Consider this

“God called to him from within the bush, ‘Moses! Moses!’ And Moses said, ‘Here I am.’ ‘Do not come any closer,’ God said. ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground’” (Exodus 3:4b-5). When I was growing up in church, I was taught that there were no “Holy Places”. There was nothing sacred about our church building. It was just a building. What made it sacred were the people that gathered there. There was no holy alter or sacred pulpit. Everything was ordinary and nothing was special in and of itself. Yet, in Exodus 3, Moses, who is literally out in the middle of nowhere in the desert of Midian, stumbles upon “Holy Ground”. He is warned not to take this lightly, because he is in the presence of the living God. What? How did that happen? How did Moses find the one spot, in the entire world, that was “Holy Ground”? Furthermore, why is it located in such a remote spot? Something is wrong here. Well, what if my early instruction was wrong? I mea...

Conventional wisdom says, “Small town churches cannot grow”. Apparently, the people in Gravelbourg, Saskatchewan have not received that memo yet. This past weekend, our family was “traded” to Gravelbourg in a “preacher swap” (I went there for the morning and their minister came here) and it was great! We have some good friends there, so that would have made the trip worthwhile in itself, but I was also encouraged by what I saw there. Not only is the congregation “holding its own” but it is also expanding numerically (several new families) and physically (a large, beautiful addition to their building). Ultimately, all growth comes from the action of God. That was Paul’s point when he talked about the growth of the church in Corinth: “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow” (1 Corinthians 3:6) and I am certain that the Christians in Gravelbourg would say something similar about their growth. However, I as I looked out over the crowd on Sunday mor...

The city of Jerusalem had a problem. Though it had been in ruins for many years, the people had rebuilt the temple and most of the houses. What was still lacking, though, was a wall. And in 446 BC, if you did not have a wall around your city, you were in big trouble. Eight hundred miles away, in the city of Suza, lived a man named Nehemiah. He was a cup bearer to King Artaxerxes, one of the most powerful men in the world. When Nehemiah heard the news about the city of Jerusalem, it saddened him, because that was his ancestral home. Eventually the king notices that Nehemiah is not quite himself and asks, “Why does your face look so sad when you are not ill?” (Nehemiah 2:2). When Nehemiah tells him, the king asks, “What is it that you want?” and that is where this story becomes important to us. Nehemiah’s said, “If it please the king, and if the king thinks well of me, send me to Judah, to the city where my family is buried, so that I can rebuild it” (verse 5). The most import...

Buried deep in the Old Testament, in the middle of an obscure book, in an odd chapter, you will find a comment about an otherwise unknown man. The comment is worth digging for because it contains one of the most impressive compliments that anyone in the word of God ever received. The quote comes from the book of Nehemiah. For fifty-two days, the people of Jerusalem had been focused on rebuilding the wall that protected the city. When that job was complete, Nehemiah appoints two men to govern the city and to watch over its growth. About one of the men he says, “I put in charge… Hananiah… because he was a man of integrity and feared God more than most men do” (Nehemiah 7:2). I think that is impressive for several reasons. The first thing to notice is that, in God’s kingdom, character trumps competence. Nehemiah does not say, “I appointed Hananiah because is the best book-keeper that I know”. Instead he says, “I appointed Hananiah because he is a good and Godly man”. Now I am s...

When you take your old coke bottles to Sarcan, do you know what they become? According to their web site, those bottles can be turned into polyester carpet, fibre fill for winter coats and sleeping bags, green house trays, the plastic scoop that is provided with your laundry detergent, even polyester fleece and t-shirts. A shirt made from a pop bottle sounds sort of far-fetched, but when things are recycled they can be remade into just about whatever the creator wants. Did you know that one of the great promises of the word is that God can and will re-create us? He can change us and make us into what he needs us to be. For example, think about these words that Jesus spoke as he called his first followers: “Come, follow me and I will make you fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19). Notice the “I will make you” part. Notice, too, the new mission that they were given. Those men were fishermen. They had no training or instruction on how to lead, reach or teach others, but that did not matte...