Follow Jesus. Lead the church. Change the world.
No sermon from me today, but I thought you might like to know what we did on our day away. Joleen and I are, of course, in Wilmore, Kentucky this week for a class at Asbury on "Transformation of the Church," taught by Drs. Jim and Molly Scott (more on that later). Whenever we’re away … Read more
Today, we’re wrapping up this series on the “fruit of the Spirit.” We’ve been looking at some of the fruit in the life of a person transformed by the Holy Spirit. People who are being transformed by the Holy Spirit have a mission passion, holiness of heart and life, spiritual freedom, and their lives are … Read more
“It is more blessed to give than to receive.” (Acts 20.35b) "Those who shut their ears to the cries of the poor will be ignored in their own time of need." (Proverbs 21.13) "So don’t get tired of doing what is good. Don’t get discouraged and give up, for we will reap a harvest of … Read more
This Sunday begins our fourth year in ministry together, and I’m excited about the future. At this moment, we don’t know exactly what our future looks like, and that’s a wonderful-but-scary thing. We have great opportunity before us, but it’s a future that requires faith. But are we not people of faith? Therein lies the … Read more
What do you think about when you hear the word “holiness”? If you’re like many people, words like rules, judgmental, “holier than thou,” may come to mind. Holiness has gotten a bad wrap in recent years (some of it perhaps justified). Holiness is necessary to talk about because sin entered into the world. My favorite … Read more
During the summer of 2004 (before I began posting sermons here), I did a series on the book of Ephesians called, “Mastering the Art of Community.” If you’d like more info, or to request a copy of the PDFs, leave a comment or email me (see About page for address).
As we continue our look at some aspects of the fruit of the Spirit, today we look at mission passion. Passion is a deep, yearning desire in your heart, and mission passion is a passion for God’s mission. We’re going to look at an event that took place early in David’s life, and is one … Read more
Today, the lay member from our charge and I, shared our thoughts and reflections on Annual Conference, which took place during the last three days. This year’s theme is "Claiming God’s frontiers across central Pennsylvania … and beyond!" It builds on the theme from the last few years of "building bridges." Now that we have … Read more
There are all kinds of tests that we encounter in life: tests at school, job tests, vision tests, cholesterol tests (and other physical tests), driver’s tests. Speaking of driver’s tests, there was a study released in recent weeks which reported nearly 20 million Americans (about 1 in 10 drivers) would fail a state driver’s test … Read more
This past Tuesday was the anniversary of the day John Wesley’s heart was strangely warmed, an important day in Methodist history. So today I want to talk about the importance of the heart, that it ought to be a burning heart, a heart ignited by God’s power and love. First, let’s talk about heart disease. … Read more