Jeff Mikels | …helping people find life in Christ.

Does God Control Evil Spirits?

There is a confusing verse in 1 Samuel 16 (italics mine): Now the Spirit of the LORD had departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD tormented him. 1 Samuel 16:14 NIV This has been an incredibly uncomfortable passage for me. I have studied this passage a number of times in a number […]

No, Sunday Worship is Not the Mark of the Beast

Someone recently drew my attention to a series of videos on Amazon Prime going by the title, “The Days of Noah.” I hate to draw attention to videos that are filled with misinformation, but I fear that someone else might come across them and so, I’m posting this here in case that someone is you. […]

The “Good Morning Church” Book

edit: I have removed the chapters from my blog for the moment because I’m submitting the book to publishers and agents at the moment. For a number of years now, I have been on a spiritual and emotional journey of learning what I was never taught about racism by building personal relationships with African American […]

Next Steps for the Church in America

The real problem in all of this, as I see it, is that pastors and ministry leaders are just as guilty of idolatry and ignorance as the people they lead. Someone has to sound the alarm, someone needs to start helping people wake up, someone needs to identify and tear down the idols, someone needs to bring them out of their ignorance. I wish it were someone else…

An Open Letter to My Christian Friends About COVID

Dear friend, I know we share deeply divided opinions on all things COVID, but I want you to know that I’ve been trying really hard to see things from your perspective. I’ve been working to learn all I can about how you see the world, and I think I do understand you. I don’t blame […]

Real Talk: A Series of Letters to My Friends

Over the past two (really six) years, I have seen among my Christian friends, church members and family members an unhealthy, illogical, and hypocritical allegiance to unbiblical and un-Christlike matters. Both as a pastor and friend, I have tried at times to address these unbiblical allegiances. However, as I have done so, many of my […]

Does God Turn His Face Away?

One of the most misunderstood parts of the crucifixion story shows up at the very end of Matthew’s account: From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why […]

Prepping for a “Relaunch” Again

All About Relaunches Throughout the life of our church, we have gone through many different “launch” moments. We had the launch of our first “preview” services in January of 2007. We had the launch of our “public” services in March of 2007. We had the launch of a new location when we moved from schools […]

About that Amendment & Membership

On March 16, at 7pm, we are going to have our first ever membership vote! Here is the clip of me talking about it during our Vision Dinner (in the video, I say the vote will happen on March 9, but the actual vote will be March 16): Helpful Links The official resolution we will […]

Coronavirus: Waiting for Yellow

Latest Indiana County Map and COVID Statistics Note: Since publishing this post, the Indiana statistics have gotten MUCH better. However, our county is still considered “red.” I and the other leaders of the church have been doing a lot of thinking regarding when and how we can return to in-person worship even at the level […]

Announcing the Million Dollar Miracle Project

Every year, LCC runs what we call our “Generosity Project” around Christmastime to encourage the people of our church to embrace a spirit of generosity in the spirit of our savior himself. This year, we want to kick it up a notch by challenging not only our congregation but also other local congregations to help […]

September Financials Update

I wanted to take a few moments to give you an update on the financial status of the church. Back at the beginning of September, I posted an article about the struggles our church is facing financially and what we are doing about it. You can read that article here: Facing Goliath I also created […]

Your Feelings on In-Person Gatherings

It has been a long time since we have been all together. I constantly think back to the beginning of the year when we decided to get all of us together for one worship gathering every Sunday so that we would renew our sense of community together, and then… well, and then, am I right? […]

Service September

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash I say it every time I can. I have always wanted our church to be known more for our service than for our services. I want us to be known as people who serve more than people who hold events. This month, I’m calling for us all to join […]

Facing Goliath

Photo by James Pond on Unsplash Facing Goliath Greetings friends, members, and supporters of LCC! I’m sending this note out this week to share some disheartening news, and there’s no “nice” way to put it other than to say we don’t have enough money to continue paying our staff. Many of you know that I’m […]