Open but Cautious? Or Cautious and Closed?

Two trustworthy pastor friends recently told me they had seen God healing in response to their prayers and against their expectations. One is a charismatic, one isn't. The non-charismatic said a fascinating thing. I don't think this is proveable either way, but it is interesting: "I wonder if we are seeing more of God healing at the moment because we are moving from a modernist phase in Western culture towards a more pagan phase. Might it be that in a Modernist phase a healing will be ridiculed and explained away, and therefore not act as a sign of the gospel, but that in a more pagan phase a healing may work more powerfully to the surrounding culture as a sign of the gospel?"
Read more

Leadership Succession

The development of godly leadership is the single greatest question facing us over the next generation. Your church you can put money, manpower and resources into a host of other important things, but if in 20 years time you have no leaders, all those other ministries will eventually die. Not to take decisions right now to develop leaders in your church is a fatal false economy. We need to start lighting leadership fires in as many people as we possibly can.
Read more

Piper Worship?

I think the best thing about John Piper's teaching (other than it introduced me a few years back to Jonathan Edwards) is not that I learn a great deal about God from it (although I do), but it makes me want to spend my life for God's glory among the nations, and it makes me want to be able to put Jesus Christ before people's eyes in more clear and powerful ways than I am currently capable of. The value of great teachers is seen by the next generation whom they train and help, even more than it is seen in the content of the teaching itself.
Read more