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For most of my professional life I have often been told that I’m not approachable. You see, when it comes to things like Meyers-Briggs (ENTJ) or Strength Finders, my profile comes out as, “Jerk.” When I served with a campus ministry I would often have to spend a great deal of time apologizing to the women with whom I worked alongside. It usually wasn’t anything that I particularly did. Yet, there was something there that created tension and caused some sort of break in our relationship. After leaving the campus ministry I continued to work through this area of my life. What God began to reveal to me was that I was not “putting on love.” I am very much truth oriented. My preference is for people to play it straight and give me the facts. I don’t like it when people beat around the bush. I don’t sugar coat anything. In many conversations I would simply drop the truth bomb, “it’s biblical,...

We live in a time when there are congregations designed to meet every desire. Do you like contemporary music? Do you like traditional music? Do you like a young pastor? Do you like an old pastor? Do you like modern architecture or traditional? Do you prefer Sunday centric or mission centric? Do you…do you…do you…? “Church hopping” and “Church shopping” are phrases that are now significant parts of the American Christian experience. Long gone are the days of aligning with a particular doctrinal standard and being a part of that particular congregation. Long gone are the days of being committed to church discipline and the like because, well, you just go down the street. While much of this is owed to the individualism inherent in the Americanization of the church in the United States there is something deeper that I think we have largely lost. Paul, in Colossians 3, challenges followers of Jesus to “put on” certain qualities as a result of their...

Jesus is famous for saying, “The meek shall inherit the earth.” In Colossians 3, Paul says that the follower of Jesus must put on “meekness.” What is it? Many think that meekness is the opposite of being a “matador” as Frank Underwood says, But is that really what meekness means? If Jesus commanded us to be meek, I have hard time thinking that it has much to do with being a doormat. If anyone was not a doormat, it was Jesus. He’s about as strong and tough as it comes. So, while meekness has gotten a bad wrap in our culture, I think it means something else. Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary gives this as the primary definition of meekness: “enduring injury with patience and without resentment.” This sounds like Jesus. This sounds like Paul. Could you imagine being a follower of Jesus and living this way? Choosing to endure injury with patience and without resentment. This takes strength and courage. This demands an extension of grace,...

Over the last few months I have learned that the second greatest sin in my son’s teenage world is to “boost” (here’s the first great sin). There may not be anything worse than to be known as someone who “boosts”. If you’re like me you’re thinking, “I have no idea what those words mean.” To “boost” is to exaggerate your exploits. There are certain guys who boost about their lift or their forty time or the girls they talk to. The thing is, everyone knows the truth so they get called out and branded as a “booster”. It turns out that the Bible talks about boosting. No really. In the Scripture it’s called “humility.” Humility is best understood as a right understanding of yourself. To be humble is to know who you really are before God. Some people have in their mind that humility is the person who walks around saying things like, “I’m such a sinner,” or “I’m the worst of...

Nearly every time I have conversation with someone who is not a Christian about the Christian faith they say something like, “You’re not like other Christians.” I take that as a complement. Although, recently it has begun to raise some questions in me. It seems like a lot of my friends who aren’t Christians don’t want to become a follower of Jesus because of their perceptions of “Those Christians.” Many of them don’t know any of “Those Christians.” They know me though and tell me that I’m different from “Those Christians.” So if that’s the case why let this caricature of “Those Christians” impact so much of your worldview? I know this to be true: Most Christians are like me. Most of us are aware of our brokenness and most of us are wounded healers. That is, we come alongside not as those who have finished the race but as those who are fellow sojourners. We see on TV and the Internet the...