Christward Collective

The Christian life is full of risk taking. Simply being a Christian has often been cause enough for the executioner. But even where the cost comes short of shedding our blood, our lives--lived faithfully--will at some point beg the question, “What is the reason for the hope that you have...

Perhaps now, more than ever, Christians need wisdom to process the multitude of temptations to sexual sin with which they are confronted. While it is true that sexual sin has always been a problem in the church, there should be little doubt that the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the...

“They don’t write songs like that anymore.” It is not uncommon to hear an elderly man or woman utter these words whenever he or she thinks back on the “good ol’ days” of music. In a sense, this phrase is every bit as applicable in the church as it in the secular...

At The Masters last weekend, I thought about a lesson that I learned in watching professional golfers play over the years. A number of years ago, I saw Tiger Woods play the second hole at the Augusta National. The particular hole has a strong dogleg. Tiger had laid a shot up in the woods (no pun...

Reflecting upon twenty years of ministry, the gifted Scottish preacher Andrew Bonar wrote the following in his diary. “It is amazing that the Lord has spared me and used me at all. I have no reason to wonder that He used others far more than He does me. Yet envy is my hurt, and today I have...

The first letter that each my kids learned was the letter “T.” If you know me, you might understand why. Kim and I are graduates of the University of Tennessee and we are big Volunteer fans. We have shirts, hats, and trinkets with big orange “Power T”s on them. We put the...

From the earliest days of the Church, the singing of hymns expressed doctrinal truth. With the ease of memorizing text with music, Christians could carry the truth in their hearts and minds—even if they could not read. St. Ambrose famously taught his parishioners Psalms and hymns in the midst...

In our homeschool, I’ve been going through a cycle of World History with my children. We began with ancient civilizations and have moved slowly through the centuries each year. Most recently, we studied WWII. Each time I read an event in history, one of the kids inevitably mutters, “...

How do church deacons help establish God’s kingdom? Many of us might struggle to answer that question. For a number of reasons, the diaconate is often viewed as a non-spiritual administrative committee. Because deacons oversee church money and property we might mistake them simply for...

The conditional word “if” is full of biblical weightiness. We must never ignore, explain away, or overlook the “ifs” in the Bible. The "if" passages are freighted with importance. Though a small word, it has eternal implications. And the normally nominal Bible-belt...