He slipped his way into my morning coffee, and accidentally, he said, proceeded to spill onto pages of my morning reading.  Walk.  And now work.

The non-mom-voice keeps taunting me.  He did this when I was single, too.  Idiot.

Why don't you have babies yet? You've been married over a year.
Your clock is ticking. Your womb is wasting away.

At first I tried to ignore it, but somehow that only created deeper and more persistent taunts.

What's wrong with you?  What's wrong with your body?
Everyone else is.  And is wondering why you're not.

Feeling David-sized in my voice, up against a Goliath-sized pack of lies, I decided to attempt a response. 

You are wrong.  Your taunts and arguments are wrong. You clearly do not know my God.

Teary and uncomposed, I continued.

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Most parents have no clue how to disciple their kids. I’m not saying it is their fault; they are as much victims of the crisis of discipleship in the church today as their children.

Here is a good way to figure out if you are measuring up in discipling your son or daughter. Imagine that your child is not your own. Rather, Jesus has introduced them to you with a commission of discipleship. Until he or she turns 18, you will be given 3-5 hours per week to show them the way of the Savior. The sky is the limit, but you only get these 3-5 hours to create a sustainable faith in this kid—to make sure he or she knows Christ in the depths of their soul.

What would you do? How would you do it? Would it be different then what you are doing now?

When we think of a discipler we often conjure up a much different picture than that of a parent. Parents can easily turn to provision and protection and miss the parallel call of discipleship. You can be a fantastic parent and fail as a discipler; non-believers do this all of the time.

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What we do in church services doesn’t matter if it doesn’t change our lives and the lives of others. Biblical illiteracy is on the rise, and will continue to be until we make discipleship part of our life.

Most of us don’t have mentors, and when we do, they aren’t spiritual mentors—they’re business mentors. We rarely think about being discipled in the ways of Christ.

When we think of education, we think of universities and colleges. Biblical education, outside of Christian schools, isn’t even part of our thought process, and that’s a tragedy. We spend thousands of dollars paying for higher education, but how much do we spend on biblical education? When I think of it in those terms, I’m terrified about our future.

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Ernie Becker V has lived five lifetimes in one. Or at least that's the way it seems. Born and raised in Las Vegas as a fifth generation contractor/developer, Ernie followed in the footsteps of his family business and was very good at it. He performed all aspects of construction development, buying and selling real estate, raising money and working closely with financial institutions. Then things started to spiral out of control. As Ernie says, "I tried to find anything I could on the outside to make me feel better on the inside."

Then Ernie discovered Christ, put his addictions down and began to work forward with what Jesus had in store for him. For ten years he became both a student and a teacher of Christians life coaching principles. Three years ago he formed E5 Coaching, LLC, as a way to help people find the life purpose he has found.

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Today, I was reading through The Cost of Discipleship, by Bonhoeffer and came across this quote from Luther:

"Discipleship is not limited to what you can comprehend--it must transcend all comprehension.  Plunge into the deep waters beyond your own comprehension, and I will help you to comprehend even as I do.  Bewilderment is the true comprehension.  Not to know where you are going is the true knowledge.  My comprehension transcends yours.  Thus Abraham went forth from his father and not knowing whether he went..."

This is an enormous encouragement to me today.  As some of you know, my family and I have been on a wild ride, leaving California just over a year ago to go help with a church plant in the foreign land of Idaho, only to return 10 months later.  Still, I do not have a full-time job (as many in our rough economy).  I am blessed to be teaching adjunct at a couple schools, and this helps us stay afloat, but in many ways we have recently felt like we are hanging by a thin thread not knowing where to go or what to do at this point.

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A few weeks ago, I shared on why I'm happy to attend the Origins Conference in Los Angeles. One of the speakers, Eric Bryant, who is the Navigator Pastor at Mosaic Church is launching a new book soon called "Not Like Me." You can pre-order a copy on Amazon, and listen to this video I asked him create just for you! You can see for yourself what to do w/those peeps in our life who just happen to be not like you! :)

Go Eric!

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As I approach my 20th year of ordained ministry, I can say that my biggest mistake has been trying to will transformation in people's lives. At one point, I was so consumed by my own efforts and creative ideas to revitalize a church that I completely omitted God from the process. I was going to do it by the sheer force of my determination and work ethic.

Right. Try that. See how it works for you. I was trying to lead people towards abundant living, but I didn't know it myself. Guess what? I didn't lead them very far or very well.

Psalm 30 became a constant refrain for me as I found my heart crying "out of the depths." I had to address certain habits and ways of thinking in my own life before I was going to lead effectively towards vitality in Christ. 

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If you're climbing a rock face, the thing that spares you from death in the event of a fall is your protection (which is some sort of anchor you put in the rock that will put an end to your falling).  Of course, the higher you climb beyond your last piece of protection, the farther you'll fall if you fail.  This can have the effect of unnerving the climber, which ultimately negates the climber's skills, causing him/her to freeze with fear and eventually fall.

It's terrible irony that the very thing they fear, ends up happening, precisely because they're afraid of it happening.  "Fear" it turns out, is one of the worst enemies, just as Roosevelt, and Joshua, and the angel all said.  It has the power to strip us of our capacities, freezing out the kind of risk necessary someone's going to embody the generous, just, wall breaking, bridge building, life restoring character of Jesus.  Live too carefully, and you'll end up looking religious instead of righteous - painfully boring, and ridden with anxiety.

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I'm getting ready to study the passage for this coming Sunday about the ten virgins, five of whom had oil in their lamps and five who didn't.  On the surface of it, the whole story seems to run contrary to the golden rule. "Do for others what you'd want others to do for you."  If I was out of oil, I'd want you to give me some oil - so if I have oil, and you don't, I need to give you some oil.  That's generosity.  That's charity.  That's the gospel.

Instead, Jesus confounds things for us by having the story unfold in exactly the opposite way.  When the bridegroom came, the five who didn't have enough oil asked for help.  The answer they received was, in essence, "Get your own oil.  If we help you, none of us will have enough.  Better that some of us get into the party (i.e. we who had the good sense to prepare).

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