
How seriously will you follow Christ in 2021? 2020 is over and most of us are thinking about what we want to focus our own lives and those of our congregations in the coming year. It’s hard because looking ahead is almost as uncertain as looking back. We don’t know when we will be able to hold “normal” services again. …
The Church has never had so much access to great online content about God, but what makes people part of your congregation is their connection with each other and with you — the way you live life with God together as people: discipleship. Here are a couple ways you can serve your church right now to help them grow as …
“Our God is a God who cares, heals, guides, directs, challenges, confronts, corrects. To discern means first of all to listen to God, to pay attention to God’s active presence, and to obey God’s prompting, direction, leadings, and guidance.” [Henri Nouwen][1] Discerning God’s direction does not happen by accident. The Spirit helps us to discern but we have a part to …
Normally we think of evangelism as a process of telling. We are proclaiming or sharing something. And it is that, of course, but I’ve become more and more convinced that effective evangelism starts with listening. Here’s the thing: most evangelism strategies focus only on the telling part. They help people figure out what to say, how to present, the right things to proclaim. One size does NOT …