Tweet This past Sunday, our sister church h2o at The Ohio State University kicked off its first service of the 2009-2010 school year. The church was planted last summer by a team from New Life Church at the University of Michigan (scandalous, I know), and what’s going on at OSU is beyond amazing. They had their first-ever church [...]
TweetSince I’m not yet a pastor (or even close to being one, really), I haven’t ever truly preached in a church. But this summer I was allowed to do a training session at New Life on how to lead a dynamic small group meeting. It was the first time I ever got to teach from a [...]
TweetThe other day, while driving through Wheaton, I saw a strip mall-turned-church. I wondered to myself how Wheaton could truly be a “Christian hub” of sorts (as it is known) without revival spreading to nearby towns. How does a huge concentration of Christ-followers stay that immobile? There are a million and one reasons I suppose, but based [...]
TweetIn my last post about this, I shared some troubling trends and statistics regarding the gender ratio imbalance in the Church in America today. There are reasons to be alarmed, but I don’t think this is a losing battle. I see tremendous opportunity in our current predicament, and want to share an idea or two on [...]
TweetFor those of you who know me well, I am a compulsive strategist (ENTJ for you Myers-Briggs types). You probably also know that I’m more passionate about the Church of Jesus Christ than just about anything. Therefore, I rather enjoy the intersection of those two passions of mine. This is going to be one of those [...]
TweetLast Thursday, our church had its usual booth set up at the giant campus-wide gathering of student organizations on the U of M Diag known as FestiFall. At our table, we hand out posters, magnets and other paraphernalia, but our primary goal is to meet interested students and let them know who we are, what we do, and that we’d love to know them. Students indicate [...]
TweetFor many years, our church has dreamed of subverting the culture of Welcome Week at U of M with Kingdom realities. As students spend their very first days in the place they’ll call home for the next 4 years, they’re ruthlessly bombarded with the siren songs of the party lifestyle. For decades, campus ministries have made attempts to sing among [...]
TweetLast night, my house church community, the SouthSide New Life Team, met as a whole for the first time this school year. You may recall that our church has deemed this year The Year of Freedom, claiming the promises of Isaiah 49:8-21. As a New Life Team, we enjoy forming our own sub-vision; the unique [...]
TweetI spent today mostly huddled in front of my computer watching church leaders from around the nation give nine-minute exhortations to church leaders as a part of a conference called THE NINES. To build on a theme, it started at 9:09 a.m. on 9/9/09, and each leader was prompted with, ”If you had 9 minutes to say [...]
TweetThis morning, I was reading in 1 Kings and something stuck out to me. The kingdom of Israel was taken from Solomon because he worshiped other gods (1 Kings 11:31-33). Interestingly, the Lord contrasts this behavior with Solomon’s father David, who God says upheld his laws and statutes. Now, we all know this isn’t true in [...]