Posts from 2024

This past August marked twenty years of me serving in pastoral ministry. Over the years, God has taught me many lessons. Here are some of them in no particular order: I have made more mistakes than I can count. The ministry is all of His grace, not my works. It is a miracle that I am still in the ministry. God alone has sustained me. If you do not know that you are called by God, you will never make…

Every four years, we all hear the same familiar refrain, “This is the most important election of our lifetime. If __________ wins, America will become unfixable.” This is propaganda to incite fear. Politicians and their advisors know that fear is one of the strongest emotions and causes people to do things that they otherwise would not do. Unfortunately, countless Christians have fallen into this trap even though a spirit of fear does not come from God (2 Timothy 1:7.) In…

Over the last sixteen years, we have witnessed a miraculous change at Antioch. When I arrived as pastor over sixteen years ago, the church was like virtually every other church in America: we lost 80-90% of our young people to the world by the time they were twenty years old. This continued for several years. However, by the grace of God we have seen that trend completely flip. Currently well over 90% of the young people raised in our church…

October is Pastor Appreciation Month. During October, most churches do something nice for their pastor. As a pastor of a great church, I have been very blessed with creative and meaningful gifts over the years. In fact, much of what I say here, I say because of how meaningful Antioch’s members have been to me. As October approaches, what is it that your pastor truly wants? As a pastor it is really awkward to ask for specific things. I am…

A very close friend of mine is a missionary in a hostile country where they still have the death penalty for converting to Christianity. He and I talk often and encourage one another in the work that we do. A while back, I shared with him my frustrations at the lack of fruit that I was seeing in the church God has graciously allowed me to serve. Today, while walking to work, I was able to share with Him about…