This past Sunday I taught at Community’s Naperville Yellow Box Campus. Our Big Idea was apprenticeship, and I explained the three qualities we can look for when considering someone to be an apprentice. 1) The first quality is SPIRITUAL VELOCITY. To have spiritual velocity doesn’t mean you live a perfect life or have it all…
Along with the book, Finding Your Way Back to God and the corresponding video curriculum available through Multnomah, the creative team at Community Christian Church, led by Eric Bramlett developed an amazing array of free resources available for churches looking to hold a series based on the book. These resources include message manuscripts, a series…
Series Big Idea: TRANSFORM At Community, we just wrapped up a series called TRANSFORM. The last week in this series we focused on what it would look like for God to transform our thoughts, which of course led me to ask this question: Why is it so crucial that I let God transform my thoughts?…
The walk up our stairs toward our bedroom demands that I walk past what seems to be the empty bedroom of my son, Graham, whom we just dropped off to begin his freshmen year at Northwestern University. And each time I walk past, the battle emerges – do I look or not? Looking beyond a…
Series Big Idea: Thy Kingdom Come This weekend at Community we wrapped up our series, THY KINGDOM COME and touched on the topic of “Hunger.” We defined God’s Kingdom this way: “When God gets what God wants.” Now, I know that definition can leave someone thinking, “That makes God sound like some sort of narcissist,…
Yesterday I went to Wrigley Field with my friends, Eric and Jessie, who kindly bought tickets as a gift for my birthday. While we were sitting in the upper deck stands, Tom Ricketts, owner of the Cubs came walking down the concourse. He was dressed in a blue oxford button down and khaki pants. He…
Series Big Idea: Ancient Practices So I’ll admit I am a very late adopter when it comes to fasting. I haven’t experienced it much, and truth is, I get cranky when I don’t eat. However, I have been convicted by how Jesus talked about fasting. He didn’t say, “If you fast . . .” He…
A few days ago Todd Adkins was tweeting excerpts from Dave and my book, Finding Your Way Back to God. He referenced the first of the 5 Awakenings: The Awakening to Longing. Moments later, I received a tweet message from someone asking me if those who “seem to have it all” experience this first awakening…Do…
A while back I had one of those meetings, that in all honesty, I was absolutely dreading. I’d been looking for an opportunity to have this meeting for months – translated — I’ve been doing everything in my power to put it off. The reason I was dreading this meeting was because it had all…
I love the headline that the Daily Herald chose for the print article they published about Dave and my new book. The headline read, “We’re in This Together.” They were referring to the fact that Dave and I started Community over 25 years ago and still lead the church together, but the headline also referred…