In fact, I’m starting to think that if our only motives for moving toward the mess are that we feel we should go or ought to go, maybe it would be better if we didn’t go at all. I believe Jesus alluded to this when he said it is better to be cold than lukewarm.

“Should” places you in the driver’s seat and makes your sense of obligation the ultimate source of authority. Once you’ve met the requirement of what you feel you should do, you are released from any further commitment. “Ought” turns your attention inward to what you feel about things. Once you’ve satisfied your sense of what you ought to do, you’r

Discussion Questions 1. Do you sense that boredom is prevalent in your church? Why or why not? 2. Has spiritual boredom been a struggle for you? If not, how have you avoided it? If so, why do you think that’s the case? 3. Why do you think boredom was not a problem for the Christians we read about in the New Testament? 4. The author suggests that bo

I know what you might be thinking: What about that reference to the cross? How is that taking good care of myself? I don’t believe the point of the metaphor has to do with physical suffering; it has to do with the fact that consistently letting God be in control of our lives is hard and often painful. We will be religious. We will go to church. We

One last thing about being a change agent: We are only the agents of change. It is God who does the changing. We are just the people through whom he moves. Apparently, he’s not picky about whom he chooses. One time he used a prostitute named Rahab. Another time he used a murderer and adulterer named David. One time he actually used a donkey (see Nu

While Young Life has a proven methodology for reaching unchurched kids with the gospel and helping them grow in their faith, it’s important to note that its foundation is built on contact work. One of Young Life’s websites describes contact work this way: Because kids don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care, Young Life leader

We don’t really have an equivalent category for Pharisees in twenty-first-century Western culture. The best way to think about them is as if they were half archbishop and half US senator. In other words, they were very powerful people in both the political and religious worlds.

Watch for these signs: Bad attitude. This is self-explanatory. Unfulfilled. Serving ceases to be satisfying. Reactionary rather than proactive. You sit around waiting to be told what to do. Noncommunicative. You stop returning people’s emails. Overly stressed. It’s the feeling that you’re carrying the world on your shoulders. Unmotivated. It’s not

For those of you who might prefer something other than the dice method, we can talk about the age-old principle called “follow the energy.” This is based on the idea that God sometimes directs us through our desires. It suggests that if he wants you to get involved with special-needs kids, he will get you excited about special-needs kids.