Some good reads here, happy clicking

Follow the Money

A few months ago I heard a genuinely shocking statement at a leadership conference for pastors. The individual was saying that he wanted people in his community to think of his church before any others in the local area, and said quite matter-of-factly, “I’m after market share. And I don’t apologise for that.” I have no idea whether anyone else in the room was troubled by it (though I hope so); I certainly was, and it has come back to trouble me on and off ever since. What sort of pastors (or churches) are we, when someone can use the language of market-based competition to describe partnership in the gospel, and think nothing of it?

Is It Sinful to Want to Die?

Is it sinful to desire death as an escape from the pain of this world and as an escape from the pain caused by our own sinfulness?

Three Life Lessons Learned from Elisabeth Elliot

Elisabeth Elliot’s life was one that displayed one of the greatest acts of forgiveness. Two years after her husband was brutally murdered, she went to live with the tribe that had speared her husband.

10 Distinctives of Biblical Counseling

People often ask me how biblical counseling differs from other approaches to soul care.