Halloween is over.

Thanksgiving — the largest, most visible, forgotten holiday is right around the corner.

That means, the commercialized CHRISTmas is basically here.

We’ve heard of reports that the Christmas retail season has already begun as a general secular movement as early as August now.  We’re devoting almost 1/2 hour entire calendar year around this civil holiday at the end of the year.

It is hard to find any other parallels like a date of December 25th having such an impact as far away as July or August 25th.  Not even birthdays in such a ME-centric culture are thought of this way.

Today, I received an email promoting a Free Amazon MP3 Album Download of The Veggie Tales Christmas Album for Kids:

In one sense, this is spot-on theologically: Giving away a free gift in order to celebrate another absolutely and completely free gift.

But one another sense, it is kind of a twisted manifestation when the religious circles are buying into what is being done with the timing and celebration of the civil religion around Christmas.

Is there a difference between marketing of *a* church and marketing *using* the church?

I think there is a difference, but I’m interested in what your thoughts may be on this question of the commercialization of Christmas.

My hope is that you refrain from sweeping rants as you leave a comment below. Your thoughts?

Today, we hear from guest blogger Pastor Ryan of Central Baptist Church in Ohio. He chimes in on how we all have a choice in building assets or liabilities for the Church.

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Last week, I saw on the local news and then read about a church around Columbus, OH, who is involved in an ongoing battle of protesting with a strip club.  The short version: this church has been protesting outside the strip club for several years now, even to the extent of photographing club goers and their license plates and posting online.  Now, the dancers from that club are protesting outside of the church on Sunday mornings.  It appears that both parties are stubborn and are not going to stop anytime soon.

Recently, the big news was about the church in Florida who was going to burn a Quran on 9/11 in protest of Islam.  This absurd situation is drawing negative attention even from military leaders and our Secretary of State.

I look at these situations involving two local churches and I can’t help but wonder what their real motivation is in acting this way.  Because they certainly aren’t acting like the church as Jesus intended. (more…)

Long after the Biblical account of the parting of the Red Sea, people have questioned Moses’ miraculous actions.  Sure, sometimes the stories we read in the Scriptures seem outlandish or mythical to our own sensibilities in the world we live in. But the question remains however if it is physically possible to have happened?

Science has come to the aid of at least this one Biblical record, showing how a body of water can in fact by parted to the degree where 6 foot walls surround a dry passage across it.

Amazing? Yes.  Possible? Yes.

Even cooler? The researchers have found an actual geographic location where this rare occurrence might have and can occur based on the present land form, underwater structures, etc.

Check out this video where a researcher from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU) briefly explains their findings:

QUESTION: Does your faith require science to confirm your hesitations about the Truth given to us in the Scriptures?

“M&M’s Make Friends.”

Everyone pretty much knows it, right?  They’ve been around forever.

The thing is that all this while, we’ve become accustomed to thinking about them in the same way, even as the options have flourished to 25 different colors.

I bet if you closed you eyes and someone asks you to think of M&M chocolate candies, you’ll envision the good ol’ brown bags that is a staple of Halloween treats block after block after block. . .

Asked how much you’d expect to spend on an M&M’s purchase and you’ll also probably think about picking one up at the register of the grocery or convenience store — something between 50 cents to a buck or two at the register, right?  How much can the large bag of M&M’s really cost?  $2 bucks at the most for sure.

But guess what, the average purchase is NO WHERE NEAR THAT at this grocery store I was in recently.  But WHY? you ask?  Here’s why. . . (more…)

How many UNREAD EMAILS do you have in your Inbox right now?  Yup, right now.  Go ahead and check and then come back here — just make sure you don’t delete any!

Be honest, is your Inbox overflowing?

Are there emails in there you just don’t want to deal with?

Today, I caught a glimpse of my friend’s iPhone home screen…reminding him he had 721 emails waiting for him to attend to!

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Today I spent some time at a local airport that mainly serves small private planes.

There’s a flight school that gives instruction in a hanger right there off the runway. New pilots are commissioned after going through training that teaches the basics and live in-the-air lessons.

As I head out to a weekend retreat this week, I share some of the reflections about the spiritual highs that we may experience after an amazing Christian conference, church retreat or even after hearing a famous preacher’s sermonic mastery in the pulpit.

But there’s one crticial lesson of flying high that pilots are taught in flight school which God’s people may benefit from regarding their own personal faith journey. Check out this short video where I share my thoughts. . . (more…)

Today on the drive to basketball camp, my son started sharing with me some of the stories from yesterday on the court. Since he’s so young and not as many kids his age are enrolled in sports camps at this point, he’s mixed in at the lower end of the age range with some other boys as much as 2-3 years olds than him. A 3-year gap in age makes a difference when you’re that young — in development, maturity and size.

The amazing part was the life lesson that he managed to teach me in the 15 minute drive using just one incident that happened yesterday at camp. It just struck me how similar his message was to a Tim Keller talk I listened to recently on cultural renewal

It is amazing how children and see the world with such clarity. Watch this vlog below where I try to share what I learned.

I guess I have to keep talking to my kids more, don’t I?

QUESTION: DO YOU SEE YOUR EVERYDAY LIFE AS A CHANCE TO AFFECT CULTURAL RENEWAL WITH YOUR CHRISTIAN IDENTITY?

For many churches, the calendar is driven by the academic year because the ministry has many families with kids involved.  And if that’s the case, we’re right at the point where you’ll be rewind the clock and “start over” with your ministry programming this fall.

Aside from the Sunday School and youth ministries, the other parts of the church might also be preparing for a new small group season or new lay leadership team installations, or new . . .

It might all be “new” but at the same time, it can quickly become “old” and repetitive…just the same old thing over and over again year in and year out!

I don’t know about you, but when this happens it can quickly lead to paralysis and lifeless leadership on my own part.

But what can you do about it? Well, just sitting there and playing along isn’t going to solve anything!

Here’s some tips — eye-opening ways of approaching your “job” as a pastor or ministry leader to help “unstick” what’s “stuck” for you right now: (more…)

Is there anyone out there that doesn’t take a jab at the Church with a capital “C” regarding technology of the day?

We are living in a 2.0 world and the Church always seems to be struggling just to stay awake and alive in a 1.0 world mode, right?

Well, this is not just a recent phenomena apparently.

That’s right, back in the day, and I mean back in the olden times, the early church had trouble with adopting new technologies too!

Thankfully, the help desk was around back then too though.

Take a look yourself at the video below documenting the upgrade experience from Biblical scrolls to bound books:

QUESTION: WHAT *ONE* AREA OF TECHNOLOGY DO YOU EXPERIENCE THE MOST FRUSTRATION WITHIN CHURCH / MINISTRY LIFE RIGHT NOW?

Sometimes, pastors are pressured to pump out sermons that detail the Scriptures and it ends up becoming a sit and soak extravaganza that only the pastor is paying attention to.

Although the average sermon length is now at about 15 minutes these days, sometimes, even that is too much.

Once in awhile you come across a way of doing things that is just refreshing, inspiring and attention-grabbing. And you don’t need more than 90 seconds to do it apparently!

This is what Tamara Lowe, an international motivational speaker, who happens to be a Christ follower displayed when sharing her version of the Gospel.

Check out how she tells the story and I’m sure you’ll crack a smile along they way.  It has been dubbed the “one minute sermon” . . . (more…)