Category: gospel
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Four Moments in Four Days
Four days. Four moments. One thread: discipleship. Omaha, a podcast I will not name, a training in Liberty Hill, and a Sunday at The Stone, and what they showed me is that the terms and the vehicles and the definitions keep changing while the four ingredients do not.
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Settled
Settled cuts two ways. It can mean contentment or it can mean quiet resignation, what I would call spiritualized compromise, and the question I keep asking is whether I have settled into God or just settled for something less. True contentment is not the absence of longing, it is trusting God in the longing.
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Why Multiplication Feels So Far Away
After nearly twenty years of praying for multiplication in Austin, I have come to think the barrier is not our structures or our strategies. The root is fear, and we seem to be really, really scared to engage. Multiplication is not a strategy to execute but a fruit that grows in the soil of healthy…
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Fluent in Feelings, Silent in the Spirit?
We have grown fluent in the language of feelings and gone quiet about the Spirit. Caution has crept into hesitation, and hesitation has led to a kind of spiritual muteness, so that almost nobody in our rooms has to say I think the Spirit may be prompting this. Obedience is not pressure, it is the…
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Forerunning, Not Competing
Ministry conversation slides too easily into who is growing fastest and reaching widest, and I do not want to play that game. A forerunner goes down the course first, not to compete but to test the ground and prepare the way. It is quiet work, but it matters deeply, and like Paul I would rather…
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Lost and Led: Learning to Trust Jesus in the Unknown
Even the best human guide will eventually fail us, or give good counsel at the wrong time. I learned that standing lost in the lobby of my daughter’s dance competition, the only dude in a sea of ladies. Jesus is the one guide who is always leading, and even when He seems silent, He is…
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Hope that Does Not Put Us to Shame
A quarter of my support-raising time had passed and the polite declines were coming in, and what surprised me was the shame. If my struggle produces shame, I am not actually suffering well, because I am measuring my experience against my own expectations rather than God’s promises. Hope does not put us to shame.
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Meekness, Humility, and Humiliation
A friend once encouraged me to ask God for meekness, and I would tell you to be careful what you pray for. Meekness is not weakness, it is strength under control, and God seems to produce it through being humbled, which sometimes means humiliation. Support raising has been the instrument in my case.
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From Faith, By Faith, and For Faith
Leaving The Austin Stone has raised a question I cannot avoid: how much of what I saw happen had nothing to do with me? I never realized how much I trusted the horses and chariots of men. What God did came from faith, the unknown ahead is walked by faith, and the whole point is…
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Strategies I Use to Share the Gospel
I’ve been teaching a Theological Survey course at The Austin Stone this past fall and spring, and it has been a great experience in equipping the saints to think deeply about God, to love Him with a whole heart, and obey His commandments with willing hands. Yesterday, one of the class participants asked me about…
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Jesus and Mission
I’ve spilt quite a bit of digital ink over the last few months working through the reasons why we pursue missional communities, the core practices of missional communities, leadership systems for missional communities, and a variety of other practical things related to missional communities. For today’s post, I wanted to share a sermon that my…
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An Interview with Eric Geiger
My friend Eric Geiger did a short Skype interview with me on the topic of the Gospel and Community. I’d love to hear your thoughts!