Without This Your Missional Movement Will Fail: The fundamental way that we are going to see Jesus save people across the globe is through discipleship. That’s right, the good-old-fashioned, life-on-life, person-to-person, dirty, messy process of teaching people to obey all that Jesus has commanded. Showing people with our words and our lives how to follow and magnify the Risen Savior.

Nine Lies In The Not-Yet-Married Life: Tomorrow is Valentine's Day, perhaps one of the more polarizing holidays of our year. It's very fun and exciting for the love birds, too commercial and insincere for the skeptics, and sometimes especially lonely for the single...

How To Engage The Neighborhood: The basic principle behind this strategy is simple, and it's one any church can follow: engage your neighbors by taking an interest in what they care about. Building common ground is easy when you participate side-by-side in community organizations, service projects, family events, block parties, yard sales, and the like. Common interests are one of the most powerful tools for building friendships that can enable spiritual conversations to take place.

Why Are Our Kids Addicted To Social Media?: ...To an over-scheduled teen under constant parental surveillance “Turn off your phone” basically means “Go to your room and be alone.” That’s no good either. Without real, unstructured time with friends, kids can’t develop the healthy social interactions today’s adults long for them to have.

Holy Laughter: It is easy to look at what is going on in the world—wars and rumors of war, increasing hostility to biblical norms, persecution of Christians around the world, volatile elections, nuclear proliferation, terrorism, mass shootings—and to wonder what does God think of this? Doesn’t he care? Is he still on the throne? Doesn’t God see what is going on down here?

How To Create A Culture Of Evangelism: But in a culture of evangelism the work is grassroots, not top-down. In a culture of evangelism, people understand that the main task of the church is to be the church; they understand that church, just being biblical church, is a witness in and of itself. The church supports and prays for outreach and evangelistic opportunities, but the church's role is not primarily to run evangelistic programs. The members are sent out from the church to do evangelism, the church does not do evangelism.

The Gospel And Money: When God commands us to give it’s not because He wants your money. He wants your heart. When He commands us to be generous it’s not because He wants to take things from you. He wants to give you Himself. God doesn’t want the money out of your pockets. He wants the idols out of your heart.

How Can The Tired Mom Stay Connected To The Hubby: Most of the time, money is tight in this season as well, as you are trying to live off of one income and dad is trying to get his career started. Admittedly, these were tough years for us. Looking back, Grace and I did not get this right all the time. But we would offer the following suggestions as Grace thinks aloud and I type along:

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How Many Motivations Are There For Godliness?: Is there just one proper gospel-centered rationale for holiness? Should we, in speaking about sanctification, avoid threats and warnings and coming judgment and focus simply on our acceptance in Christ? How many motivations does the Bible have for godliness? I see at least twenty. In the three chapters of 2 Peter alone.

5 Things To Look For In A Bible Teacher: If you’re looking for a preacher to learn from, or if you aspire to teach the Word to others, here are five traits of a good Bible teacher that we learn from the legacy of Levi.

So Much More Than Manners: Recently, I thought it would be good for me to go back and do a little study on thankfulness in the New Testament. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Not only was the study huge, it was hugely convicting.

An Imperfect Mom Is Still A Good Mom: I guess every mom gets to this point: “Perfect Mother was out of the question.  My blotted record had shown me that already.  But maybe Good Mother could be enough for my little ones.”

4 Lessons From The School Of Suffering: For all Christians, the likelihood is rather that as our discipleship continues, God will make us increasingly weakness-conscious and pain-aware, so that we may learn with Paul that when we are conscious of being weak, then— and only then— may we become truly strong in the Lord. And should we want it any other way?

How Eternity Changes Everything On Our Restlessness: You will know what other challenging questions you must ask yourself. We are all different, with different characters and enjoying or enduring different circumstances. So the temptation to locate our contentment in an aspect of our life right now will look different for all of us; but it will be there. There may well be a question you need to ask yourself, where you complete this sentence: "Have I settled for now in . . . ?" The way you and I finish that sentence shows us the part of our life where we need to let our future begin to affect our present; where our place in the new creation should transform our view of our life right now.

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Weekly Once-Over (01.30.2014):

Finding Your True Identity: It is Jesus who pursues, secures, and maintains our position in the family of God. He died that we might be restored to a right relationship with his Father, back into the family we were originally created to be a part of. Jesus, our servant king, gave us his indwelling Spirit and sent us out on his mission. It’s all about Jesus.

How To Make Accountability Work: Accountability has gotten a bad rap. It is easy to see why, I guess. When it comes to battling against sin, and especially those stubborn, addictive sins, accountability relationships are sometimes held up as a cure-all, a near guarantee of success. Yet often they end up being a means of commiseration more than challenge, a time when Christians sit around feeling sorry for one another rather than full-on battling against sin.

6 Very Simple Ways To Your Super Bowl Missional: The Superbowl is coming up and, whether you like football or not, it’s a very big deal to the ones we want to reach with the gospel. One of the most basic principles of biblical mission is a willingness to adopt someone else’s culture to reach them for Christ.

Jesus Is Better: As we share our faith, may we do so with the winsome confidence that life in Jesus is so much richer, fuller, and better than any life apart from him. The gospel is good news! Lives that reflect a joy deeper than circumstances lovingly bear witness to this soul-satisfying truth: Jesus is better.

The Grammys, Grace, and The Gospel: 3 Things the Grammys Can Remind Christians: So, the Grammys are not representative of our culture, but in some ways they are indicative of its shifts. And, the Grammy moment is a good moment to remind ourselves of a few things.

Christians and Movies: Are We Contextualizing or Compromising: Is our bigger problem a lack of contextualization? Or is it that we’ve compromised ourselves without knowing it? That’s the issue here. And I suppose I worry more that we are failing our neighbor because of our compromise than because we’ve failed to contextualize. Alissa is right that film watching is a matter of wisdom, not fear. But my great fear is that we are being unwise.

Why I am a Continuationist: All the gifts of the Spirit, whether tongues or teaching, prophecy or mercy, healing or helping, were given (among other reasons) for the edification, building up, encouraging, instructing, consoling, and sanctifying of the body of Christ. Therefore, even if the ministry of the miraculous gifts to attest and authenticate has ceased, a point I concede only for the sake of argument, such gifts would continue to function in the church for the other reasons cited.

Why I am a Cessationist: Now, could God in cutting-edge missionary situations grant miracles and signs and wonders to accredit the gospel as he did in apostolic times? Yes. But that's not the same thing as having these gifts as a regular feature in the ongoing life of the church. If the signs and wonders of the apostles have returned, we should see the blind receiving their sight, the lame walking, and the dead being raised. God heals today (sometimes dramatically), but the healing of colds, the flu, TMJ, stomach, and back problems, and so forth aren't in the same category as the healings found in the Scriptures. If people truly have the gift of healing and miracles today, they need to demonstrate such by performing the kinds of healings and miracles found in the Bible.

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Weekly Once-Over:

Discipleship: When Is Enough Enough?: How can leaders tell if they are making mature disciples? Paul gives us three places to look: the heart, the head, and the hands of disciples.

Should Broke Tim Get Married And Have Kids?: If you are both making poor money, should you still trust God, get married, and start having kids?

What I Learned About Sabbaticals by Finally Taking One: And it struck me that God had called me on sabbatical for that moment—to heal me of wounds that had gone so deep that I hardly knew what life was like without them. Feeling the great surge of letting everything wash away, feeling stripped bare, I was reminded that his grace is sufficient, and he does in fact make all things new. That was our 42nd day. Now that I've finally taken a sabbatical, here are a few things I've learned.

How Not To Create A Missional Movement: Rather than present our polished vision, values and practices, I want to take a little different tack – I want to candidly talk about putting these ideas into practice in a real church.  More specifically, I want to be completely honest with you about our failures at The Austin Stone.  Over the last 7 years, we have been in the process of transitioning to missional communities, and we’ve made plenty of mistakes...

Parents: Don't Just Give Your Kids Technology: I’m surprised by how many parents just give their kids technology – without taking the opportunity to train them in responsibility, accountability, and wisdom. This is a sure way to raise a spoiled brat or a selfish, entitled college student.

What I Appreciate (And Don't) About Prosperity Preachers: Prosperity teaching leans on Malachi 3 to cast God as a big piñata in the sky, chock-full of material wealth. This interpretation of the text is more about how to feed greed than glorify God.

Gospel Amnesia In The Local Church: Have you ever felt ashamed or guilty because you can’t seem to keep up with someone else’s sanctification? On the other side: have you ever let words slip from your lips (e.g. how many times a week you do family worship, what books you are reading, which parenting and education method you are using, etc.) to show how far along your family is on the sanctification spectrum? In other words, have you ever “preached Christ” out of envy, rivalry, or selfish ambition (Philippians 1:15–17)? I certainly have...

Holy-Love Wins: Holiness without love yields sternness. Love without holiness yields sentimentality. The Maker of heaven and earth is neither stern nor sentimental, for he is simultaneously holy and love...

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Weekly Once-Over:

4 Lesson I Learned About Legacy From My Family: Jesus loves working through families, seeing lives changed and legacies of faith built. And there is no greater gift you can pass on to the next generation than the gift of the gospel.

Is Recreational Marijuana Use A Sin?: Presumably, no one adds marijuana to brownies because it improves their flavor. The reason to add this particular plant to foodstuffs is because of its effect on senses other than taste. However, let's assume that someone really does enjoy and gain some nourishment from eating marijuana leaves. Would that be a sin?

Using Our Gifts To Serve God, Not Ourselves: Did God give us the church as a place to use our gifts? Or did he give us gifts so we could serve the church? The difference might seem subtle, but the way you answer has a profound impact on how you view yourself, your church, and your volunteers.

Rhythms For Family Devotions: How we practice these three rhythms will vary based on our family make-up, the ages of our kids, and the season of our lives. Don’t get discouraged. Don’t get up in your head. Don’t over-complicate it. Look for every opportunity to talk with your kids about Jesus and use family devotions to spawn those conversations. Read together. Sing together. Pray together. It’s that simple.

3 Factors To Consider When Choosing Resources For Family Devotions: Simply put, there is no shortage of crappy so-called "Christian" content in general. Just walk the aisles of your local Christian bookstore if you don't believe me. As parents we need to be careful about the content we put in the hearts and hands of our kids. They need to be Biblically-faithful. Most kids Bibles treat the stories of Scriptures like moral fables, disconnected from the overarching message of God's Word. The resources you choose need to be faithful to Scripture and thus Christ-centered. 

5 Rules For Family Devotions: These rules aren't meant to be restrictive, they're meant to be helpful. I've been praying all week that these posts would be encouraging and help simplify this important practice in your family like they have in mine. I'm praying and trusting that God will use His Word invested into our kids to draw them to Himself.

But Do You Adore Jesus?: What I notice a lot every day in the Christian spheres of social media is just how incredibly adept we evangelicals are at doctrinal criticism, cultural rebuke, theological analysis, biblical exegesis, contending for the faith in apologetic and ethical debates, pithy spiritualbon mots, religious advice, and of course the quoting of Christian leaders present and past, but what seems less prevalent is adoration of Jesus.

Evangelicals Find Themselves In The Midst Of A Calvinist Revival: Evangelicalism is in the midst of a Calvinist revival. Increasing numbers of preachers and professors teach the views of the 16th-century French reformer. Mark Driscoll, John Piper and Tim Keller — megachurch preachers and important evangelical authors — are all Calvinist. Attendance at Calvin-influenced worship conferences and churches is up, particularly among worshipers in their 20s and 30s. But Why?

Reading The Bible Like Jesus: Reading the Bible is difficult work. Or at least it can be if we intend to do more than simply read it for enjoyment or duty. There are many things we have to overcome in order to read effectively: the flesh, fatigue, distractions, time pressures from various sources, cold hearts, clogged ears and so on. Even when we overcome all these obstacles of the world, the flesh and the devil, we still find our Bible reading needs adjustment in order to read as Jesus read.

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Weekly Once-Over:

Why Does God Allow Burdens?: A quote often attributed to Mother Teresa is, “I know God will not give me anything I can’t handle. I just wish that he didn’t trust me so much.” It’s a clever line. But it’s not right.

Mental Illness - The New Leprosy: Jesus Christ directly called those who labor and are heavy laden to seek him for rest. As followers of Christ, it is therefore the responsibility of Christians to care for these souls and the Church’s obligation to cultivate an environment that welcomes this process. However, it must first be understood the missteps that have led the Church to separate themselves from this calling. Here are three overarching mistakes that have led the Christian church to make outcasts of those with mental health problems. (Also Part Two of the Blog Post - "3 Ways To Engaging Those Struggling With Mental Illness")

People Are Books: The famous British historian H.G. Wells is credited with this quote: “I am a historian, I am not a believer, but I must confess as a historian that this penniless preacher from Nazareth is irrevocably the very center of history. Jesus Christ is easily the most dominant figure in all history.” It is hard to find anyone these days that will truly contest that reality.

Are You Faking or Trying When It Comes To God?: Plenty of people fake it in their spiritual lives. They want to look like healthy Christians or to make it through church without anyone looking askance at them or asking a personal question. That comes from a heart of pride and deceit. Trying until it pays off is different. It comes from a heart of need and an eye on the goal of growth in holiness. Both faking and trying might feel like we are going through the motions, but the end result of one is emptiness and exposure. The result of the other is closeness with God

5 Keys For Reinvention: Growth brings change. Period. That’s true for big churches and small churches, and it’s true for people, families, corporations, and countries. If you want to function well at the next level, reinvention is absolutely necessary.

Porn Brain: Even sex experts, celebrities, and Hollywood are noting the destructive realities of porn in relationships, and its complete rewiring of how individuals approach sex.

The New Year For Your Children: This year, let's be intentional with teaching our children about Christ. While everyone else makes plans and sets goals for all that they will do this year, let's consider specific ways we can point our children to their Savior.

Duck Dynasty Debrief: In the end, let’s take a deep breath and get some perspective. We don’t pin our hopes to a television show, no matter how popular. And we don’t adjust our convictions to fit the culture, no matter how unpopular. Celebrity television stars come and go; it’s the Word of the Lord that stands forever.

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