Presby-Musings

I was scrolling through Facebook the other day and I saw something that made me shake my head sadly. A person was commenting on an article about a prominent Christian leader and author, who she happened to disagree with. Her comment was simply to place a reference of Scripture in the comment line. Her reference of choice was second Peter 2:1, which includes a warning about false prophets and false teachers. She also included the letters SMH which stands for shaking my head. SMH I'm familiar with this passage of scripture because it was quoted numerous times in comments and reactions on news stories and social media posts regarding a story that made the news regarding me and my church. The story made TV news because I bet my congregation if they broke an attendance record for Easter last year I would do something crazy.  The crazy wager was that I would get a tattoo of the church's logo on my leg if they broke the record. Apparently, this was an act of here...

This week we are launching a brand new sermon series entitled [Not] Your Average Church --Why We need Real Church for Real People . People have stopped coming to church. Over the past forty years there has been a steady decline in church membership, attendance and giving.  Young people who are growing up in the Church are leaving it and not returning.  Unchurched people are staying away.  The fastest growing religion in America is "None." And the response by the Church has not been that awesome, to be honest.  Rather than finding ways to become more open, inclusive and hospitable, most churches, congregations and denominations have chosen instead to circle the wagons, so to speak, and define themselves in negative rather than positive terms. In mainstream Christian culture you are determined to be "truly Christian" not by the way you treat other people, or who you welcome to your church, or how loving you are in your witness... but by which translation o...

Today I am concluding the two-part sermon series "Love Song," a short study on love, relationships and marriage using texts from the Old Testament book, the Song of Solomon to help me teach.  Last week we learned a couple of very profound lessons that we'll be lifting up once again this week: When it comes to finding love, if you want to be with the right one, you have to be the right one.  It's not so much about finding the right person as it is about becoming the right person.  And when it comes to marriage, if you don't like what you are getting, look at what you are giving.   We discovered that there are four qualities that you need to be looking for in a potential partner, and that you need to be developing in yourself, if you want to have a successful marriage:  You need to look for and develop godly character.  You need to have higher standards.  You need to develop growing trust, and you need to practice consistent encouragement. ...

This week I am starting a new sermon series--a two-parter, entitled "Love Song."  This is a series that is inspired and informed by a series of sermons I heard from Craig Groeschel , a preacher I admire.  I've given this series my own twist, of course, but I wanted to give credit where credit is due. Over the next couple of weeks we are going to be using some passages of Scripture that are very seldom read on Sunday mornings in the context of worship, and even more seldom as the source of a sermon.  You'll see why in a moment. I think that one of the many ways that our Enemy, Satan--the Accuser--seeks to bring down the people of God is by destroying marriages.  I shared in a sermon last year that the divorce rate among evangelical Christians is higher than almost every other demographic in America .  Something is definitely wrong in the Church. In my opinion, one of the main reasons why church going couples in America are struggling in their marriages...

I typed the original version of this on a virtual typewriter .  A virtual typewriter.  This is what we've come to in our crazy-mixed-up world. I am actually typing on a virtual typewriter that has virtual typewriter keys that when depressed make virtual typewriter arms or whatever the heck they are called fly into the air and virtually strike a virtual page making a virtual imprint on a virtual piece of paper. And then if I want I can send this virtual piece of paper with virtual type virtually printed on it to a program on the iPad I am using to command this virtual typewriter that will enable me to print and actual copy of this virtual creation. What a world. And here's the funny thing about all of this. I actually prefer writing on this thing to simply using a word processing program -- despite how slick it is and despite all of the ways that said program can make my document look snappy. There was a moment just then when I actually felt my ...