There are three things that must change if the world is to see the true expression of The Body of Christ. These three things cannot be ignored. They cannot merely be adjusted. There must be an all out revolution, a revolt against the things that do not and cannot bring the true. Where these three things are concerned, it cannot be ‘business as usual’.  A revolt is a necessity!

The Church

The hood is up on the c ...

I have always enjoyed the 4^th of July and the celebration that goes along with it here in rural, middle America. I still enjoy watching the fireworks as much as I did when I was a kid. It’s now more about my little eleven year old girl and the grandkids but I still enjoy it nonetheless. Just about everybody in Sayre, Oklahoma shows up at the city park about sundown. Several hundred people of all ages are lighting explosives of all sizes, entirely too close to onlookers. As far as I know there have not been casualties (No serious ones, anyway!). Gotta’ be a miracle!& ...

Do you know who Sam Harris is? If you don’t, chances are that you soon will. Sam Harris, an atheist, has written a couple of books; “The End of Faith”, and his most recent, “Letter to a Christian Nation”. I haven’t read either book, but I have read a dozen or so reviews by authors, professors and several other intellectual types. Harris has taken the position to inform all who would dare to read his work that Christian religion is the main cause of all that is wrong with the world. Both books, and Harris himself, are receiving broad acclaim throughout the non-Christian world. I think it would profit Christians to read his books. I probably will. Not for the education to  decide whether or not to retreat from the true Kingdom to some ...

There is a phrase that has been surfacing in my spirit lately that I believe is from the Lord. The phrase is, “kingdom identity”. As far as I know I haven’t heard this phrase from anyone else although I guess there is the possibility that I may have subconsciously picked it up somewhere. At any rate I believe that it’s a God phrase and I think it means a lot to us. Finding our true identity in life is a major expedition for most of us. We have to struggle through who we think we want to be, who others expect us to be and then hopefully somewhere along the way we evolve into who He says we are. Through that whole process we arrive at different intersections in life and find ourselves to be the product of who we thought we wanted to be, or who others expect us to be only to find that we really don’t like ourselves much and who we have become. To get stalled out in that process could mean missing who we really are, from His ...

The church in America is too churchy! We are so entrenched in our religious mentality and we use so much religious language that the world cannot understand us. It has put us in a place culturally where our influence has been crippled. Some would read this and argue that we are not to be conformed to the world. What I am talking about is not being conformed into the world at all, but thinking and acting in such a way that the world seeks us out and doing what we do in such a way that the world can at least understand what we’re talking about. Jesus was a ‘friend’ to those in the world. Sinners, tax collectors and prostitutes searched until they found Jesus! Not so with the church of today. Many of that company are looking for a way out but they seem to look elsewhere. In most cases the church is not a considered option. The American church is too churchy! We have become irrelevant for our generation. Something has to chan ...

I was extremely grieved when I first heard the news of Ted Haggard’s calamity. He was a very credible and trusted man of God who founded and headed up one of the most influential evangelical churches in America. At first I, flat out, didn’t believe it! My first thought was that this was a vicious and false accusation. My second thought was that if it is true, (and at least some of it has turned out to be) it is more evidence of the calculated conspiracy of the enemy to bring down those that God has elevated to places of influence.

What has happened to Ted Haggard has affected us all. When one member of the body hurts, the whole body hurts with it. Our credibility is again in question just like it was in the days of Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Baker. We all are suspect again. The world is again watching us closer to ...

I’m in Atlanta again with my friend David VanCronkhite who founded and operates an inner city ministry known as Blood n’ Fire, and once more I am reminded of the incredible plight of the poor. The relentless process urban renewal is forcing the Blood n’ Fire ministry to relocate from downtown Atlanta. The condition of the poor is not a priority for the city leaders of Atlanta or for any other city for that matter. And the crusaders who cry out for justice for the poor are few and far between and face an almost impossible, uphill battle. We have all had plenty of bad days, days when things were extremely hard but it is different for the homeless. There is no hope! On top of that there is no hope for ever having hope. The constant reality of not knowing whether or not you are going to eat, or where you will finally lay down at night, magnified by the fact that nobody cares; This is a day in the life of the homeless. The poo ...