…biblical Christianity without conservative idolatry…
Can I trust the leadership of the church? In any financial campaign of any church, one of the big questions that people are going to ask but not actually ask is this one. People are going to ask the question internally, but they are most likely not going to ask anyone out loud. …
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Download Our Campaign Commitment Decision Guide By the time we launched our financial campaign, we had already spent weeks in preparation for it. We held focus group meetings, we held campaign planning meetings, we had a Leadership Banquet to try to inspire the leaders of the church to take the lead …
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The views expressed in this video are not my own, but the scientific research is fascinating nonetheless. The video is not explicit, but it is not appropriate for children unless you use it as a teaching tool. As a pastor, I hear the stories all the time. One more guy is hooked on …
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Today, during my lunch, I watched a very interesting TED presentation from Nick Bostrom regarding machine intelligence and the difficult questions surrounding it. What I didn't realize at the time was that Bostrom is a Philosopher more than an engineer. As a result, his talk ended up being about …
I had a great question come through the blog here as a comment. Josh said: I always enjoy listening or reading your thoughts on tithing. That being said, have you ever considered teaching a sermon on budgeting or personal finance? Is it assumed that all Christians giving 10% or more of their …
I posted this article as a devotional over on our church devotional blog, but I think it works as an article here too, so I'm reposting it here. Something that has become popular in churches over the past few years is "The Tithe Challenge." It is something that on a small scale, we have done …
This post is in a series called Practical Questions on Tithing. To see all my articles on tithing, click the link: Articles on Tithing. Today's article is written mostly for the person who has decided that they want to make tithing a part of their financial life and need some help thinking through …
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This post is in a series called Practical Questions on Tithing. To see all my articles on tithing, click the link: Articles on Tithing. In Practical Questions on Tithing - Part 1, I addressed the major objection to tithing and the one major question: Should Christians tithe? Today, I want to …
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This post is in a series called Practical Questions on Tithing. To see all my articles on tithing, click the link: Articles on Tithing. Tithing is a contentious topic... Last Sunday, I taught a message from Deuteronomy 26 which speaks about a gift of firstfruits that the early Israelites were to …
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Thinking about these things again... Today, I had the privilege of being a part of a panel at Purdue's School of Veterinary Medicine to present for the students there an explanation of the Indiana RFRA. You know, that's the bill that got so much bad press for Indiana over the past month. Anyway, it …
Where in the Bible does it say that James and Jude were killed for their faith? The person who asked this question on Sunday said that they have done a search through the Bible to find no evidence of the martyrdom of James and Jude even though I said on Sunday that their martyrdom is strong evidence …
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If we call someone a fool, do we lose our salvation? This question is motivated by the following passage in Matthew: But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And …
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How many men would it have taken to move the stone from in front of Jesus' tomb? According to the photographs and statistics on this page, two men could have rolled the stone into place, but since rolling the stone away involved going up an incline, it may have taken more men than two to remove it. …
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Why is my life so important that God would give the life of his only Son to save me? Do you want the nice answer or the snarky but kinda true one? Begin Snarky Answer Why would God sacrifice his Son to save you? Actually, he didn't. Let me explain. There is an inaccurate and only partially dangerous …
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Why doesn't Jesus show himself physically to people anymore? This is one of those questions that I asked all the time when I was a kid. I always wondered why it was that I had to grow up in a world where the physical evidence of God was so limited. I heard stories of other people who would "hear" …
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"Turin shroud positive and negative displaying original color information 708 x 465 pixels 94 KB" by Dianelos Georgoudis - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons. The Shroud of Turin is a mysterious piece of fabric that depicts the image of someone who looks remarkably like …
