Let’s wrap up these conversations on “calling on the name of the Lord” as a primary spiritual act. I’ve got a few articles* you can read if you want to catch up, but let’s get right into it. You might know I’ve got a really intense system of Bible notes and list-making. One of my commenters on YouTube remarked last year, it seems like what you might find in the Thompson Chain Reference. I’ll call that a compliment! This feeds into today. It isn’t about a specific mention of “calling on the...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
I’ve been writing about a Biblical theme I’ve been fascinated with for years. “Calling on the Lord.” Email 1 | Calling on God as FundamentalEmail 2 | Exactly what does Calling on God look like? I shared earlier that we see it for the first time in Genesis 4:26, and it repeats almost exactly in Genesis 12:8. If we want to get nerdy (and you know I do), we are talking about the Hebrew verb קָרָא. The root shows up over 200 times in the Old Testament. This word has many different meanings:...
3 months ago • 2 min read
I’ve spent the last six months doing a deep dive on John Wesley’s class systems. The history and the recovery. The bonus side to this is I’ve been able to read some great books and learned about more than just class meetings. Today, I want to share one of those pieces of learning with you. It’s from Steven Manskar’s book Disciples Making Disciples. It was a fantastic read, and honestly, I would recommend it to everyone. Early on, Manskar writes about the purpose and mission of the local...
4 months ago • 2 min read
I find myself talking about evangelism around 50% of the time in my work as a Congregational Developer. I work with over 250 churches, and many of my conversations involve churches seeking vitality. Evangelism always comes up. I want to let you in on a key theory I like to start with. Evangelism isn’t uniform. Let’s talk about this from a single, specific research point. Ryan Burge, the current G.O.A.T. in religious engagement research, published findings from a study he is currently doing...
4 months ago • 2 min read
Hey Friends - I hope your new ministry year is kicking off with a bang! It is always an exciting time, and the cycle of a New Year always invigorates me. One of the things I love about a New Year is starting the planning done in November/December. Today, I want to talk a bit about these plans and how we can better approach them. Goals Drive Plans You can work hard on some amazing plans, but unless there are goals attached to them, those plans will just linger on a whiteboard, note, or in a...
4 months ago • 2 min read
This is part 2 of a larger series on the Biblical Theme of “Calling on the Name of the Lord.” - You can read Part 1 here. In my short introduction, I wrote about this fascination I have with a repeating theme across Scripture. "Calling", in some variety, is this action of humanity directed towards God. It is all over Scripture, and fleshes itself out in the Old Testament. I have a working theory that this act, first found in Genesis 4, is the fundamental posture humans are to take with God....
4 months ago • 2 min read
Last week, because of YouTube, this email list grew by 30%. I realized this might be the best time to kick off a new series based on one of my 2025 Bible lists. If this doesn’t sound familiar, you can watch the video here. Earlier this year, I started tracking a tiny piece of Genesis I’ve been aware of for many years. Seth also had a son, and he named him Enosh. At that time, men began to call on the name of the LORD. Gen 4:26 If you are familiar with Genesis, chapter 4 is quite the wild...
5 months ago • 2 min read
At the time of this writing, I’ve spent 6 years using the 1979 Book of Common Prayer and Daily Office as my primary devotional tool. Over the past couple of months, the New Testament readings have been jumping around in Revelation. It continued past Ordinary Time and into Advent. While this is a fantastic Advent reading, it is also comforting to me. I spent most of my 20’s absolutely obsessed with Revelation. I wrote a Master’s Thesis on preaching the Year C Easter texts from Revelation. As I...
5 months ago • 2 min read
Hey Friends, Thanksgiving through New Year's is the tax season for people who work in churches. If I’m honest, there are years when I start to feel a deep sense of dread right about now. I know exactly what's coming: The church calendar is already over-scheduled. Year-end giving matters, and the budget isn't caught up. The family has big travel plans, and you feel pressured to make it happen, even though it's the worst time of the year for a trip. Have you ever felt like this before? 🙋♂️ I...
6 months ago • 2 min read