Today we are at Calvary Baptist Church in Normal, IL, a city in central Illinois on Interstate 55 between Springfield and Chicago. Normal is next to Bloomington, home of Illinois State University. We came at the invitation of Pastor Ralph Wingate, a good friend I met a few years ago. Several times we had lunch in Oak Park w …
We have just posted a new sermon called Trouble in the Church! Here’s an excerpt:Churches sometimes have difficulty getting enough members together to make up a quorum for a business meeting. But there’s one easy way to get far more than a quorum: Announce a moral scandal, a doctrinal controversy or an impending …
This week I received an email from someone I do not know asking for some advice. Recently they left the church they had attended for more than eight years. It wasn’t anything doctrinal and it apparently didn’t have anything to do with worship styles or mode or baptism or a new building program. They left because …
Today I’ve been working on recording the introduction and the closing segments for our brand-new Keep Believing podcast. Even though the total recording time is only 30 seconds for the opening and a little over a minute for the closing, it hasn’t gone as smoothly as you might think.For one thing, I’ve been …
The French edition of The Healing Power of Forgiveness has just been released. It is available fromEditions VidaChemin du Moulin VedelR.N. 113Mas des Rosiers30900 NIMESFrance
Where were you when you heard the news six years ago today? And what do you remember about that day?I was in my basement office at home, preparing for the staff meeting that would start at church at 9 AM. Around 8:30 AM Marlene called to say, “Turn on the TV. A plane has hit the World Trade Center.” I remember watching the …
During the Keep Believing board retreat this weekend, I was asked what books I have been reading lately. That led to a discussion of books in general. When I graduated from seminary in 1978, I had already amassed a nice-sized library of basic reference books—lots of Greek and Hebrew commentaries, heavy tomes on theology a …
Here are two quick updates:1) An Anchor for the Soul has just been published in French by a publisher in Montreal. We received our copy a few days ago. Originally the book was published to coincide with a conference where I’m speaking in Montreal in November but now the book has been released for the general public.2) …
I’m writing this note at the end of a very exciting day at the Keep Believing board retreat in McHenry, Illinois. This morning Peter Faulkner led us in a brain-stretching exercise that started with a discussion of intentionality and ended up with the walls covered with erasable sheets of thin while plastic filled with …
We have just posted a new sermon called Let’s Bring Back the Holy Kiss. Here’s an excerpt:There are still cultures where the holy kiss is practiced today. I’ll never forget my first trip to St. Petersburg, Russia with John and Helen Sergey. When the men of the Temple of the Gospel greeted John, one after a …