discipleship

Bible Study Tools: A Study Bible

Through his careful research and later book, The Shape of Faith To Come, Brad Waggoner and his research team identified daily Bible study as the number one indicator of Christian maturity.  If you want to grow in Christ, it seems, the best way to do that is to spend time with him in his Word.  Paul admonished …

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Fantastic Four

Discipling in the Church.  The new 9Marks journal focuses on discipleship.  This is a great tool for pastors and anyone who has a heart to see discipleship become a focal point of the local church. Handbook on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament.  This new book by G.K. Beale should be a great …

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The Ethic of Bin Laden

A recent article from Abdel Bari Atwan on the CNN website explores Why Bin Laden was Radicalized. It was very interesting for me to learn that Bin Laden was not always as radical as the world has come to know him.  It was also intriguing to follow Atwan’s arguments about what it is that actually …

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Book Review: Preaching that Changes Lives

Preaching that Changes Lives Author: Michael Fabarez Publisher and Date: Wipf and Stock, 2005                              Rank (1-10): 8 *Rank 1-10, with 1 meaning “waste of time” and 10 meaning “must read.” THESIS OF THE BOOK : To encourage and empower preachers to preach sermons that not only convey information about the Bible, but that also …

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Loving Our Neighbors

Getting to know our neighbors is not always an easy endeavor in today’s society.  My good friend Ben Stevens has written an article, “To Love Your Neighbor, You Must Know Your Neighbor,” that can help us in this important aspect of the Christian life. As pastors, we need to encourage our people to get to …

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Book Reviews

I read alot. Here are some short blurb reviews for a few books I’ve currently read or am reading. Nomad byAyaan Hirsi Ali.  This is an autobiographical book chronicling Hirsi Ali’s departure from Islam to America.  In this book she shares many personal anecdotes about the challenges, fears, and failures she faced as an immigrant …

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Book Review: Real Life Discipleship

I am currently in a PhD program, and as a result, read tons of books that are assigned to me rather than chosen by me.  Fortunately for me, the program at SBTS (which you can learn about here) has me usually reading things that appeal to me.  One of the books I recently read, however, …

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What’s Your Scorecard?

I’ve been asked to review Transformational Churches by Ed Stetzer and Thom Rainer.  It’s laying on my desk, and I plan to work through it this morning, but before I do, I’ve been struck by the subtitle: Creating a New Scorecard for Congregations. I’ve got some ideas about what Stetzer and Rainer may recommend, but …

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Pastoring Your Family

I tasked our new youth and discipleship pastor (Luke Tolbert) with helping me to develop some good stuff we could put into the hands of fathers in our church.  Recently, I’ve been blessed to hear, on several occasions, “I want to lead my family like you talk about, but can you help me understand just …

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My New Discipleship Strategy

On Monday, I made a new friend. I was introduced to a first grader who has no dad at home and needs tons of attention. He struggles in reading class and in other areas, but has an incredible smile and is enjoyable to be around. Did I mention that he needs Jesus? I don’t know …

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