In the news, I heard a story about a spouse who could not leave the house to plan for her husband’s funeral. There was also a doctor who worked in the same hospital where his father had died. The sad thing was she could not be with him due to mandatory quarantine so he died while …
Cost of following Jesus
In this life, there might be people who sacrificed the possibility of a romantic relationship because that attractive guy or girl demanded too much of their time, money and attention. They were not ready to sacrifice their relationship with God. There might be people who lost jobs and business opportunities for moral reasons. They didn’t …
Religious ‘None’s increasing
Dr. Joel Thiessen (Canada's younger version of Reginald Bibby) has done a Canadian study and found that society increasingly self-identifies as having "No religion". Millennials are raised in a social context without a religion. Some might have gone to Sunday school or received baptism as an infant but end up as a non-attender of church. …
Evangelization of another marginal group–the rich
In a previous post, I blogged about a need for evangelization and missions to the margins. In this post, I will make a case for evangelization to the rich. The left will hate what I have to say here. Missionary families have sacrificed their lives and their comforts of home to live overseas, to adopt …
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My journey to faith
I will share some very personal and intimate spiritual encounters in how I came to faith and into vocational ministry. I did not think I would ever do this so publicly on my blog and I don't know why I'm doing this now... but here it goes. As a teenager, I was raised an evangelical …
The sacrifice of blood, sweat and tears
I'm continuing to blog in the same vein as a previous blog-post on missionaries and evangelization. I admire the missionary friends I know. They have sacrificed a comfortable life here in Canada to better the lives of people outside this country. Why? For the sake of Christ's calling to serve God. Many missionaries have literally …
The Call for a New Evangelization
In the next several posts, I’m going to share a few things I wish the universal/catholic Church could be doing better, or more of. We all like and dislike what some of the Church is doing, and not doing. Most of what the church is doing is good. As the Church triumphant on earth, we’ve …
Welcome to Liberty Culture
Hello. I want to offer an official introduction to my readers after the new look and name change to LibertyCulture.com and re-introduce who I am. Some of you might wonder if this is a brand new blog. It's been around as the NewEpistles blog. Since I haven't been blogging as avidly as I used to …
From Seminary President to NFL Head Coach
This fall, former Reformed Theological Seminary Charlotte campus president Frank Reich began his first season as head coach of the Indianapolis Colts. Here's a challenging question for you. Could this be considered leaving ministry and back-tracking on one's vocational calling? Or is coaching full-time still considered vocational ministry? ... Click here to read full article.
Appreciating missionary work and thankful for missionaries
Do you remember when you spent blood, sweat, and tears into doing something for someone and never had the pleasure of being recognized or appreciated for your efforts? And perhaps not even a "Thank you"? You might have had the thought: "I really don't want to do this for them again!" This is likely how …
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God’s kingdom: Small churches or mega-churches?
In Jesus' days, the religious leaders were consumed with anxiety that Jesus had been gaining too many followers (John 11:45-57). 11:48 - “If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.” 12:19 - “’See, this is …
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Three-point sermons: proper or improper?
When preachers deliver a sermon and boil it down to three points, I sometimes question where they get the three-points from. Sometimes, they draw them from a single passage of Scripture; and sometimes they get them from separate but related pieces of Scriptures. If we try to squeeze three points from a passage it can …
Anatomy of a sick church
Thom Rainer posted on his blog about 10 symptoms of a sick church. Many churches don't realize they're unhealthy or sick until they get to the latter stages of the sickness and near death. Let's hope and pray that these churches would wake up and realize our need for healing and for Jesus to come …
God’s calling is really about God
Many church-going Christians seem disengaged today... disengaged in the sense that we are not living out an engaged relationship with Christ within the church. Most Christians never move from the pew to service; but God calls each Christian to move into some form of service to Christ within, and outside, the church. God gives us …
Helping unwed mothers
The idea of single pregnant teenagers scares many people including Christians. We probably wouldn't know what to do about it if someone in this situation were to come to us, or walk into one of our churches. What would your church do about it? What would most churches do about it? Would you advise such …
