Making Sense of Suffering, Death, and Global Pandemics

The world has changed dramatically over the past few months. Well over a million people have COVID-19 and tens of thousands have died from it. In many ways, life will never be the same again. Many people are scratching their heads, asking big questions, and searching for answers. This is a good thing. If you […]

Five Shocking Things About the Story of Jonah

We all know that the story of Jonah is downright shocking. It’s the kind of story that grabs the attention of children, which is why it is often taught in Sunday School. But I think sometimes we don’t ever get beyond our surface level, Sunday School understanding. If you ask me, the story of Jonah […]

A Simple Way to do Evangelism

Our family has been watching a series of missions videos called Dispatches from the Front hosted by Tim Keesee. These videos profile the advance of the gospel all around the world. God is at work is interesting and surprising ways, and these 10 videos (and counting) offer a window into that remarkable work. In video […]

The Right Perspective on Evangelism

Early on in my ministry, I served as pastor of a small country church in Ohio. One Sunday morning in the middle of June about 15 minutes before church started, the neighbor started mowing his lawn. For most churches, this would not be a big deal, but our little church sat right next to the […]

The Day I Almost Drowned

I will never forget the day I thought I was going to die. It was summer of 2006 and my friend Christopher Berera and I were swimming in the South Saskatchewan river near Saskatoon. Neither one of us were very good swimmers but we were having a great time and somehow managed to cross the […]

The Simplicity of Evangelism

A few days ago Steph and I were watching our favorite series of missions videos called Dispatches From the Front when something really caught my attention. The host Tim Keesee was traveling around the country of Albania looking at how the gospel is advancing in a big way – praise God! He mentioned how one […]

Was Christ’s Death Just an Inspiring Example?

John Stott: “the death of Jesus is more than an inspiring example. If this was all there is to it, much of what we find in the Gospels would make no sense. There are those strange sayings, for instance, in which Jesus said he would ‘give his life as a ransom for many’ and shed […]

Have you met the Man who does all things well?

“He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.” Mark 6:37 I have never met a man who does “all things well.” We have a lot of men in our church that could be classified as “Jack of all trades” because they are gifted in so many […]

Telling Our Faith Stories

One thing we don’t do enough of as Christians is to tell our faith stories to one another. What I mean by “faith stories” is quite simple – stories that communicate God’s faithfulness and sufficiency to meet our every need. I think there are at least two reasons for this. First, we aren’t stepping out […]

The Apologetic of a Transformed Life

I once read the story of a pastor who was invited to debate an atheist. The pastor agreed to debate on one condition – that the atheist would bring 50 people who had been transformed by being atheists. The pastor in turn would bring 50 people who had been transformed by the power of Jesus […]