This past July, former pastor and Christian author Josh Harris announced via Instagram that he and his wife were separating. While this may have sounded like a couple who was using temporary separation to work through some marital issues, the reality is that Josh and his wife of twenty years were getting a divorce. A … Continue reading What to Do When Professing Christians Leave the Faith
With Christ in the Cambodian Killing Fields
In the spring of 1975, the Communist Party of Kampuchea---more popularly known as the Khmer Rouge---took official control of Cambodia. Pol Pot, a Marxist driven by visions of a pure socialist state and his desire to rebuild his country, led a revolutionary army into unlikely power and immediately began to implement his plans for a better Cambodia. For … Continue reading With Christ in the Cambodian Killing Fields
A Sustainable Christian Life Requires that We Love Those Around Us
The past thirty years have seen an increase in the phenomenon known as short-term missions. In the last three decades, American church members have enjoyed a growing ease of access to multi-week foreign mission trips in which they provide assistance to the ministry of overseas missionaries and Christian workers. Many churches have joined in what has been called the Short-Term … Continue reading A Sustainable Christian Life Requires that We Love Those Around Us
A Sustainable Christian Life is Characterized by Steady Faithfulness
Horton says it well and memorably: "The key to maturity is time and community" (64). Our impulse for the extraordinary, however, fuels a desire for quick growth which in turn draws us away from community; at least, a community to which we commit ourselves for any length of time. The Restless Generation It's become a truism to say that millennials … Continue reading A Sustainable Christian Life is Characterized by Steady Faithfulness
A Sustainable Christian Life Begins with Justification by Faith Alone
Michael Horton's Ordinary is both a convicting and refreshing book. Horton helps Christians cultivate what he calls "sustainable faith" in world that is characterized with an obsession with the exceptional. The first sentence of Horton's book is a list of adjectives and phrases that are used daily by savvy marketers to attract my generation to some new product. "Radical. Epic. Revolutionary. Transformative. … Continue reading A Sustainable Christian Life Begins with Justification by Faith Alone
Resistance to the Ordinary
When I was 19 years old, Jesus Christ saved me from a life of futility and sin. By his grace, God not only ignited in my heart new affections for Christ and other Christians, he also gave me a clear sense of purpose and calling and dislodged the hopelessness that previously characterized my life. The all-consuming call on … Continue reading Resistance to the Ordinary
Ministry as a Means of Perseverance
I was a college sophomore when I trusted in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of my sins. The spiritual joy that characterized much of my first few months as a new believer, however, would eventually face significant obstacles. One obstacle in particular that threatened to throw me completely off course was the sad yet steady reality of Christian … Continue reading Ministry as a Means of Perseverance