One of my goals for this year has been to pursue growth in my prayer life. To do so, I have been reading, studying, and most importantly, praying. By God's grace I am seeing growth and have found these three things to be crucial to the consistent increase of fervent prayer.

Preaching is draining work. A faithful Bible preacher labors week after week to carefully and prayerfully craft sermons in a way that are faithful, helpful, and clear.

All the while they see the faces of actual people God has entrusted to their care. They see their victories, their trials, their suffering, and their sin. They hear their fears, doubts, and their prayers. All of this adds to the weight of bringing a word from God that will build them up, encourage them, feed them, and challenge them.

If you have ever wondered why it is so important we fight to reach this new generation of young men with the gospel, here's why...

If you are a preacher, you have done it. You have been right in the middle of preaching your sermon and used that illustration you had a feeling might flop, but decided to take the risk anyway. Then it happens.

It detonates in your face and all you want to do is sit down and let the band come back on and play. Maybe it was unnecessarily offensive, distracting, or not thought through. Maybe it made no sense, confused people, or wound up serving no purpose whatsoever.

I love reading the stories of those God has used throughout history. The diversity of those He uses is staggering. There is no one personality type, ministry philosophy, nor theological tribe God has been limited to. All of this serves to make much of God and breed humility in us.

Outside the Bible, biographies of the people God has used to make a lasting impact tend to be my favorite reading. The stories of Martin Luther, John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, D.L. Moody, C.H. Spurgeon, and A.W. Tozer have all served my soul, my marriage, and my ministry. Besides the amazing nature of these stories, there are three primary reasons I read these great books:

One of the great mistakes a Christian can make in his, or her life is to overcomplicate prayer. Prayer is not complicated. Prayer is difficult for most of us, sure, but it's not complicated. At the root of all our petitioning of God in prayer is really the same prayer:

This past Sunday at Redemption was one of the most stressful and most amazing experiences I've had in 12 years of being involved in church planting to various degrees. When we arrived at 7:30am to begin set-up, we noticed another event also being set-up on the football field of the high school we gather for worship at. One hour later the entire parking lot was full...not just crowded full...like not a single spot available full!

The school had booked this event without informing us and just over an hour before our people were to begin arriving there was literally nowhere for them to park.

"I can't do this anymore..."

"What's the point of this..."

"I think it would be easier to just give up..."

These are the types of thoughts that mark seasons of weariness in our lives. Weariness is the state of physical, emotional, and spiritual depletion. It's a fatigue that extends to every facet of life and remains a reality  all Christians face. The prophet Isaiah meant to make this clear when he pictured the strongest, healthiest, highest capacity person he could and said even they grow weary.

The truth is, apart from God, creation is hard-wired for weariness.

I can't tell you how many Christians have come to Redemption after leaving previous churches because they "just didn't get anything out of the Sunday service." Sometimes this is because they have come from a church that has abandoned the preaching of God's Word, but many times these are people that have come from great churches where the preaching is not the problem. I would argue that a big part of the problem is not our churches, not our preaching, and not the style of music used for worship. I would argue that a big part of the problem is

You just had a guest visit your church and you want to help them get connected, now what?  It's simple: FOLLOW UP! Here's how... 1. Get their information

We've tried this through a handful of means, but here's where we've seen the most success.

Every so often a particular piece of Scripture grabs me and dwells deep within my heart for a long season of time. Right now that text is 2 Corinthians 12:9-10. The Apostle Paul writes,

Do you have a vision for something in your life?  You should. In fact you should have a vision for a number of things -  your spiritual life, your marriage and family, your vocation, and your particular area of ministry gifting. My guess is you do have a vision for a all these things, meaning you have some grasp of where things are currently and a hope for where they will be in the future. You see what is and have a picture of what could be.

I've always been oddly interested in the process various pastors use in preparing to preach. Not just the textual work and crafting of the sermon, but specifically their day of preparation. Personally, I've seen over and over how the quality of my preparation directly impacts the quality of my proclamation. My Sunday morning schedule has changed with our facilities, service times, and other factors, but here's my current Sunday morning process for preparing to preach.

Have you ever tweeted something you ended up regretting? Yeah, me too.

Just this past Wednesday night in a moment of frustration I vented via Twitter. By God's grace, my wife saw it within five minutes and graciously corrected both my attitude and my behavior and I quickly pulled the tweet down.

I recently met with a young seminary student hoping to plant a church and he asked me what I thought the biggest challenges in church planting had been.  I rattled off a few things that came to mind, but after giving it more thought I landed on the five most difficult challenges I've faced over these past three years.

Tami and I have been together for over 10 years now and we've been married for almost seven of those years. Outside my salvation, she is the greatest gift God has given me and by His grace I can say that I love and enjoy her more now than I ever have before. Over these last ten years I've learned many things. One thing in particular never ceases to amaze me, namely that I don't always understand her. She thinks differently than I do, she responds differently than I do, and she feels differently than I do about many things. This is both a blessing and a challenge.

Redemption Bible Church is designed around a straitforward and strategic process meant to move people into what we believe are the essential rhythms of discipleship - Worship. Community. Mission.  For us, this means we have one program assigned to each of these rhythms - Worship Gatherings. Community Groups. Missional Teams. No men's ministry. No women's ministry. No Awana. No singles ministry. No grown men who read comic books living at home into their 40's working at that creepy store in the mall that sells Dungeon and Dragons figurines ministry, either...just in case you were wondering.

While there is no shortage of things, even good things, churches CAN do, there is only a small number of things churches MUST do. We've opted to only do the things we must do. Here are five reasons why.

We've all done it. We've all compared ourselves to someone else at some point in our lives - other Christians, other pastors, other parents, other husbands, other wives, other students, other men, other women...the list goes on and on. We compare ourselves to everyone around morally, spiritually, intellectually, and physically.

Though it's common place in our lives, our constant comparison is killing us. NOTHING good comes from comparing ourselves to anyone else. Think about it...comparison kills you because it inevitably leads to one of two places...

Being a pastor involves a vast number of meetings. Pastoral counseling, church discipline, membership interviews, and meetings with other area pastors all consume a tremendous portion of a pastor's time. In addition to all the meetings already mentioned, the pastoral teams of each local church meet together on a regular basis. Growing up in the Church, I know that not all these meetings are created equal.

At Redemption we celebrate the sacrament of communion nearly every week. We do this because it puts the sacrificial work of Jesus in our place at the very center of every worship gathering. One of the potential dangers for a church that celebrates communion each week is that without great care it can become a religious formality - one of those this we do because "that's what we always do." Regardless of how often we take communion, it ought always to be taken seriously. It's not a game. It is not a sad expression of worship, but a serious one. In 1 Corinthians 11:27 the Apostle Paul warns in writing, "Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord."

So the question is, how can we take this important expression of worship seriously and properly prepare our hearts for it? Here are the four steps I encouraged our church family in yesterday: