Last Sunday night (July 30), I couldn't wait to get up the next morning. Why? Because I knew I could start going over my first Hell Or High Water sermon, and I knew that I really liked it. The message led to an invitation to say YES to Jesus -- an invitation that we...

Hell. There.  We said it. So … is it a swear word?  A place?  An idea?  A threat? A relic? A metaphor? A destination? And if it is in any sense real, who goes there?  Why do they go there?  And how do we make sure its number never includes any of us? Hell Or High...

We're more than a church "with some LifeGroups." We're less than a church "of LifeGroups"  (a claim I've usually taken as somewhat hyperbolic anyway). I guess you could say we are a church whose culture revolves around LifeGroups. (By the way, the term "LifeGroups,"...

Diana Setter has served on our staff in the Student & Family Ministry Department since 2014.  Her final day on the job was July 31, as she is moving back home to family and community in Wisconsin.  We will miss her greatly.   And, unknown to me, Diana...

As you know if you follow this blog, I spent last week as the guest teacher for the Daily Bible Hour at the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting in Ocean Grove, New Jersey.  This video gives you a sense of that place, its people, its purposes, and its hymnic history:...

Below you will find my sermon from July 23, the final message in the Unhappy Campers series called "Wildwood." Due to Sunday travel, unfamiliarity with a new laptop, and lack of time, I did not post this last week.  So, with Ron Dozier preaching at Good Shepherd...

I spent both Monday and Wednesday afternoons in Ocean Grove, NJ with this group of student ministry interns.   In between their programming, counseling, and shepherding of the teenagers who are part of this Jersey Shore based camp meeting, they gave several hours...

On Tuesday night, I had dinner with David Benjamin, who was my tennis coach at Princeton University from 1980-1984.  Here we are at a local Princeton eatery: As I shared in an earlier post, I am in the Garden State this week preaching and teaching at the Ocean Grove...

GREETINGS FROM ASBURY PARK, NJ (well, close enough) A small handful of you will get the rock reference in the post's title. The rest of you will lament your lack of education. I don't normally post "on location" when I am out of town, but this is too much fun. I am at...

John Piper said it this way: “He (Jesus) said more about money than he did about heaven and hell because where your treasure is there will your heart be also. So why do we have money? Money is God’s idea, what’s it for? Here’s the reason we have money: we have money...