Photo Credit: https://twitter.com/christhebarker/status/813184048914898948 Some have been calling 2016 a terrible year because of all the celebrity deaths, the tragedies in Aleppo and elsewhere, and for some, the presidential election has added to that sense of tragedy. However, I wanted to …
Christmas Generosity 2016
Every year, LCC attempts to buck the trend of Christmas commercialization and materialism by asking people to intentionally give wealth away. It's a tradition we are embracing more and more each year. Our first year, we collected money for Matrix Pregnancy Resource Center (now called Matrix …
We Have a New President but the Same King
Image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Evan_McMullin_ballot_access_(2016).svg One of the most amazing things about our country is that we are given the authority regularly to change our leaders... and what's even more impressive is that every time we exercise that authority, the …
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How to Survive an Election
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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Essential Information for Newcomers to LCC
This week, Billy and Beth each wrote blog posts highlighting two aspects of our church vision. Beth wrote about our overarching mission to simply help people discover life in Christ. Billy wrote about our recent building campaign vision to build a spiritual home for the spiritually homeless. I …
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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 …
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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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My Statement to the Lafayette City Council on Gender Identity
Last night, the Lafayette City Council met to consider putting an amendment into the Lafayette Human Relations Ordinance. Some time ago, the city codified a "Human Relations Ordinance" to fight against discrimination in our town. It created a Human Relations Commission tasked with the job of …
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What Is Our Promised Land?
Kadesh Disappointment On Sunday, we covered one of the most important stories in the book of Numbers. It's also one of the most disappointing stories in the Bible. The people of Israel march from Sinai to the desert south of the promised land, to a region called Kadesh-Barnea. There, God gives …
The Water Commitment
Every January, we revisit the core values of the church by considering the four basic aspects of life in relationship with God. To do this, we have developed four metaphors that express these basic biblical principles, and we have integrated them into a document we call the Membership Covenant. …