May 2, 2025
You’ve spent your life serving others. You deserve someone who can serve your financial and retirement needs equally as well, so that you can continue to seek first the kingdom of God.
October 31, 2018
By Jim Nieman An auction bid of $78,750 took home the first John Deere GP tractor ever built and will help pay for renovation of a building shared by Taylorville (Ill.) Christian Church and VisionWay Christian School. “It turned out great,” lead minister James Jones said. Some church members thought the tractor might go for a little higher price, others thought it would go for less. “It was great as far as I’m concerned.” Jones did not attend the auction and did not know the name of the winning bidder. The 1928 general purpose tractor was the first of more
July 17, 2017
Dr. Mark Scott wrote this treatment of the International Sunday School Lesson. Scott teaches preaching and New Testament at Ozark Christian College, Joplin, Missouri. This lesson treatment is published in the July 16, 2017, issue of The Lookout magazine, and is also available online at www.lookoutmag.com. ______ By Mark Scott The librarian says, “You are what you read.” The designer says, “You are what you wear.” The athlete says, “You are what you train.” Hollywood says, “You are what you watch.” But the dietician says, “You are what you eat.” Ezekiel”s call to prophetic service embraced eating something. The call of Ezekiel was involved, took
March 26, 2017
Jay Engelbrecht Your creator designed you to live healthy and well. How can we cooperate with his yearning for our best? Let”s test your knowledge of the book of Proverbs. Three of the quotes below come from Eugene Peterson”s modern paraphrase The Message, while the other two come from founding father Benjamin Franklin. Can you identify the source of each? 1. “Don”t stuff yourself; bridle your appetite.” 2. “He that won”t be counseled can”t be helped.” 3. “When you”re given a box of candy, don”t gulp it all down.” 4. “Eat to live, don”t live to eat.” 5. “It”s not smart
April 6, 2016
By Jim Tune In last week”s blog I posted an annotated list of five axioms for Christian leaders and promised five more for this week. I haven”t attempted to rank these axioms, as they are mostly situationally driven. They either apply to your current circumstance or they don”t. All of them have found application to my life and leadership””some of them very recently. Here are five more axioms for this week: 1. Become a lifelong learner. Read something. Harry S. Truman said, “Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.” Rick Warren insists that the moment you stop
March 24, 2016
By T.R. Robertson I”ve dreamed of being a writer since I was just a kid, back in the 1970s. Being a writer would give me the chance to express myself, to share my thoughts and opinions. Little did I know by the time I became a published writer, anyone with Internet access would be able to instantly publish his or her thoughts. Social media enable everyone to have their say, whether insightful or spiteful, eloquent or ignorant. Twitter recorded 738 million tweets in the 10 days following the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Social media drove the public
March 13, 2016
By Patrick Mitchell When I entered a conversation with a dear friend that morning at Milligan College”s exercise facility, I never would have thought that within a few months I would be pastor of a 125-year-old church in a town that boasts a population of approximately 1,000. While still chugging along on the elliptical machine, Phyllis asked if I would consider helping fill the pulpit of a rural church in our area while it searched for a pastor. You should know that at that point in my life (I was then 30 years old), I was done with church ministry.
March 11, 2016
By Guthrie Veech Olin Hay preached at South Louisville Christian Church near the University of Louisville in Kentucky. He loved football. Periodically, he would leave the office early to watch the Cardinals” football practice. One day a freshman quarterback rushed the ball down the muddy field only to be tackled by a huge linebacker. The quarterback stood up, covered in mud from head to toe, and said to Hay, “You gotta love the game, gotta love the game.” The freshman quarterback”s name was Johnny Unitas, who became perhaps the greatest quarterback in NFL history. That story reminds me of my
March 9, 2016
By Jim Tune Paul Sparks, a cofounder of the Parish Collective, likes to refer to the reverse Prayer of Jabez. I find his twist on things refreshing: God, Shrink our territory, And narrow our boundaries That we might truly be a blessing to all. Yeah. Like that would be a best seller or catalyze a 40-day program for the typical Evangelical church. Most preachers and church planters struggle with impatience. We have goals to achieve, targets to hit. Wherever we are, it seems, we are itching to leave. Here and now is never enough. We want to get to some
March 7, 2016
By Casey Tygrett In 2007, I encountered a book that changed my life. The book was Hannah Coulter, a novel by Wendell Berry. I had previously read a Berry poem called “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front.” With a title like that, how could you forget? In fact, one line stays with me even today: “Praise ignorance, for what man has not encountered he has not destroyed.” Even with that poem in mind, I wasn”t prepared for Hannah Coulter. The characters, the life, the unspoken but ever present faith””Berry”s book drew me in, and I couldn”t put it down. Once
February 6, 2016
By Arron Chambers Christian leaders, some of them preachers themselves, tell us about a sermon they can”t forget””and maybe you won”t either. TRACEY D. LAWRENCE Tracey D. Lawrence is an author and professor. She has written for Chuck Colson”s BreakPoint, the Wilberforce Forum, Promise Keepers, Sheila Walsh, Rebecca St. James, and others. She holds a BS in Christian education and an MA in church history and theology. Her book written with Eric Irivuzumugabe, My Father, Maker of the Trees, a memoir of the Rwandan genocide, was featured on The New York Times best-seller list. Tracey serves as a professor
October 25, 2015
Seven leaders tell how reading made all the difference for them. ____ TODD CLARK, teaching pastor, Christ”s Church of the Valley, Peoria, Arizona Too Busy Not to Pray: Slowing Down to Be with God by Bill Hybels (InterVarsity Press, 1998) Choosing to Cheat: Who Wins When Family and Work Collide? by Andy Stanley (Multnomah, 2003) The Life You”ve Always Wanted: Spiritual Disciplines for Ordinary People by John Ortberg (Zondervan, 1997) Soul Keeping: Caring for the Most Important Part of You by John Ortberg (Zondervan, 2014) A Tale of Three Kings: A Study of Brokenness by Gene Edwards (Tyndale House, 1992) As I
October 15, 2015
By Jason Yeatts It is possible to study the Bible for a lifetime without really understanding it. Integrity may be the missing ingredient to give us the greatest insight. We know these passages well, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says” (James 1:22); “Not everyone who says to me, “˜Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21); “Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them” (John 13:17). These verses
March 18, 2015
By Jim Tune There is an energy about the Psalms. I love the raw honesty that spills out everywhere as David and others confess their inadequacies, cry out for mercy, or plead for justice to fall viciously on their enemies. The Psalms have a voice of their own. Perhaps that is why the book of Psalms touches me in a way that some others in the Bible do not. A friend once suggested the opposite of Psalms is Romans. I get that. In that rather formal letter, Paul meticulously lays out the foundations of the faith by following a specific
May 24, 2014
By LeRoy Lawson A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America Stacy Schiff New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2005Â Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology Eugene Peterson Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2005 One Year to Better Preaching: 52 Exercises to Hone Your Skills Daniel Overdorf Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 2013 Sometimes it pays to look pathetic””or eager””or greedy. I don”t know exactly what my friend saw in my face, but before I left his house that evening he gave me two books. The first was a bit of nonsense featuring
April 16, 2014
By Mark A. Taylor I bumped into our backyard neighbor at the grocery store, and the conversation went from the price of groceries to the weather to “How are your kids?” And then she told me, “We”ve been going to church.” She had visited our church once, several years ago, but she had never come back. And I always felt she was embarrassed by that. But now she was smiling. “The girls love it, and the first Sunday my 13-year-old daughter asked if she could go back that night to youth group.” Then her expression became more earnest. “It”s really
April 4, 2014
By Jeff Faull “I, John, your brother and companion in the suffering and kingdom and patient endurance that are ours in Jesus. . . . On the Lord”s Day I was in the Spirit, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet” (Revelation 1:9, 10, author emphasis). Today is the Lord”s Day, but it doesn”t quite seem the same. John was being punished. We are not. John was suffering. We are not. John was alone. We”re not. John was an apostle. We”re not. John was an eyewitness. We”re not But we are trying to listen to God,
June 4, 2013
By Mark A. Taylor We were talking about truth and grace. It was toward the end of a lively conversation during our first blogtalkradio program, Beyond the Standard; this episode was about how to influence life change. George Ross, Tim Harlow, and Brian Mavis discussed the challenges of standing for the truth while standing with the sinner. How do we love and listen to people, leading them to the truth without hitting them over the head with it? Brian told about a friend of his with “grace” and “truth” tattoos, one on each wrist. “Since I”m right-handed, “˜grace” is on my
August 3, 2011
By Mark S. Krause Last week we looked at five factors that shape an English translation of the Bible: interpretation, version genealogy, translation theory, audience, and gender-neutral language. This week and next week, we will take a quick look at eight translations. Popular English Translations There are too many English translations of the Bible to write about each one, but we will focus on a few. In each case, we will look at the presuppositions behind the translation, its audience, and a couple of test verses: Psalm 8:4 and Matthew 16:18. Psalm 8:4 is well-known for its ringing question,
August 14, 2005
When ministry life becomes tightly wound, leaders can lose sight of God’s presence and confuse calling with constant demands. Neal Windham explores how seeing with love restores listening, discernment, and renewed vocation.
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