I worked in churches and nonprofits for the better part of the past 20 years. Before that, I interned, volunteered, and worked part-time with church youth groups. As a result, I’ve preached a TON of sermons and taught a LOT of lessons. 

Some were excellent- a lot of them were junk...

To understand redemption, we need to understand the first time the word is used in the Bible. You see, later authors actually build on what earlier writers teach us. In other words, to understand the redemption Jesus offers (i.e, 1 Peter 1:18-19, Acts 20:22, etc.), we must understand the concept...

Farmers know all about reaping and sowing. They know that you always eventually reap WHAT you sow (i.e., if you plant corn, you'll reap corn), they know you reap WHERE you sow (in the same field), and they know you reap AFTER you sow... 

Oh, and you always reap MORE than you sow. A few...

Peter tells us that we’re redeemed by the blood of Jesus (1 Peter 1:18-19). Most of us that grew up in the church know that- and believe it. However, we often have a limited view of what Jesus came to do. 

You see, most of us believe that Jesus achieved our redemption on the Cross....

My cousin Jonathan is one of the smartest guys I know. Especially to be so young. Over a decade-and-a-half my junior, my first memory of him comes from my now-deceased grandmother’s house in Tarrant City, a small bedroom community just outside of downtown Birmingham.

One Christmas I...

Paul encouraged us to not stray from the simplicity that is found in Christ. His thought was, well… we tend to make things infinitely more complex. We tend to move towards complex religious systems. 

Jesus, on the other hand, came to make things easy. 

Follow me...

Confession: I’m a busy body… sometimes. No, make that a lot of the time. 

When my spirit is quiet and my soul is at rest and I’m really tapped into to who I am, I’m not. But, most of the time, it’s easy to confuse being busy with being productive....

In the previous episode we nailed down two fundamentals. In this episode we take the discussion further. 

First, we look at what church leaders from a variety of backgrounds have said. Oddly enough, they all use different language (some say “filled,” some say...

In a sitcom that played in the last decade, Bernie Mac's wife, Wanda, wanted a renovation job performed on their house. And she wanted it done “good, fast, and cheap.” That is... 

• She wanted it done with excellence,
• She wanted it done yesterday, and...
• She didn't want to...

Lots of people in church circles disagree over the Holy Spirit- who or what He is / does, and whether or not we have Him / it from the time of conversion or not. 

Some say you have the Holy Spirit, others say you don’t- that there’s more. We have create “classes” and...