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The book Simple Church greatly impacted how I pastor Creekside Bible Church. The book offers data showing that when churches make clear a simple discipleship process and focus on doing a few things well (rather than trying to do a lot of things), they are better for it (primarily in numerical growth). Admittedly, I had a predisposition towards liking the contents of this book. I am an avid/outspoken fan of Apple products. Apple has become one of the most successful companies in the world by making things simple for customers and by being simple as a company – focusing on

It was a hot summer day in Ramona, California, a dead-end, desert town in the San Diego region. The dry heat radiated off the unbearable asphalt in visible waves. I was 7 or 8, walking with my best friend Taylor, to his house from mine. His parents were gone but his dog was in the backyard and we were going to pay him a visit. When we pushed past the gate at the side of his house and made our way to the back, what confronted us was far and beyond what we could ever have expected…

I recently had a conversation with an awesome, God-loving, Christian man in which he expressed something that seemingly is thought and felt by more and more Christians everyday. In the middle of an hour long conversation on church, he said, and I paraphrase, “You can find a million good sermons online. So, when a church gathers, preaching isn’t that important of an activity. Instead, we ought to be focused on prayer and worship.” Due to their clear focus on Scriptural evidence, most of the blog posts I read on the topic of church are written by people who are part

My son, Rogan, is 3 months out from being born. And if it were the case that I did not believe in an omnibenevolent (all-good) creator of the universe, I think I would avidly avoid broaching the subject of how the universe began. I could, in different words no doubt, tell my child when he was old enough to hear it, that all of matter purposelessly materialized by unguided and largely unknown processes, where over millions of years of agonizing nothingness, through death and despair, protoplasmic, vertebrate hominids made an appearance and over millennia of Darwinian selection, he was finally born to an ultimately and objectively meaningless existence, where he will live only briefly and die as he was born—for nothing—without objective purpose or meaning. It is a conversation I am fortunate to avoid…

In my first post on weekly communion, I made a case for frequent partaking of the ordinance being the practice of the churches that existed contemporaneously to the writing of Christian Scripture. I think the evidence I presented is persuasive, but must admit that nobody can definitively declare how often communion was practiced in the earliest churches according to the Bible – this is why it is still debated 2,000 years later. However, it is virtually undeniable that…

I recently read a blog post called I Love the Church. I Hate the Church. The post offers a pretty common sentiment:  The church is great, but  the author has been hurt by it. So, while she understands and loves the goodness of the church, part of her hates it. I felt a need to respond and did so in the following way: “I completely understand where you are coming from in this post. However, I think we do a disservice to the Kingdom when we use the word “hate” in regards to the church which is the bride, temple,

Before reading, check out Scripture as Vital (part 1). I have heard some people defend the veracity of the Bible by quoting the Bible. Let me submit to you that such a method is an exceptionally poor way of convincing others. [bra_blockquote align=’right’]To appeal to the authority of the Bible in order to prove the authority of the Bible is not substantially different than allowing the accused to preside as judge over their own hearing. [/bra_blockquote]To appeal to the authority of the Bible in order to prove the authority of the Bible is not substantially different than allowing the accused

This Sunday Chad is preaching on giving God our best  in sacrifice and worship. These topics (sacrifice and worship), as you might have guessed, are close to my heart. It seems that too often American’s half-heartedly worship God and I’m excited to examine God’s spoken word on the topic as recorded in Malachi. Along with this though, I’m also a bit anxious because it seems that so many American Christians are so far removed from true sacrificial worship. Many consider missing a football game for church attendance a deeply sacrificial act. Many view offering a quick prayer while stuck in traffic

I once had a professor who informed my class that we ought to think twice about including the belief in the inspiration of the Bible as a core church doctrine when we worked on forming creeds for our latest assignment. At first I thought he was joking, but then when I saw all the enthusiastic nods of students in my class, I realized with unfortunate certainty that not only was he not joking, but many students already agreed with him.[bra_blockquote align=”]A bible without authority proclaims an impotent gospel, mere words without power to make its readers tremble. To take inspiration

2 Timothy 1:7 says, “For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.” This is the key verse from Chad‘s sermon this week the focus of our music set will be on the confidence (strength) we can have in the Lord through the Gospel. I love this verse because it emphasis that our strength is not our own but, it comes from God. With this in mind, I think that we should celebrate that God is on our side and He is offering His power, love, and self-discipline to each of