Our country is deeply divided when it comes to politics and public policy, and sadly that affects our relationship with other Christians. I currently serve as the acting president for TEAMM, a local association of ministries and ministry leaders. The name is an acronym that stands for the …
Jesus Didn’t Believe in the Rapture
Some Background For the past few weeks, my Sunday messages have been covering the end times. Specifically, for two weeks, we have looked at what Jesus himself said about his return. The most interesting part of all of this for me is how Jesus' words seem to directly speak against what is called in …
Questions from an Atheist: Questions 6, 7 & 8
A couple weeks ago, I posted to facebook a link to a page on our church website introducing my then new series of messages. It's a series where I promised to tackle some of the biggest questions of life and faith. However, an atheist friend of a lady in our church saw the post and posted a number of …
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Questions from an Atheist: Question 5
Last week, I posted to facebook a link to a page on our church website introducing my new series of messages. It's a series where I promise to tackle some of the biggest questions of life and faith. However, an atheist friend of a lady in our church saw the post and posted a number of questions of …
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Questions from an Atheist: Questions 3 & 4
Last week, I posted to facebook a link to a page on our church website introducing my new series of messages. It's a series where I promise to tackle some of the biggest questions of life and faith. However, an atheist friend of a lady in our church saw the post and posted a number of questions of …
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Questions from an Atheist: Question 2
Last week, I posted to facebook a link to a page on our church website introducing my new series of messages. It's a series where I promise to tackle some of the biggest questions of life and faith. However, an atheist friend of a lady in our church saw the post and posted a number of questions of …
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Questions from an Atheist: Question 1
Last week, I posted to facebook a link to a page on our church website introducing my new series of messages. It's a series where I promise to tackle some of the biggest questions of life and faith. However, an atheist friend of a lady in our church saw the post and posted a number of questions of …
Continue Reading about Questions from an Atheist: Question 1
Questions from an Atheist
Recently, an atheist friend of a lady in our church saw that I was doing a Question and Answer session in our church and posted a number of questions of her own. I thought I would take some time to write one or more blog posts about the questions she posed. There are three reasons for addressing …
Is it Discrimination to Discriminate against Discriminators?
My church office received an email today that called me out for what was printed in the local newspaper reporting on my involvement in the City Council meeting last Monday. A woman named Kathy wrote this: Dear Pastor Mikels, Reading the newspaper Tuesday morning, I felt quite sad to read …
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On Eating Blood
What are we Talking About? On Sunday, we covered the 17th chapter of Leviticus, and the topic of the chapter is all about the right and wrong ways to prepare and consume animal meat. Three things are addressed specifically in that chapter: If an animal is a sacrificial animal, the only way to …
I Agree with the Supreme Court (sort of)
Today, in a landmark decision that was basically split right down the middle, the Supreme Court of the U.S. decided to fully endorse same-sex marriage as a Constitutional right according to the 14th Amendment that applies to the entire nation. Five judges held the majority opinion and four …
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Tithing and Budgeting
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 …
The Tithe Challenge
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 …
Some Thoughts on Gay Marriage
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 …
Question: How many men would it have taken to move the stone?
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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Should We Support Total Religious Freedom?
Do you think Indiana should pass a law specifically stating that people can use their religious convictions as a defense for their actions in a court of law? Here's the description of the bill that is currently before the Indiana State House …
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