More Than Rules

Here is week 5 of our Not a Fan series!


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Practical Atheist

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Over the past few weeks our church has been doing a preaching series called Practical Atheist. This is based on the book The Christian Atheist by Pastor Craig Groeschel. I've been blown away by how God has worked in the hearts of so many people over the past few weeks. Mind you, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Pastor Craig's ministry has had such a huge influence on my personal walk with Jesus so just is just a continuation of that blessing. This week we're probably going to hit the hardest topic for me to preach on, I Believe in God but I Pursue Happiness at All Costs. I'm going to be using Jesus' parable of the sower and look at how our pursuit of happiness causes us to miss out on truly how God wants from our lives. This topic hits me right between the eyes as I'm being open and honest with God about what allow to be entertainment or how I go about trying to be happy. Do I allow myself to be entertained by sin? Do I pursue the world's view
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Revitalized Pastors and Leaders

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On March 15, 2023, the Barna Research Group released the "The Resilient Pastor Initiative". Its goal was to explore and share the state of pastors in America in the post-COVID climate we find ourselves in. According to the data, the state of pastors may not be as good as it appears from behind the pulpit. From 2015 to 2022 Barna notes the following where pastors responded "Excellent" in a number of categories: Spiritual well-being dropped from 37% to 14% Physical well-being fell from 24% to 9% Mental and emotional health plummeted from 39% to 11% The overall quality of life dipped from 42% to 18% The level of respect they felt from the community tanked from 22% to 10% Level of ‘true friends’ dropped by 50% from 34% to 17% The data also showed that this drop in wellness was more prevalent in younger pastors! Older pastors are riding it out to retirement. Now, before anyone from my church begins to panic, I'm OK. As shared in a blog post from January 2023 entitled
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The Worship of our Worship

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  Every once and a while an idea pops into my head that I just can't shake. It keeps me up at night. It consumes my waking hours. It turns around and around in my head. It shows up in my dreams. It starts coming up in more and more conversations. I pray that God would just get rid of this idea because I know a lot of church people are not going to like what I have to say. This doesn't happen to me often. When it does, it's usually because I need to get this out of my head and into the world. Because I always find that I'm never alone. Others have been wrestling with the exact same idea.  I don't put this out to be confrontational or to cause division. I write this as a simple man who loves Jesus, who trusts in the teachings of Scripture, who tries hard to listen to the Holy Spirit for guidance, and who has been pastoring a local church for 14 years. What Started It Recently I heard the current COVID-19 pandemic's impact on the Christian Church compared to the Ba
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