viewoutsidethepew

I work outside on night shifts, usually. Last night it snowed heavily, enough to cover all footprints. When I did my midnight patrol the urban lights on the fresh snow lit up my little corner of the world so brightly that I didn’t have to turn my flashlight on at all.

It made me think of two things that motivate me to mission. Read more…

If you work and live for Jesus opposition will likely arise. Indeed, my counsel to the faithful I have met whose mission for God ended with religion’s brakes or agents of the devil’s shattering blows is simply that only when your faithfulness reaps a harvest does a target appear on your back. When a successful mission gets ripped away from you the message for you to hold close reads, “You had it right”.

If life throws a vicious curve at you, and temptation pulls hard at you to give up, plan revenge or live angry, take a lesson from Joseph. Read more…

I just found another kindred spirit in cyber world, brutalized by religion and, like Paul, left outside the “city walls” as dead. That does not make the story, for what humans intended for evil God turns for good. “We know that suffering creates endurance, endurance creates character, and character creates confidence. We’re not ashamed to have this confidence” (Romans 5:3-5 God’s Word). Read more…

“Then he [Jesus] said to them, “I can guarantee this truth: Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes like this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3-4 God’s Word).

But Paul said, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, thought like a child, and reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I no longer used childish ways” (1 Corinthians 13:11 God’s Word). Read more…

We assemble with a small number of others as a house Church. I call it “Circle”.

Last night the question came about why so many people who self-identify as Christians not only refuse to discuss difficult questions of faith or answer why something is done the way it is in a denomination or congregation when the Bible says to do it another way, and why they even shut down those who dare to ask the hard questions. Read more…