I can’t remember the last time I preached my first draft of a sermon. I’m sure that I’ve done it, but I’m also sure that it isn’t my ordinary practice. This past Sunday I preached D4 of a sermon on Genesis 3. The Sunday before that I preached D4b of…

There are certain events that can change the course of an entire generation. Historians often speak about how the Great Depression in the 1930’s and the Second World War in the 1940’s worked together to forge what we call now the Greatest Generation.…

Every pastor has been asked some version of this question: “My son/daughter is doing X which of course, as a Christian, I don’t approve of, but they want me to do Y; should I compromise so as to maintain the relationship?”

I’ve been asked that…

Last year around this time I retweeted something the late Tim Keller had posted that raised a bit of a ruckus on the interweb. I thought the tweet itself was innocuous:

A surprising number of purportedly literate people seized upon the phrase…

Early on in my ministry I learned that sheep stealing is very baaaaaaaaaad. (Do you see what I did there?) Classic dad jokes aside, everyone knows that trying to lure sheep away from one flock in order to have them join your flock is a major no no.…

The loss of large group worship gatherings over the course of the recent pandemic was undoubtedly a hardship for the church, but in the Providence of God, it may have been the catalyst for the development of some much-needed tools and resources.…

Many of us are finding ourselves engaged in conversations about the crisis in Israel, therefore, I thought it might be useful to offer some pastoral advice as to what you might wish to say in that situation.

Your first couple of sentences should…

“How are the kids?”

I get asked some version of that question pretty much every day and I find it surprisingly difficult to answer. In part that is because I have 5 children and on any given day a couple of them are probably doing very well and at…

To be a good preacher you have to believe in your bones that all Scripture is inspired by God and useful (2 Timothy 3:16); you have to believe that the Word of God will never return void (Isaiah 55:11), and if you believe that then you will want to…

Every year around this time I am asked some version of this question: should I (or should my child) get baptized at camp?

It would be difficult to defend an absolute prohibition of baptisms performed outside the confines of the gathered church given…