About This Blog

I am a follower of Jesus Christ who has grown up in the Church. I often say that I am a believer in spite of the church, not because of it. Yet, God has used my experience in various churches to spur me on to explore Scripture for understanding of how to be “in the world but not of the world.”

I am a husband, father of 3 girls, a chemical salesman, and part-time home maintenance man. I have had the privilege of having some formal Bible Training at Talbot School of Theology and LeTourneau College (now University).

I am under no delusions that this blog is profound or original. If anything, I offer these posts as food for thought and would appreciate any feed back you might have. I want to engage the world around me and this blog is a small effort to do so. I welcome your comments, positive or negative.

A word of thanks to Nate Davis of Davis Services Group (DSG) for his help in getting this blog up and running. Please click on the link and check out what DSG has to offer. I want to also thank Dan Simrak for his help with formatting and style of the blog. If you are thinking about doing a self-hosted blog, I highly recommend DSG for hosting and development.

If you have any general comments or suggestions about how to improve this blog, please feel free to use the Contact Me page or leave a comment below. I would really appreciate hearing from you.

Soli Deo Gloria,

Mark

The radical call of Jesus

While growing up in the church, I did not grasp the radical nature of Jesus as he encountered the world in which he lived. Jesus defies all of our categories and calls us to something new.

Miles Stanford on Appropriating Blessing

Too often we try to earn God’s blessing when it has already been granted. Miles Stanford warns leaders against laying conditions for blessing on the church.

The Minimalist’s Path to Spirituality

Minimalism is not an encouragement to renounce life as you know it and live out your days as a pauper. It is a call to embrace that which you need to survive comfortably and to release yourself from the rest.

Second place is first winner

In leading the church, we need to understand that second place is first winner when we surrender to Christ and allow him to build his church. We win because Jesus can make something more beautiful than we can even imagine.

Humble and Contrite?

I don’t think that we can place too much stress on Jesus’ statement about the responsibility for building the church. It is his; he claimed the responsibility and the resurrection proved that he has the power to do it. Maybe we should spending more time in prayer asking him how he wants us to participate in that building than we do in building our own strategies.

An unwanted mirror

In Matthew 23:13-33, there are recorded eight woes that Jesus pronounced upon the “scribes and Pharisees.” Jesus is harsh in his criticism as he unloads on his antagonists. The danger is that we can read these woes in a way that is not helpful or appropriate. If we take an us/them approach to these woes, […]

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