sex and the glory of god You'll never go down the drain mr rogers bathtub drain you can never go down the drain out of god's will kill your idols part 1 christian cigar smokers is smoking cigars a sin is it a sin to smoke cigars 20 Ways to Smoke Cigars to the Glory of God bible and cigars christians smoking cigars christian stay at home dads what does the bible say about stay at home dads church stay-at-home dads mark driscoll stay at home dads how to apply scripture missional practices

How to Have Sex to the Glory of God Now here's a topic even the attractional churchgoers don't mind getting "missional" about. Our good God has created us sexual beings with sexual drives. Sex is not a result of the fall and sexual desire existed before Adam and Eve sinned, so... ( added 361 days 8 hours ago.)

There is Only One Messiah and America Isn't His Kingdom The Christian Coalition may be on its last leg, the Moral Majority may have been neither, and the conservative culture warriors may be licking their wounds right now, but the Christian culture war is far from dead. Somewhere between the forwarded... ( added 1 year 1 day ago.)

Why I Voted for John McCain My citizenship is in heaven, my allegiance is first and foremost to the kingdom of God, my loyalty is to the Church, and Jesus is king. This is all true today, and it will all be true November 4, 2008 and the day after. But I do engage in the... ( added 1 year 3 days ago.)

You Can Never Go Down the Drain Mister Rogers occasionally sang a song that went "You can never go down, Can never go down, Can never go down the drain" as part of reassuring his young audience they need not fear the bathtub drain. I don't recall ever having that fear as a... ( added 1 year 8 days ago.)

Kill Your Idols, Part 2: Anxiety and "God's Will" What is God's will? Can you make the wrong decision and step out of it? What would you say to someone facing two apparently neutral directions in life who came to you for advice? What would be the signs that one option is really God's will while... ( added 1 year 10 days ago.)

7 Ways to Complete Your Task More Efficiently If you're like me, you're always looking for ways to infuse more efficiency into your daily routines and duties. Don't you wish you had more free time? I've discovered 7 key ways to improve your efficiency in the completion of any project.... ( added 1 year 15 days ago.)

Kill Your Idols, Part 1: Spiritless Spirituality We were made to worship. We can't not worship. Attribute it to that "God-shaped hole" or whatever, but because God made us for relationship with him, and since God designed us to desire connection with something outside of ourselves (ideally... ( added 1 year 17 days ago.)

20 Ways to Smoke Cigars to the Glory of God In 1874, Christian World Magazine reported a curious exchange between itinerant preaches Dwight Pentecost and Charles Spurgeon taking place upon a joint appearance at a worship service. Pentecost included in his sermon an impassioned tale of... ( added 1 year 22 days ago.)

The Sovereignty of God and the Washing of Dishes "We need to accept that God's lordship extends over every area of our lives. This means there is no act so mundane that it lies outside the scope of the gospel." -- Tim Chester and Steve Timmis, Total Church One of the attendant aims of missional... ( added 1 year 24 days ago.)

Writing and Space There's this great episode of the sitcom "Roseanne" in which Roseanne decides to revive the ambitions of her youth to be a great writer. Of course, great writing begins with actually writing something, and Roseanne unfortunately finds her... ( added 1 year 29 days ago.)

Is Being a Stay-at-Home Dad a Sin? (Part 2) In Part 1 , I meant to lay out a basic biblical framework for response to the titular question. I outlined the gists (as I see them) of the main go-to Scriptural texts for the issue: Titus 2:3-5, Proverbs 31, 2 Thessalonians 3:10, and especially 1... ( added 1 year 30 days ago.)

Is Being a Stay-at-Home Dad a Sin? (Part 1) Sometimes it is. Before my wife Becky and I married, we were agreed that day care was not an option for our future children; neither was a nanny or in-home care provided by a third party. I don't believe this decision is easy or preferable for... ( added 1 year 35 days ago.)

Social Justice, False Dichotomies, and the Myth of Conservative Apathy I am tired of the either/or game. This year's presidential election may see the largest divide yet between self-identifying evangelical Christians at the voting booth. In one sense this is a very good thing. The increasing number of erstwhile... ( added 1 year 38 days ago.)

Where Do Ideas Come From? From the Idea Fairy, of course. I have read that "Where do you get your ideas?" is the number one question authors receive. (I cannot vouch for that from experience, since as far as I know, no one has ever asked me.) Answers are as varied... ( added 1 year 43 days ago.)

Five Ways to Feel Scripture Many of us read the Bible, and many of us do not. Many of us go into Bible reading looking for anything but transformation, which is unfortunate, given that transformation is the primary reason the written word of God exists. Devotional... ( added 1 year 45 days ago.)

Grace and "The Little Red Hen" Can I tell you that I hate the folktale of "The Little Red Hen"? I do not like it, for although I know the morals it hopes to teach are good ones (against laziness, for work and cooperation), the climactic delivery actually teaches a very... ( added 1 year 49 days ago.)

Five Missional Practices You Can Do Now The larger the church, the longer it will take and the more complex it will be to transition from an attractional or somewhat insulated congregation into a missional community. The more entrenched in the systems and management of the church... ( added 1 year 51 days ago.)

Obama Wants to Give Your Kids Cancer Got your attention, didn't I? If you think that accusation is bad, I wonder what you think of the e-mails making the rounds among concerned Christian types comparing the Democratic presidential nominee to the Antichrist. Or, rather, the e-mails... ( added 1 year 57 days ago.)

Missional and Attractional, Part 8 We all like shiny things. And we are all highly suggestible. If this were not true, companies would not continue paying millions of dollars year after year to advertise for us. For some, showing a slick new product in an athlete's capable hands is... ( added 1 year 59 days ago.)

Thoughts on the Christian Marketplace I have previously offered a broad semi-defense of the Christian subcultural marketplace . Now I'd like to offer some more targeted thoughts expanding and elaborating on the general ideas expressed there. But let's first establish what exactly... ( added 1 year 64 days ago.)

Missional and Attractional, Part 7 Any consideration of the so-called "attractional church" must consider the recipient of nearly all its energy and resources -- the weekend worship service. In this series I have been highlighting contrasts proposed between the attractional church... ( added 1 year 66 days ago.)

Cultural Engagement and the Christian Market Maybe it's because I'm getting older, but the call for Christian artists to properly "engage the culture" is starting to sound more odd and less informed to me. I include myself in the crowd of those calling for engagement with the culture... ( added 1 year 70 days ago.)

Missional and Attractional, Part 6 The relation of the Church to culture is a huge subject about which I can say nothing that hasn't already been said more exhaustively and more competently elsewhere. ( Christ and Culture by Richard Niebuhr is by now the classic text on the subject... ( added 1 year 72 days ago.)

Dude, Where's My Gospel?: The Good News Imperative My family made the very difficult and emotional decision of breaking fellowship with our last church for several reasons, but the most important one, and the one that would have done it by itself, was the persistent neglect of gospel-centered... ( added 1 year 77 days ago.)

Missional and Attractional, Part 5 Many of us believe the evangelical church in America requires a radical reformation of means and methods, and as more and more churches recalibrate their visions of what it means to be the church, more and more are reevaluating the assumptions and... ( added 1 year 79 days ago.)