What Joseph teaches me about Thanksgiving

Posted on November 24, 2011 Written by Mark McIntyre Leave a Comment

Genesis 41 records the story of how how Joseph responded when he was presented to Pharaoh. Even though Joseph was sold out by his brothers and falsely accused by Potiphar’s wife, even though he spent years in slavery and prison, even though he had good reason to think that God had abandoned him, Joseph wastes […]

Kicked out for our own good

Posted on February 15, 2011 Written by Mark McIntyre 2 Comments

Growing up, when I read in Genesis Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden, I always viewed this as a punitive action. I thought that our first parents were being punished for their sin. This morning, as I read this passage, I noticed that the goal in expelling them from the Garden was to […]

Scary Love

Posted on February 13, 2011 Written by Mark McIntyre Leave a Comment

I recently saw a pair of Tweets by @GAfamily with the hashtags #scary and #love. (For those of you who are not into Twitter, using hashtags is a way of identifying key words so that someone searching on that word will find it) It struck me that these are two words that I would not […]

Do they feel welcome and will they come back?

If people feel welcome in your church, it is more likely that they will return and grow in discipleship. Do they feel welcome and will they come back?

Weary of the pressure to be “Woke”

I get weary of the call to be woke because in the end, it doesn’t matter how woke we are. It doesn’t matter whether we are liked and accepted by the social warriors of the day. It only matters if we fulfill our mission to make disciples.

If it is spoiled, throw it out

This evening I read 1 Kings 9 where God answers Solomon’s prayer of dedication of the Temple. In 1 Kings 9:8 God tells Solomon that the Temple will become a heap of ruins if Israel and her kings go after other gods and serve them. The thought struck me this evening that the Temple, as […]

Prayer – Pitfalls to avoid

In Matthew 6, Jesus gives us two pitfalls to avoid when praying: 1. Don’t pray to impress the people around you. 2. Don’t use meaningless repetition

The Goal of Christian Teaching – Love From a Pure Heart

Confused About the Goal In Matthew 22:37-39 and Mark 12:29-31, Jesus tells us that the two great commands are to love God with our entire being and love our neighbors. The concept is simple but the execution is difficult. Only two commands and if we’re honest, we admit that we cannot keep either one of […]

The call and the gift

I heard a speaker recently talk about ministry as a fusion of calling and gifting. Both the call and the gifting are given by God to those he chooses to minister to his church. And both the calling and the gifting must be operational for ministry to be effective.