…biblical Christianity without conservative idolatry…
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 …
Continue Reading about Announcing the Million Dollar Miracle Project
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 …
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? Anyway, …
Continue Reading about Your Feelings on In-Person Gatherings
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 together in works of …
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 …
Hi everyone! For months now, nothing has been the same for us. My children spent all spring at home. Jen and I have been working from home offices almost exclusively. And our church has been meeting primarily virtually. Then, showing even more how weird things have gotten, Walmart is requiring us to …
I have been avoiding controversy on social media for over a month now... and I have avoided most of my Facebook feed for a few weeks, and, in some ways, my ignorance has been bliss, but one day back on Facebook, five minutes reading my news feed, and I'm instantly convicted all over again that …
Continue Reading about Pastors + Public Opinion: A Good Thing?
Today, I posted a video to my YouTube Channel imploring Christians to stand in opposition to Trump even if you choose to vote for him as the "lesser of two evils." Here is the full transcript of my video. Good Morning Church! In today’s video, I’m calling on Christians to give up on …
Continue Reading about Please, Church, Reject Trump (Transcript)
We are still going to be virtual for a few more weeks. On Monday, the elders and I will be discussing a timetable and strategy for returning to Sunday morning worship in our building, but in the meantime, I'm still working hard to bring you lessons that I think will encourage you and build you …
Continue Reading about Starting a New Series Tomorrow on Your Past
Photo by Josh Appel on Unsplash Last month, I posted an entry discussing some of the organizational statistics of our church (attendance and donations), and I wanted to take this opportunity to give you an update on at least the financial side of things over the past month. First of all, as I said …
(The chart included with this post represents at any point in time the average Sunday attendance for the previous four weeks.) For two weeks now, I've been mentioning in our worship gatherings that our church is going through a bit of a financial and attendance lull. First, let's get the numbers out …
Tomorrow I'm starting a new series of messages going through the book of Joshua entitled "Fearless." I wanted to write this quick little post to let you know about it because I think it's a really timely study for us. Our church has been through a lot this year. The biggest transition, of course, is …
Continue Reading about Starting a new series tomorrow… on Fear
image credit: climate.nasa.gov On Sunday, in my message, I made a reference to global climate change, and since it is a hot button issue and since I got a Facebook question after the fact about it, I thought I would address it briefly here. What I said... On Sunday, I made the following points: I …
I'm posting this on my personal blog. The viewpoint I share here is not necessarily the viewpoint of the church I serve as pastor nor is it a topic of my messages on Sunday mornings. Perhaps you like the Trump presidency. Perhaps you hate it. Your opinion matters, and the comment section …
Continue Reading about Why I Voted for Trump and Why I Won’t Do it Again
In my last post, I talked about the problems with 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 and why they might have been added later after the Apostle Paul finished the letter. In this post, I want to highlight the fact that we don't know the full story on these verses, and that there is significant debate about …
Before I talk about the issues with 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, I want to give a brief bit of information on the overall reliability of the text of the Bible. One of the fundamental truths about the text of the Bible is that we don't have a 100% complete copy of the original text. However, a …
Continue Reading about On the Textual Reliability of 1 Corinthians 14:34-35
