What Good Is A Birthday?

Today I began another year on planet earth. I reserve the right to be silent about my age, but I will say that I’ve been a Christian now for 34 years. I believe that birthdays should serve as times of celebration, but they should also cause us to reflect, refocus,…

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Gettin’ In Shape

When I was a young man in my twenties, I decided to take up running. I discovered that I not only loved the sport, but I was a halfway decent runner. I built up my endurance to the point that I averaged about 40-50 miles of running each week. I…

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Follow Me

This evening I’m sitting in a great little espresso bar in Black Mountain, North Carolina called Perks. The next time you’re in town, stop by, give a shoutout to Peter (the owner), and have a coffee or smoothie in a really cool environment surrounded by the Black Mountain Range. While…

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Conditions of Discipleship

This week I am teaching at Ridgecrest National Conference Center as a part of LifeWay’s Discipleship Week. Pictured here is Dennis Rogers, Discipleship & Family Ministries’ Specialist from the Georgia Baptist Convention. This week, in the main discipleship session, we are taking a close look at a newly published LifeWay tool,…

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Food Show Mania

Recently, I’ve developed a casual interest in a variety of television cooking shows. Ironically, I can’t cook much of anything–I specialize in eating. Oh, I can serve a mean peanut butter and jelly sandwich along with a decent pot of coffee, but that’s about it. I’m not sure why I…

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The Power of Sunday School

Robert Raikes is known to be the father of the Sunday School movement. He believed that education was an effective tool to battle moral decline and determined to develop an experimental school to test his theory. Initially, he was legally barred from developing the school until England passed the Enabling…

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Don’t Miss Gary McIntosh

This Thursday, May 22, Dr. Gary McIntosh will be with us at the Kentucky Baptist Convention building. He will talk about assimilation principles taken from his book, Beyond the First Visit, along with other books he has written. Check out the well-written Western Recorder article on this upcoming event. Dr.…

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Great Shrimp & Great Preaching

I’m in Florida for a few days for a series of meetings. Let me begin by saying, yum–yum! Today, I ate fresh Gulf shrimp for lunch then turned around and ate them again for dinner. I love fresh seafood. The little town of Graceville has a family-owned place called Grady’s…

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How To Disciple Students (Podcast)

Recently, I sat down in the studio with Joe Ball, Kentucky Baptist Convention Youth Strategist, to discuss discipleship and assimilation. We focused on those topics especially as they relate to students. You can listen to our conversation on his blog, Despising None. During our conversation about mentoring students, I pointed…

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Spiritual Ruts

Have you ever found yourself in a spiritual rut? Since being a disciple is a lifelong journey, there’s obviously going to be ups and downs. I’ve found that consistently practicing spiritual disciplines helps to reduce the impact of spiritual ruts, but ruts are still going to come. Here’s a great article…

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