Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.

2 Timothy 4:2

I am writing this on a Friday with a Sunday sermon not yet delivered. I woke up this morning thinking about my text, about the stories I would tell and the appeals I would make to my congregation. As a pastor, I carry the weekend homily like a crockpot simmers a well-crafted stew. It is a slow cook with the hopes of a Sunday meal that is rich and nourishing. I’m also thinking this morning about three groups of people who will hear and receive the message in completely different ways.

1. The Saints

… to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up …

Ephesians 4:12

I love the phrase “his people.” These are people that already belong to God but they need help, strength, teaching, and lots of encouragement. When I preach, I think about the grandparents who have faithfully followed Christ for 40 years who just need some wind in their sails. I think about the young college student who is trying to be a faithful witness at her school. I think about the saints who need some hope and sometimes, some rebuilding. The saints know they are to be salt and light, ambassadors and witnesses. They feel the deep call to worship God and serve their neighbors, but they need strength for the journey. They need their pastors to think about them when they preach.

2. The Cynics

When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.

Acts 17:32

The crowds of people who heard Paul preach in Athens, Greece were a tough bunch to convince. They had heard the great philosophers of their age discuss the latest trends and fads. They were not moved by emotional diatribes or tirades about morality. Discussion and questions led to more discussions and questions. There are cynics sitting in my congregation every weekend who want me to be passionate, but thoughtful. They want to see proof that my life has been transformed by the messages I bring. They will not accept cheap Twitter slogans or emotional hyperbole. They will listen to me only if I care about their questions. They will not be coerced into an immediate response, but they will return to hear me again, sometimes with an entirely new list of questions.

3. The Prodigals

The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. 24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.

Luke 15:22-24

Is there any better redemption story than this one? The son was a punk, who had really messed up his life. He imagined that dad would be angry and dismissive, but he had no other choice but to come home and risk a shameful reception. Instead, his dad ran toward him, kissed him and welcomed him home. Every weekend, my building is full of prodigals wanting to come home. They want to believe that God will forgive them, receive them in all their messiness and call them sons and daughters. It all sounds too good to be true. But it is true. Every time I preach, on any topic, I think about the prodigals and what they will hear. When it is time, I try to make it easy for them to find their way home.

In Luke 4, after we read of Jesus’s temptations in the wilderness,
we see him returning to Galilee “in the power of the Spirit”
(v. 14). News about him began spreading throughout the countryside.
He began appointing apostles and teaching in synagogues
and ministering to people in need. He went to his hometown of
Nazareth, and on the Sabbath, he spoke those famous words we
looked at earlier from the book of Isaiah about who he was and
why he’d come:
The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the
prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
(vv. 18–19)

And then, with everyone’s eyes “fastened on him” (v. 20),
he rolled up the scroll on which that prophecy was printed and
sat down. After which everyone spoke well of him, saying how
“amazed” (v. 22) they were by his words.

What I want you to catch is that after Jesus made it successfully
through his trials and temptations, he was able to join
his heavenly Father in kingdom-oriented work. The same is true
for us. As we stand firm against the schemes of Satan, choosing
truth instead of fallacy, kindness instead of anger, and forgiveness
instead of revenge, we free ourselves up to move ahead with what
God has called us to do. Not to steal the next chapter’s thunder,
but that mission has a lot to do with love. It’s tough to love people
we can’t find room in our hearts to forgive, after all, which is why
the sequence is what it is.

When we walk around eager to extend forgiveness, we
become the most loving versions of ourselves we’ve ever been.
Why? Because we’ve released the burden of putting people who
hurt us in their places. We’ve turned that burden over to God
and are trusting him to take things from there. We don’t have
to join the Enemy in his mission to divide and destroy our lives,
a mission that’s destined for destruction in the end. We can go
a different way.

If you want to read more, my new book is available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

The most concentrated advice on how to communicate well shows up in Ephesians 4. We are told there to “put off falsehood and speak truthfully . . . for we are all members of one body” (v. 25), and we are also advised “In your anger do not sin” (v. 26). We are told not to “let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen” (v. 29).

We are also instructed not to “grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption” (v. 30). The apostle Paul ends his spiel by packing the biggest punch: “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (vv. 31-32). When we use our words the way God asks us to use them, Paul essentially says, we can speak life and peace and joy. When we don’t use them well, we speak chaos and death, revealing that once again, we’ve jumped the fence.

The funny thing about that Ephesians passage is that any rational person would say, “Yeah, that all sounds good,” even as we fail to implement it in our own lives. What we really mean when we nod our heads in agreement of Paul’s words is, “Yeah! That is exactly how people should talk to me.”

Therein lies the rub: we’re not asked to help keep everyone else within the fences of God’s commands, we’re asked to keep ourselves there—preferably every day. If we do so, we’ll know relational freedom like we’ve never known before; if we don’t, we won’t. It all comes down to what we will do with exhortations like those in Ephesians 4. Will we choose to get rid of bitterness? Will we choose to put away lies? Will we forgive as Jesus has forgiven us? Will we choose to build others up rather than tear them down?

If you want to read more, my new book is available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

One of the great joys I have as pastor is to teach the sacred Scriptures each week to my congregation. I spend hours praying and studying, hoping that the message on Sunday encourages the saints, convinces the cynic and calls the prodigals home. For the past nine years I’ve preached at the 9am service, lingered to pray for people after the service, and then gone to my office to refuel for 20 minutes.  At 11am, I  have preached the message again, followed by an hour or so of praying for individual members and greeting lots of guests. It is a full, but really rewarding day.

This Sunday, I made a necessary change. I will still preach at either the 9am or 11am service, but not to both services. It’s not easy to ask for help, but the elders of our church agree with me that I can’t continue my “normal” routine for two really good reasons.

1. My health needs some attention right now. After three major heart surgeries the past 49 years and two corrective procedures in the past nine months, I need to adjust my pace. I simply do not have the same energy levels as I did ten years ago, and my doctors have told me explicitly to limit my stress. Our bodies require a great deal of adrenaline to preach well and then it needs time to recover. I need to listen to my doctors and my body right now, so I must modify my Sunday schedule. I believe these changes will enable me to actually preach more sermons at New Life, long term. Burnout is simply not an option for me.

2. The church needs to hear many voices, not just mine. I’m still responsible for the pulpit at New Life, but God has given us some really gifted and humble communicators who love our congregations as much as me. They study with me each week and we usually preach from the same text each weekend. They have different perspectives and stories, but they’re solid bible teachers who I trust completely. If I’m not at one of the services, it means I’m preaching at the other.

When I’m absent, Glenn Packiam or Daniel Grothe will primarily teach in my spot. Glenn is the pastor of New Life Downtown and Daniel leads our Friday night congregation and together, we’ll now comprise the senior teaching team.  They will continue to lead those congregations in our city while helping me by teaching more at New Life North. This creates additional opportunities at all our locations for us to hear more often from some trusted guests and the other great teachers on our team.

These small changes will allow me to hang around a lot longer with adequate strength to finish the race. I’ve also adjusted my weekday work calendar, so my primary energies can be spent where most needed. I’ll still lead the staff each week and oversee all the ministries at New Life, including the amazing work happening in our city through the Dream Centers. I’m getting good healthcare and feel really confident that my health is sustainable and will actually improve. Thanks so much for your prayers and kindness. Great days are ahead for the church that we call home.

This is a repost from a blog I wrote a few years ago, but it reminded me why I wrote the book, Speak Life

“The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it, will eat its fruit.”

Proverbs 18:21

It seemed the moment I became a dad, well meaning people warned me of a turbulent time that lay ahead. Pam and I would introduce our wobbly toddlers to people and inevitably they would say something like this, “Enjoy them now, because one day they will be teenagers.” With a plethora of proof, these older adults would raise the flag of impending doom for the seven-year period that was ahead for our two kiddos.

Pam and I never believed them, though. We started telling ourselves that our teenagers were going to be a great joy to us just as they were when we took them home from the hospital after adopting them both. These harbingers of gloom apparently forgot that babies and toddlers were challenging in their own right. Late night feedings, exploding diapers, vomit on carpet, and tantrums at Wal-Mart could not be the best of times, right?

So, we inched toward the ‘terrible teen” years with guarded hope that we were right and the negative parenting prophets were wrong. We were right. Our two teens did not transform into sub-human droids of destruction when they turned 13. Puberty was not the apocalypse, after all.

Now, before you dismiss me as the pastor painting his kids as perfect, allow me to digress. Our kids are normal and they are teenagers, which is indeed, possible. Our kids test the boundaries of our rules, like your kids. Our kids would rather gorge on junk food than healthier options, like your kids. Our kids do not like early morning school routines, like most other kids. Our kids have spiritual questions and even doubts, like most other kids.

Pam and I could write volumes on what we have learned NOT to do as parents, but one thing we have done well is not believe that our teenagers would be problems without solutions. Every stage of parenting is a challenge that requires more prayer than we think, more wisdom than we can muster, and tons of patience. We have leaned into godly mentors as often as possible and we have certainly paid attention to what our kids watch and listen to in the public media.

We have worked diligently at guarding their innocence, guided them toward life -giving relationships and helped them to see the wonder of the local church, not just its brokenness. We have also realized that our kids will have to make their own choices and some of them may not be best. It is not easy to put your kids into situations where their critical thinking is tested. It is much easier to calibrate robots and send them off into an uncertain world with pre-programmed software.

I wish parenting teens was that simple. Instead, it is a lot like skydiving. We have one chance to get it right and we sure hope it works out. What we speak about our kids before ever leaving the tarmac will go a long way, though, in deciding if there is a safe landing in our future. Speak life now over your toddlers, and when they are teens, they may actually give life back to you.

Words are central in the story of God as told to us in the Scriptures. God spoke and the world was created. God spoke to Abraham and he ventured off to a new land, full of faith, hope and fear. God spoke to Moses and he returned to his haunted past and led millions across a parted sea and miles of desert. God spoke and a teenager named David charged across an open field to liberate Israel from an oppressive giant.

I could continue, but it is clear in our Bible stories that God is a speaking God trying to communicate to his people. In turn, we learn how to speak to others. When this goes well, our lives are healed and blessed, but when it goes wrong, we’re pierced and wounded, sometimes irreparably. Words can heal and words can crush. I wrote this book because I want to get this right and having a published book holds me accountable.

If you will take a few hours and journey with me through Speak Life, you will find help in the four conversations we have every day:

1. The conversation between you and God

2. The conversation between you and yourself

3. The conversation between you and our enemy

4. The conversation between you and others

All four of these conversations can be found in Luke 3 and Luke 4. In the book, I explain the barriers we all face in hearing God clearly and regularly. I explain how insidious insecurities cloud our prophetic imaginations and keep us at arm’s length from God’s embrace. You will learn how forgiveness invites God into our lives and how prophecy sounds a lot like love.

Every book is birthed not from a solitary soul, but from a community committed to its message. This work took a community committed to hearing God, and speaking words that heal.

I’m thankful for my wife, Pam, who is my single greatest source of encouragement. You cheer for me even when the crowds are silent.

Thanks to my two teenagers, Abram and Callie. When you call me “dad,” my heart leaps.

I wrote this for my parents, Leland and Pat. You told me I would be okay, and I believed you, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. You spoke life to me, and for that I am grateful.

I wrote this for the great team of leaders at New Life Church. You are a joy to serve alongside and your words to me are life.

Most of all, I am grateful to Jesus, who calls me a son and a friend. Your words have saved me.

In just a few weeks, we will host our annual New Life Leader’s Conference. Our entire team looks forward to this time every year because it is a chance to have conversations and learn from some of the best pastors, leaders and volunteers on the planet. When I attend a gathering of local church practitioners like this one,  I pray for several things to happen for all of us.

1. Fresh perspective

There is nothing like getting away to a new setting to bring new perspectives. We sometimes cannot see the forest for all the congregational trees engulfing us every day. Coming away to a gathering of leaders from diverse backgrounds and experiences can give us a fresh set of eyes. Many times, I have come to these gatherings wrestling with decisions that need to be made and the answer comes from one sentence from a speaker or during a random worship song or sideline conversation. Also, I know I am biased, but there is not a more beautiful spot on our planet than Colorado in late September. Trust me on this one.

2. New friends

Some of my best friends were introduced to me at leader’s conferences. All of us need more friends in the ministry and settings like a conference provide space for conversations and relationships that can last a lifetime. In fact, we are limiting registrations to only 500 to make sure that no one gets lost in the crowd and everyone has a chance to engage in a real learning environment.

3. Personal renewal

Jesus often withdrew to lonely places, away from his primary assignment, to pray, reflect, refuel and to reengage. The same is true with pastors today. We need to retreat, to take off our “pastor” hats and simply become a follower again. Sitting still and listening intently can mean the difference between burnout and finishing strong. Every day, we will take our time in worship and tune into what God is saying to us. We will make sure there is plenty of space for reflection, rest and renewal.

You need to be here, so stop what you are doing and register right now!!

“The Lord watches over the alien and sustains the fatherless and the widow.”

Psalm 146:9

I gathered with hundreds of people to worship and pray on a Wednesday night not long ago. Only a handful of us spoke fluent English and about the same number were legal US citizens. I spoke to them while a young woman stood next to me in the pulpit, interpreting my words into Spanish. Moments earlier, she had led us as we sang “The Revelation Song” in the same language. I was only 20 minutes from my home and my church.

That night, I again realized my city was more diverse than the mostly white, middle-class suburbia where I spend most of my time. That night, in my own city, I suddenly felt like the outsider, invited into a gathering where culture and language divided us. Our only common denominators were the scriptures we studied, the Christ we followed and the communal prayers that echoed upward into the cold night air.

These were not hardened criminals on the run, but families who had worked all day and studied in classrooms since early morning. They were grandparents, high school students, and married couples. I did not hear all their stories that night, but I heard a few. I met men who had built a successful landscaping firm with hundreds of clients and there was a woman who went from cleaning a few homes to running her own business with multiple employees. Her pastor had told her that America rewards honest, hard work. She believed him.

I found new friends that night and a new viewpoint. God knew I needed a new frame of reference in order to get a new perspective on the plight of immigrants in our country. I know many of my friends and those in my congregation will argue that “our laws need to be followed” and “we need those jobs for our own citizens”. I understand the anger and frustration caused by the broken promises from politicians and fanned by the fearmongering from pundits on TV. I just wish you had been with me that night.

Everyone does not fit neatly into my story. There are bad people who have come to our country illegally and have committed atrocities. They need to be deported and sentenced. Those are the few, though, and do not represent the remaining 11-million living here peaceably and quietly.

When I am caught in this tension, I sit still and listen to Jesus speaking to me in the scriptures. I know for certain he loves them as much as me. He wants them to thrive and not be subjected to threats and pain. He has watched them die from dehydration in the deserts. He hears their prayers and knows them by name. He speaks their language and understands their dilemma. He knows they miss their families and they feel unwanted and rejected in the only place they can go for help. Jesus also had to flee his country once and live in a distant Egypt. I am sure he and his teenage parents broke some immigration laws along the way. I am also certain someone in Egypt helped them because no one survives long in a distant land without some new friends.

I wish the immigration system was less expensive and easier to navigate. It is neither. I know this is a political land mine and I’m already bracing myself for the onslaught of comments meant to enlighten and correct me. I confess, I do not have all the answers to a very complicated social crisis, but I was there that night and I worshipped with them. I felt the same Holy Spirit at work that I sense every Sunday with my own congregation. I believe if we would gather with our brothers and sisters, hold hands and pray for one another, we could be a catalyst for hope in each other’s lives. We can help solve this. Jesus will not be offended, I promise.

This is a brief excerpt from my new book, Speak Life, which releases in September. This part of the book tackles the topic of gossip.

Engaging in gossip is not altogether different from my experience of eating too much fried catfish every single time I’m back in Louisiana. If you know anything about catfish, then you know they are disgusting creatures. They’re bottom-feeders that consider algae, insects, and leeches “fine dining.” But if you catch one of those suckers, roll the thing in cornmeal, fry it up in near-rancid oil—without exaggerating, I just can’t get enough.

Comfort food like no other, I tell you. It tastes so good and goes down so easily—but a few hours later, your innards begin to revolt. You search desperately for some way to get the effects out of your system—“Maybe a shower will help. Or a workout?” you think. “Yeah, I’ll sweat it out.”—but you should realize your search is in vain. The toxicity is in your system now, and you’re just going to have to let it run its course.

Why do we do this to ourselves? Why, when we channel surf past TMZ, do we have to flip back just for a second to see what’s being said? Yes, it slides down easily. Right before it makes us sick.

We do this because inside every one of us lives a little bit of Salacious Crumb-like fascination with the perils other people face. Do you remember him, the yellow-eyed monkey-lizard from Return of the Jedi?

Salacious Crumb was the court jester for crime lord Jabba the Hutt and had a maniacal, cackling laugh you don’t soon forget. The terms of Crumb’s employment were straightforward: if the strange beast managed to amuse Jabba at least once daily, then he would be allowed to stay and to eat and drink as much as he wished. If he failed to do so, he would be killed. To accomplish his do-or-die goal, Crumb mocked anyone and everyone—except his boss, of course—doing virtually anything to get a laugh.

The part of him that resides in our sometimes-deceitful hearts is that part that cranes toward salacious crumbs of another’s misfortune or grief. Collectively, our self-esteem is very low, and so when we hear someone quietly say, “You won’t believe what she did . . .” even across a crowded room, we can’t help but inch our way toward the gossipy morsel in the hope of learning something bad about someone else so that we can feel better about ourselves.

And despite our protests to the contrary, Christians can be the worst at this. We nod our heads in agreement that good favor with God is gained not by works of righteousness but by unmerited grace, even as we troll for ways to elevate ourselves by rolling around in the details of someone else’s plight like a dog in the carcass of a dead skunk.

“Well, if he’s struggling with porn, then maybe this lust thing I’m wrestling with isn’t really so bad after all.”

“Wow. She said that? I’m not as horrible a wife as I thought.”

“What? He got picked up on a DUI? I may drink a bottle of wine a night, but I would never, ever get a DUI.”

“I can’t believe it. He was sleeping with her all along. Only a fool gets caught!”

Juicy morsels, swept from the table of despair; but aren’t we all prey to swallowing them, bite after delectable bite?

“You are my beloved,” God says. “You are my prize. I have loved you with an everlasting love. You don’t have to earn it; it’s already yours.” And yet we keep on fighting for ways to prove that we’re not as bad as the next guy, or the next gal.

“No proof necessary whatsoever,” God whispers, even as we turn to a friend and spread the smut.

It happened again today. I was having a normal conversation at Panera Bread with someone I know, and then without any notice, he took a hard left turn, no clutch. Within seconds, he had delved into chatter about a mutual friend of ours. “Hey, did you hear about . . .” was how it began. I felt my head shaking before I had a chance to process the fact that by shaking my head—and, in effect, answering his question—I was encouraging him to go on. I didn’t want him to go on, but before I gathered my wits enough to discourage him, he’d continued.

Before I even realized, the catfish was sliding down again.

Gossip is two things: it is sharing the right information with the wrong person, and it is sharing the wrong information with anyone. As the immediate details this man was sharing flooded my consciousness, I realized I was neither part of our mutual friend’s problem, nor part of his solution.

The information being passed to me had no business being shared. I held up my hand to stop my friend from going on, but it was too late. I already knew our mutual friend’s situation—probably a situation he didn’t want me to know. (If he wanted me to know, he would have told me himself, right?)

I thought back to the night before, when Pam and the kids and I were at our friends’ house. They had just gotten a new puppy. All the kids were jostling the poor pooch around so much that after an hour or so, the over-stimulated dog vomited all over Callie.

Callie came rushing downstairs to the basement where the adults were watching a ballgame, and said, “Dad, the dog just threw up all over me.” She wanted me to help her clean things up, but as I took her in standing there with goo all over her shirt, I thought, “I’m not going to get out of this situation without also getting slimed.”

That’s gossip, in a nutshell: signing up to get totally slimed.