There is no instinct more primal within us than our inclination to judge. It takes us all the way back to the sin of the garden of Eden—we want to partake of the knowledge of good and evil and therefore be like God. We never feel more god-like than when we revel in analyzing, parsing and categorizing our friends, co-workers, and Christian community...

I saw a fascinating thing happen from the stage yesterday while preaching at Renovatus. In my preliminary remarks, I made the comment, “Today I am going to preach the sexiest message of the Essentials series, if you are ready.” The congregation laughed, a few cheered, a corporate way of saying “We are ready Pastor—bring it on!” So my next sentence was this: “Today I’m going to preach about giving...

One of the worst tricks I ever saw pulled in my days of youth camp was when some friends of mine sneaked into another boys’ room and staged a sort of demonic break-in. They turned his Bible to page 666, drew pentagrams, and used every Hollywood cliché we had at our disposal to make it seem real. For kids who grew up like we did, these were ideas that were alternately familiar and exotic...

As I’m preaching through the “essential” practices of a life with God, it has caused me to do a lot of reflection on why it is that so many professing Christians remain deeply unfulfilled in their own experience of spiritual disciplines. I very rarely meet a follower of Jesus who seems content that they are praying enough, reading enough, fasting enough, etc. There is always this crushing sense that I should be doing more...

I think I may have already abandoned the generally helpful rule that “Christian” works only as a noun and not as an adjective. But I am a Christian, I am a leader, and I do have a deep conviction that leadership defined in explicitly Christian terms is different than any other kind. Articulating those distinctions is crucial...

Today I went trespassing. On the journey I was heartbroken, frightened and still later, bizarrely inspired. I had just finished up with a productive but very long board meeting. I had been with my colleagues on the Western North Carolina Youth and Christian Education board, and we met for 8 hours. Mondays are never particularly great for me...

So yes, I am one of “those people” who believes that God still speaks using supernatural means. Because there seems to be as much peril as there is promise in this way, many Christians over the centuries have overreacted against abuses of “signs and wonders” (a former professor of mine was fond of saying “abuse always leads to no use)...

I found I have a lot more to say about hearing God. Some of my most lasting, formative spiritual experiences have been similar to the story I shared yesterday—men and women who took the risk of speaking a word from God into my life. Whenever you talk about hearing God, the key word is always risk...

I was about 12 years old, sitting in one of the old padded chairs in the chapel of East Coast Bible College. It was fall convocation, when all the students would gather for a week of prayer, worship, preaching, and two-hour altar services. My father was the president of East Coast for 9 years, during the most formative time of my life. I quite literally grew up on that campus—living there for 4 years, staying with my grandmother up by the lake in the summer...

There is a difference between Christian virtues that are hard fought and well-lived and purely natural dispositions. In my case, I am generally perceived as a charitable person—largely due to a naturally warm, gregarious demeanor. But I am by no means convinced that I am yet formed in the virtue of charity. The truth is, I have been frequently shocked at the raging violence that is still within me...