when christianity affects culture

One of the biggest misunderstandings of Christianity is that it is merely a privately held belief. There is a measure of truth to this as we do “privately” believe – meaning we each individually have to come to terms with our sin, repent, and ask for the forgiveness graciously offered through faith in Christ Jesus. […]

Strange New World

Fresh off the press, Strange New World: How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution, is a profoundly insightful and helpful book. A revised and condensed version of the longer and equally helpful earlier work, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, it is accessible, powerful, and quickly cuts through the […]

Precious remedies against satan’s devices

I’ve said it a lot lately – read the Puritans. Wow. What a wealth of spiritual encouragement and perspective. The latest gem I read was “Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices” by Thomas Brooks, written in 1652. In non-Puritan speak that means “The most common tricks Satans uses to try to trip you up spiritually and […]

the church I see

[A pastor’s response to the vision and fall of Hillsong] Yesterday, Mel and I binged the new Docuseries about Hillsong. (It’s only three episodes so maybe it was more of a “mini-binge.”) It was extremely revealing to see this done from a non-Christian worldview. However, this is how the world sees the church, and it […]

Confronting Christianity

Some books I buy just for the title, and this was one of them. The subtitle is even better “12 Hard Question for the World’s Largest Religion.” We need to be asking the hard questions. We need to be encouraging our people, especially our youth, to ask the hard questions. Why? Because unfortunately so much […]

Pastor Mike’s top books of 2021

Ah yes…books! Some people hate them, some love them. Some have too many, some don’t have enough. Reading is essential for many reasons. On a mental, physical, emotional and intellectual level there are myriads of benefits to daily reading. [Google it! I’m not kidding!] But on a spiritual level, especially as it pertains to growth […]

Why do you believe the Bible is true?

Fair question. A lot of people are asking it these days and let’s face it – there are some really strange things in the Bible! But, to answer the question – I believe the Bible is true because of its external evidence and its internal evidence. Here’s a quick explanation of what that means. First, […]

Are the Gospels Reliable? Conclusion

So here we are. The end of our five part series designed to answer the question “Are the Gospels reliable?” I certainly don’t have all the answers and I certainly can’t cover all the topics in a blog-mini-series. But I hope you think about this differently, I hope there have been just enough thoughts to […]

Are the Gospels Reliable? Part 3 – What About All the Mistakes?

Are we having fun yet? If you are still reading…let me just say “thanks” and I hope you have found some of this helpful. Maybe even some of this can serve to build your faith stronger in the reliability of the gospels! To trace where we have been – we started with an Introduction and […]

Are the Gospels Reliable? Part 2- Wasn’t Stuff Changed?

Welcome back! We are in the midst of a five part blog post series answering the main question “Are the gospels reliable?” After a brief intro where we laid out the issues in play, we jumped into the first question of the feasibility of reliable written manuscripts in a predominantly oral culture. In this post, […]