“Hi, my name is Mike and I am a Starbucks-aholic.” Yes, I confess, I love Starbucks coffee. I frequent their stores while traveling and when I am home, I grind their coffee fresh every morning. But this post is more than just a commercial or a personal admission of my love for coffee…all coffee. March 30, 2011 Starbucks celebrates its…
The leadership conference in Sydney, Australia, was truly an international student leadership event with leaders representing over 10 nationalities. Their churches are reaching students from numerous ethnic backgrounds with one church alone ministering to 45 people groups of students. I was challenged to see that their student ministries were multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-lingual, but they were drawn together by a…
One afternoon while Betsi and I were in New Zealand we climbed Mt. Manganui located on the coast of the North Island. As she snapped photos of the scenery, I stood looking across the Pacific Ocean deep in thought. My thoughts took me back to my childhood to a specific incident that was totally unrelated but inextricably connected. I could…
As parents each of us faces the challenge of providing spiritual guidance for our children: encouraging the formation of their lives into the image of Christ. We walk the thin line of assisting in the breaking of their will without crushing their spirit. We all enter parenthood with expectations, plans and strategies -- and some of them actually work. Dr.…
This past weekend I attended the First Baptist JAX Pastors' Conference, in FLorida, where I taught a breakout seminar. As I listened to men like Dr. Jerry Vine, Dr. Al Mohler, Dr. Jimmy Scroggins and others preach, I thought of how many people must have invested in their lives. Somebody helped them learn how to preach and someone even allowed…
I am speaking at the Word of Life Snow Camp several times this season and one of my topics is Textual Purity. No I am not talking about the exegeting of the scriptures; I am going to be addressing the use of media in our lives. I am not asking the students to abstain from using social media or smartphones;…
Imagine a world where… …everybody wins …nobody loses …there are no deadlines …you don’t fail…you just don’t finish Perhaps you have seen the commercial of the little league ball players sitting in the dugout reminding each other of the reward awaiting them when they lose the game. There are a plethora of articles referring to Millennials…
This past fall I read The Digital Handshake, Seven Proven Strategies to Grow Your Business Using Social Media by Paul Chaney. Most of you reading this post are in ministry rather than business, but I believe this book can benefit your ministry as it has mine. Ministry is about people, so I am not suggesting you treat students or leaders…
For many years Dr. Lee Roberson, Pastor of Highland Park Baptist Church in Chattanooga, Tennessee had a daily radio broadcast called “Gospel Dynamite.” The theme for the program was based on Romans 1:16, For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first…