Me, Enneagram, And A Three

A lot of you know that the Enneagram personality inventory has become quite a phenomenon in recent years, especially among emerging generations. So, after having people tell me that I'm a "Five" or a "One" over the last several months, I decided to take the plunge and...

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The Connecting Power Of Shared Confession(s)

Several years ago, I attended a worship event where I was surrounded by an eclectic group of 20s and 30s. On several occasions that evening, the primary speaker referred to "our Savior." It's not a novel description of Jesus to be sure, but it nevertheless impacted me...

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From The Tomb To The Womb

Yesterday, I met with a man from Good Shepherd in advance of his baptism we will celebrate on Easter Sunday. And as part of his preparation, we looked at Romans 6:3-5:   3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his...

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Top Five Tuesday — Top Five Tensions In Ministry

Andy Stanley has spoken helpfully about the distinction in church life between tensions to be managed and problems to be solved.   In other words, there are certain dilemmas that pastors and church leaders will simply need to learn to live with because they...

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Inclusio, Bookends, Romans

One of my favorite laws of literary structure is inclusio. The less technical term is bookends. Whatever you call it, it's when a section of literature (biblical or otherwise) begins and ends with the same phrase or idea. Any author who employs inclusio wants to make...

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The Bible As An Adventure

Every once in awhile, I get a fresh reminder of how the division of the bible into chapters and verses can actually get in the way of our encounter with Scripture. Case in point: some time ago, as part of preparation for a Life Group Bible Study I lead, I read Acts...

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