Lasting Foundations

Wresting the Scriptures

I’ve struggled with the notion of an eternal hell. The finality of it troubles me and offends my sensibilities. It horrifies me that the vast majority of the human race is heading straight into unending torment...

Expectations

As I look back, I’m not really sure what I expected to find in Kenya. I know that I didn’t expect to find warm showers and relatively comfortable beds. I didn’t expect to find a Western-style coffee shop with wireless Internet access. I definitely didn’t expect...

They like Jesus, but not the Gospel

I just read the cover story from the July edition of Next Wave, an emergent e-zine that explores the evolving church in the light of the postmodern culture...

The Other side of the Good News

"There’s no shortage of confusion today, inside the visible church as well as out, about how God views sinners; those who continue on in their willful sin, even if they’ve heard...

The Soul-Winner

"I believe that those sermons which are fullest of Christ are the most likely to be blessed to the conversion of the hearers. Let your sermons be full of Christ, from beginning to end crammed full of the gospel...

A Life was Changed

The girl was singing a song. I sat and listened. She had such a joyful countenance. When she finished singing, I asked, “Why are you so joyful?”...

The Weight of Eternity

The other day, Gregg told me of a person he once encountered that said he would keep right on sinning for his entire life and repent just before he died...

Time's Up

I’ve always been a bit of a “Never-do-today-what-you-can-put-off-until-tomorrow” kind of guy. But to every rule there are exceptions.

Tonight, I heard the story of a man named Bernard...

Bernard Died Last Night

On Saturday Bernard’s cousin encouraged him to come to Jesus, but Bernard refused saying that he would become a Christian after next week. Bernard didn’t have a week. He died last night...

This marvelous healing can be yours for the low cost of...

I recently met a very friendly woman named Priscilla. She and her family hosted us in their home during our weekend ministry at Sacho High School. After awhile, our conversation turned to the prosperity gospel...

The Sin of Homosexuality is Different

What makes it so extremely difficult to discuss the issue of practicing homosexuality, which is having sexual relations with another of the same sex outside of marriage, is the huge straw man erected whenever the subject is brought up....

The Rich Man

I met Abbott at the beach. He’s a security guard at one of the resorts.

If you subtract his daily transportation costs, he earns roughly 10 cents an hour...

Introducing our children to God - Part 1

“God made the stars.” This phrase couldn’t have been sweeter to his father’s ears. It was the first sentence our oldest son spoke. We started teaching him before he could even talk that God....

What Did His Death Accomplish?

While I was at the Benny Hinn conference in Kampala I had a number of deeply fascinating conversations. In a previous post, I mentioned one such conversation ...

Stunning

Sometimes I get shocked again by the fact that I am one whom Jesus loves. I hear it all the time, but sometimes there’s that stop-dead-in-my-tracks moment....

How do you know that Jesus is the only way?

I was just about to get into my car after four days of teaching at a private Christian high school when a group of “cool” guys approached me. The lead spokesman for the group raised a question in reference to a story I had told. He said...

Buy the truth, and sell it not

JOHN Bunyan pictures the pilgrims as passing at one time through Vanity Fair, and in Vanity Fair there were to be found all kinds of merchandise...

Grateful

Living in Africa has caused me to be grateful for so many things. In America we have so much, and life is convenient. I am amazed how difficult life is for people here....

A New Kind of Christian

Most of what I’ve written on this blog has surrounded my encounters with the prosperity gospel. Today, I’m going to deviate from that trend and spend some time talking about the emergent church, also known as emergence Christianity...

What is the Gospel?

The unsinkable Paul, in his first letter to the church at Corinth, stated with relish that the Gospel, and only the Gospel, was the power of God unto salvation.

Most of us have heard that the word Gospel means...

Represent!

If you’ve been following the “News” section, then you already know that we spent last week in Mombasa. As with most places in Kenya, hawkers and beggars walk the beach seeking clients and handouts...

Precious Water

Last week we were at a girls boarding school where I saw all of the girls bring their buckets to a central location to be filled with water. A few hours later a water truck came from miles away...

In Jesus' Name

What do the following phrases have in common?

Please.

Abra cadabra.

Bippity-boppity-boo.

If you answered, “They’re all...

Deja Vu

Everywhere we went during our time in Mombasa we came across signs advertising an Empowerment Summit with Bishop David Oyedepo. Big signs, little signs, tall signs, small signs…Dr. Seuss would have been proud...

Only Preach Jesus? Ha, ha...

A few weeks ago I spoke with a girl on a Sunday afternoon and she told me that about forty percent of her church service was about money. She said this was typical...

Street Kids II

I was a little scared, but I had the confidence of doing what I knew was right. It was 4:30 a.m...

Hoodwinking 101

I can now say with complete confidence that the ‘healings’ going on at Toufik Benedictus (Benny) Hinn’s crusades are not genuine. Over the years, both secular and Christian media have investigated Benny Hinn Ministries...

Street Kids - Just Another Day in African Ministry

What do you do? Do you bring him back to a father who beats him because he misses his mother and wants to go back to school? I told him I wouldn't give him any money. I just offered him a ride back home...

In Africa - With Kids

A week before we left for Kenya, Elizabeth and I were in the bathroom at a gas station. An older lady overheard us talking about preparing to leave..

Blessings by Bribery

“Listen to me! Today is the poorest day of the rest of your life!”

Thus Todd Coonts launched into his 2.5-hour discourse on how God wants you to be filthy rich...

I Will Follow Jesus?

“If you lived 2,000 years ago, how many of would have liked to be one of Jesus’ disciples?” I looked over the audience of over a thousand Kenyan teens to see almost...

For richer or poorer...

This past weekend, I attended a Fire Conference with Benny Hinn in Kampala, Uganda. For years, I’ve seen him in the headlines and on TV, but for all of the publicity, I knew very little about what he believed and what he preached...

Has Jesus Changed You?

We stopped at a small convenience store near the center of Machakos, Kenya, and when I stepped off the bus I came face to face with a man on a bike with an intense look in his eye...

The Un-gospel

The greatest threat to new believers is not persecution. Even the baby Christian who has genuinely experienced the rebirth and new life of Christ can stand when...

The Truth is Not the Gospel

The mere preaching of truth, even biblical truth, apart from the gospel will never save a single soul from the clutches of death. What most men and women desperately need, is something that most...

God Speaks

I was thinking about nothing the other day. About how in the beginning there was nothing. And about how the problem with having nothing is...