daddy4ms

Today was a monumental, historic day at Coral Ridge. For many years Coral Ridge had two very distinct worship services–one contemporary and one traditional. The result was the unintentional development of two different churches under one roof. It wasn’t healthy. So back at the end of Spring we started talking about what we could do to unify our one large church. Given our desire to re-plant Coral Ridge around a holistic and comprehensive understanding of the gospel we concluded that we needed to make a change. After all, since the gospel is the good news that God reconciles us not only to himself but also to one another, the church should be breaking down walls, not erecting them. God intends the church to be demonstrating what community looks like when God’s reconciling power is at work. Most churches would agree that any segregation arising from racial or economic bigotry runs contrary to the nature of the gospel and should not be tolerated. But there’s another ...

The righteous who walks in his integrity- blessed are his children after him. -Proverbs 20:7 Could it be that simple? If you want to bless your children be a righteous man that consistently walks with integrity? So says the wisdom of Solomon in the book of Proverbs. What does it mean for the righteous to walk with integrity? A righteous person is by definition someone who walks with integrity. This is an unusual way of living in 21st century America. This week I set down with my daughter to set up an email address for her to use. As we set it up I read a small blurb from the FCC suggesting it was against the law for anyone under the age of 13 to have an email account through webmail providers like gmail, hotmail, yahoo, etc. That was a bit confusing to me because many of my daughters friends already have email accounts and have had them for quite some time. I told my daughter we would just have to wait until she was thirteen. She asked me if that meant all ...

I have had the wonderful privilege of leading a prayer team orientation for two different groups over the last week. The purpose of this orientation has been to equip people to pray for others as part of our Celebration Saturday event (outreach to our community) and as part of our morning worship service. I have truly been blessed during the preparation for these times, but more so during them. We start the orientation with the question: why have a prayer team? I have loved the answers and hearing people's thoughts based on God's Word. It has been exciting to hear why people have felt called to this ministry of prayer. These two parts have been a great testimony of who God is and how He has moved in the individual's life through answered prayer. It has also been great to hear the humility as they share. This is not about "super-Christian status" or I have it all together or I am an expert prayer warrior. Instead, it is "conduction of of extraordinary...

When we gather together for worship, we ought to come reaching up, starved for God, ready to feast together on the good news that, in the person of Jesus Christ, God has descended to us because we could never ascend to him. Feasting on God’s gospel together through prayer and preaching, sacrament and singing, provides us with the faith, hope, and love we need to be good news people in a bad news world. We should not, however, only look back to what Christ has done, we should also look ahead to what Christ will do. We remember the past, but also rehearse the future. For, when Christ comes again, the process of reversing the curse of sin and recreating all things will be complete (1 Cor. 15:51-58). The peace on earth that the angels announced the night Christ was born will become a universal actuality. God’s cosmic rescue mission will be complete. The fraying fabric of our fallen world will be fully and perfectly rewoven. Everything and everyone “in Christ” will live in per...

So, it happened again. I received a speeding ticket in Pittsburg , KS on our way back from Branson . This was only my second ticket in my life. My first happened about 15 years ago in Valley Center. Both times it has been in the city limits. This time, I had taken a different route home from Branson hoping to cut some time and miles. I ended up coming into Pittsburg in the middle of downtown somewhere. Anyway, the speed limit was 20 and I was going 35. Ouch! Why do I share this? First, it is just a reminder that I am human. Second, it reminded me of how we sometimes go through life. Clueless, too fast, or unaware. I was just going through Pittsburg unaware of what the speed limit was. When the police officer stopped me, I did not try to get out of the ticket because I was guilty. I was speeding. I do this in my life often as well. I go through life so fast that I miss out on what is going on around me and even the signs to guide and protect me. Are you missing out on...

For the sake of “relevance” many churches separate the generations for corporate worship. This may do more harm than good. Consider making a way for the generations to worship together. Family ministry is like a snowball. The more you roll with it the bigger it gets. We have found this to be true for our ministry at Kingsland. What began as a strategy to become intentional about helping families is now effecting how we experience corporate worship. You got it… the big room. The infamous, “Big Church.” As a church embracing “milestones” as our discipleship strategy from preschool ministry to adulthood, we value family and we understand the importance of parents in the faith training process. We work hard to help parents become the primary faith influencers of the next generation. We do our best to create environments at church to empower families with their kids and give them a win. About a year ago my wife and I were sitting in worship and we took communion. All ...

A gospel-fueled worship service is a service where God serves the gospel to sinners in need of rescue—and that includes both Christians and non-Christians. Churches for years have struggled over whether their worship services ought to be geared toward Christians (to encourage and strengthen them) or non-Christians (to appeal to and win them). But that debate and the struggle over it are misguided. We’re asking the wrong questions and making the wrong assumptions. Like many others, I once assumed the gospel was simply what non-Christians must believe in order to be saved, but after they believe it, they advance to deeper theological waters. But, as Tim Keller explains it, the gospel isn’t simply the ABCs of Christianity, but the A-through-Z. The gospel doesn’t just ignite the Christian life; it’s the fuel that keeps Christians going and growing every day. Once God rescues sinners, his plan isn’t to steer them beyond the gospel but to move them more deeply into it. After al...

All too common today are polarizing tendencies in worship that fail to reach the whole person. For instance, in some churches, how a Christian thinks is far more important than how a Christian feels. Worship in these churches is primarily geared to informing the mind. But when it comes to feeling God, they remain stoic. These churches turn worship into a classroom for learning. Other churches do well at “feeling” in worship but do “thinking” poorly. In these churches, worship is primarily geared to engaging the emotions—thinking is far less important than feeling. These churches turn worship into a therapist’s couch for emotional highs and healing. Still other churches conclude that neither our thoughts nor our feelings toward God are as important as what we do for God. In these churches, worship is primarily geared to the will—the goal of worship is to get the worshippers to give more, serve more, or take some other action. But notice Isaiah’s varied response to his enc...