
Essential Practices for Personally Making Disciples (Part I) by Paulo Lopes
You and I are called to be personally engaged in making disciples of Jesus Christ.

You and I are called to be personally engaged in making disciples of Jesus Christ.
To follow Jesus up close, rather than at a distance, we must base our lives on the reality of faith rather than the reality of fear.

It’s not a time to micromanage, but it is a time to glance at the big picture and identify potential trouble spots and retrain the growth to expand in the direction you’re aiming for.
The book is called ”The Book of Everyday Prayer,” and it’s for everyone who, like me, needs more than what comes off the top of their head.
If we are to hear the voice of God, and thus have an understanding of what it means to follow Jesus in real time, we must surround ourselves with the language and voice of God.
As we rehearse our vision of faith over and over, keeping it ever before us, it strengthens and sustains us, remaining intact as a source of strength during times of crisis and resistance.

Recovery is characterized by relapse. I wish someone had told me this a long time ago, before I lost patience with people who desperately need my patience. Relapse is what happens when people give up a powerfully magnetic addiction only to find themselves at some point giving into the temptation to try it again. It happens. Relapse doesn’t mean a

God offers Elijah, and us, three specific spiritual resources: visioning, speaking, and acting.
There is so much that we can learn about God, our life, our calling, by looking at the life of Jesus Christ. He can teach us how to love, how to be faithful, how to be holy, how to see to live out the good news of God’s love each day. And today we see something very significant, and very important to Jesus’ life and his

“Move ON!” a little girl voice shouted from the porch. She’d been watching me weed then went inside. During that time, I’d moved down the flowerbed but doubled back, pulling stray weeds I’d missed the first time in the tangle of morning glory vines. When she came out, she saw me bending at roughly the same spot as when she’d

What is our Hamartiology? Bill Arnold’s third question to establish a “world view story” has to do with “What has gone wrong? What is our Hamartiology?” (As a review, Harmartiology means our understanding of sin, or what’s gone wrong). We flow immediately from our “orienting story” in Genesis 1-2 to a “dys-orienting” one in Genesis Chapter 3. Yes, this can be seen

Scripture Focus: It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to the Most High. It is good to proclaim your unfailing love in the morning, your faithfulness in the evening, accompanied by a ten-stringed instrument, a harp, and the melody of a lyre. You thrill me, Lord, with all you have done for me! I sing

What is our cosmology? When my son Joshua was very young and I would put him to bed at night, he would say this, “Daddy, tell me a story. BUT make sure to get me into it.” We are indeed people of story. But first and foremost, we need an orienting story. A compelling story from which to stand and gaze

Many local churches I know have as a part of their mission statement, We need to be deliberate in our churches in “making disciples who will make disciples.” It rolls off our tongues so easily, but is demanding in actualizing. As I insisted in my last article, we must nurture and cherish the bond between word and deed, ideas and

Being retired from Indiana Wesleyan University means I no longer need to prepare 12 lectures a week or to lead faculty meetings or solve student issues as an administrator. Now, I have time to read for leisure. The second-best book that I have read this year was Boys in the Boat. A Riveting Read: Boys in the Boat Boys in

Scripture Focus: Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. Hebrews 10:23-24 (NLT) This month we will focus on the theological virtue of hope. Faith and hope are intimately linked in the

Georgia Harkness was once considered one of our most outstanding theologians. She was certainly a brilliant thinker and spoke prophetically to the church. Here is such a word: “We must rescue evangelism from the red-light district of the ecclesiastical community.” That’s putting it unquestionably straight. Evangelism has been prostituted for money and personal gain. That’s the reason we need to

This is the season in many denominations when changes take place in clergy leadership. I’m in a good bit of conversation with clergy and lay leadership about the nature of ordained ministry. I urge clergy and lay leadership to read and consider chapter 2 of Ezekiel as a part of the experience of “clergy appointment.” A few years ago I

Don’t believe the story. So went the surprising proclamation of DL Moody – Some day you will read in the papers that D.L. Moody of East Northfield, is dead. Don’t you believe a word of it! At that moment I shall be more alive than I am now; I shall have gone up higher, that is all, out of this

It may not be good writing or even good grammar, but I deliberately put a question mark after the title of this article, Falling from Grace? This is a follow-up to my last article where I also put a question mark in the title Once saved always saved? Oh! Both, “falling from grace,” and “once saved always saved,” have to
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