I’m glad 2009 is over. It was a very difficult year for me. I won’t go into all the particulars here, but as I look back now, I’d say it was a year of battle. At times during the year I found myself on the front line of an intense spiritual war in my marriage, job, family, finances, and other …

For those of you outside of Northeast Christian, we are now on Day 2 of a food challenge, eating just a small amount of rice and beans for lunch and dinner (and maybe 1 tortilla) and oatmeal for breakfast. We’re doing this as a church as an act of solidarity with those who live in the bottom economic half of …

Question #1: Is your group healthy? A healthy group is a group that will naturally grow, develop, bear fruit, and reproduce. Question #2: How do you know if your group is healthy or not? Last spring I wanted to answer the second question so I could help our groups answer the first one. So I thought and prayed and asked …

The other day I was listening to a sermon by Chip Ingram in which he compared authentic community to an “ecosystem” (a link to the MP3 can be found at the bottom of this blog entry). I like this comparison. For years I’ve taught that authentic Christian community is the “environment” or “culture” where people grow best. I used to …