One of my early experiences teaching in a United Methodist Church involved giving a series on the Wesleyan doctrine of Christian perfection. That may seem surprising for a new member of a United Methodist congregation, but my background in the Seventh-day Adventist Church involved a good deal of Wesleyan talk (though not the doctrine of…
Identifying Your Gifts and Service is a workbook that I wrote, which is published by my publishing company, Energion Publications. I’m going to write here about how to use that workbook effectively in helping church members understand their spiritual gifts and put them to use in support of the church’s mission. Identifying Your Gifts and…
Ed Brayton has a wonderful post today titled Answering Ancient Brit on Thought Crimes. I could not agree with Ed any more completely and forcefully. Europe’s response to “thought crimes” is itself extremely dangerous. I would add a note for my fellow-Christians. When you pursue religious liberty and the rights of religious expression, you need…
Ben Witherington comments on an attitude of skepticism on his blog in an entry titled Justification by Doubt. Dr. Witherington makes a number of good points, but I think the topic at a minimum needs more comment. I’d like to suggest you read his entire post before you read mine. I’m going to quote his…
Yesterday I wrote a bit about using prayer and Bible study as a starting point for change. The problem is that it’s very easy to pray and study the Bible in such a way that it makes you a worse person. I’ve found a relatively simple way to determine whether I’m doing this myself: If…
Bad Ideas I Learned from Good Leaders #1 I’m never going to identify which leader I learned these things from, because I have deep respect for all of them. Many of them helped me ditch bad ideas of my own, though doubtless I still have a bunch! The bad thing I learned is this: When…