We’ve all had that moment. A sermon lands a little too close to home. A Bible verse won’t leave us alone. A conversation exposes something we’ve been avoiding. We leave church thinking, “I really need to do something about that.” For a few minutes—or maybe a few days—we feel the weight of it. Then life… Continue reading Conviction Is Not Conversion
I'll keep this short. Yesterday I heard a strong sermon from my friend and fellow pastor, Dennis Nealy. Reflecting on the Apostle Paul's life, Pastor Dennis said something powerful: The more closely we follow Jesus, the more our lives should look like his. There's been something bothering me lately. I love being a pastor. I… Continue reading Has following Jesus really changed you?
There's a preacher joke I love. After a Sunday service, a woman walks up to the pastor with a look of displeasure on her face and says, "You know something, preacher––I really didn't enjoy worship this morning." He looks at her, completely unbothered, and says, "That's okay. We weren't worshipping you anyway." It's funny because… Continue reading We Didn’t Come Here to Worship You
Reading the New Testament is like spinning a diamond. When it talks about the leaders of a local church, it uses three different words interchangeably to describe pastors — sometimes in the same passage, sometimes in the same breath. That might seem like overkill. But it's actually one of the most clarifying things in the… Continue reading Three Words for One Job
Did you notice? Someone in your church this Sunday didn't know how to become a Christian. Maybe they were sitting next to you. Maybe they were watching during worship, locked in during the sermon, but with something slightly off in their expression — like they were tracking but not quite landing. Like they were standing… Continue reading The Parking Lot Test
struggling and striving to follow Jesus
Joshua Wester 