Pastoral Ministry
A Model for Church Leadership Development
It’s a powerful thing when God’s people see their leaders growing—and it’s good for the church! This is the dynamic behind Paul’s command in 1 Timothy 4:15: “Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress.” At Camelback Bible Church, we are committed to leadership development as a church, and…
Read MoreFingerprints of God: Lessons from the Book of Esther
Last year, I had the privilege of preaching through the book of Esther at Roosevelt Community Church. The sermon series was such a reminder of God’s sovereign hand at work behind the scenes and his providential care for his people living in exile. The tagline that we said repeatedly to sum up this great book…
Read MoreThe Golden Age of the Church
As Westerners in the year 2022, we perhaps live in a golden age of studying church history. It seems every few weeks one publisher or another releases a new translation, reprint, or edition of a classic work. It is hard to imagine a time in the past when Christians had more access to the godly,…
Read MoreThree Reasons We Should Sing Sound Theology
I still remember (with terror) the first time I led worship anywhere. I was 19 and I had just moved across the country to do an internship at a church. We were headed to a nearby college campus to do a student’s meeting when suddenly the worship leader for the meeting said he couldn’t make…
Read MorePastoring in a Post-Roe World
On June 24, 2022, the US Supreme Court—by overturning Roe v. Wade—righted a wrong that has had decades of tragic consequences, leading to the loss of millions of lives. Despite the temptation to ease up and take a victory lap, the fight to ensure unborn children have the right to live is, in many ways,…
Read MoreWhy Your Student Ministry Needs Theology Proper and Church History
If you take a look around most student ministry series, conferences, and curriculum you’ll see one word that consistently pops off the page—“apologetics.” The teen years are full of questions, debates, and crises of faith. So naturally the defense of the faith is a common subject. Apologetics are good and important; this is not meant…
Read MoreWhat Do Mormons Really Believe?
The term Mormonism denotes a religious group currently headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, who call themselves the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But since the foundation of Mormonism, there have been at least 400 splinter groups of the LDS church that began with the founder, Joseph Smith. Mormons believe that God, through…
Read MoreThe Hungry Pastor
Every few years, my wife and I go on a diet. Neither of us particularly enjoys dieting, but we do it for our health and because the discipline required for a diet usually bleeds over into other areas of our lives. The most frustrating part of a diet is not necessarily what you eat while…
Read MoreDoes Every Christian Persevere in the Marathon of Faith?
If you’ve been paying attention to Christian celebrity culture in the last five years or so, you can probably think of an example of a deconstruction or deconversion story—the story of a person who although they once professed to trust Jesus for salvation, and perhaps even seemed to be bearing some fruit, now claims they…
Read MoreWhat Is Death?
Do you remember how you learned the Alphabet? A, B, C, D… and so on, right? At some point, you probably had a nice picture book to help you out: “A” is for apple you dutifully learned. “B” is for ball. “C” is for cat. The acrostic wasn’t always so cute. In seventeenth-century New England,…
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