In our teaching series at CrossHope Chapel we are in 2 Thessalonians 2 which seems timely when placed as the backdrop to President Trump’s current trip to the Middle East. President Trump has traveled to Muslim Saudis Arabia, then to Jewish Israel, on to the Catholic Vatican, and then to a world leader economic gathering. Maybe its just me, but the very optics of these stops remind me of end time prophecies dealing with the beasts … Continue reading →
I am an advocate of doing church simply and a believer in the God ordained pastoral calling. However, I realize that there are voices in organic, simple, house church movements who reject the roles or at least the position of a “pastor” as belonging to institutional church. (I spoke to my concern of pastoral clergy criticism in my blog post “Critics of Doing Church.”) Here, I simply want to layout some biblical considerations when it comes to … Continue reading →
Several years ago I left traditional institutional denominational church pastoral ministry and received a lot of criticism from my colleagues on planting a house/organic church fellowship. Criticism from my fellow traditional ministers didn’t surprise me as much as the criticism I received from other organic church advocates, including random unexpected emails and even letters chastising me and trying to correct me, for not doing church according their understanding of how house/organic church should be done. … Continue reading →
Somewhere along the line of my journey with CrossHope Chapel, it occurred to me that my calling in this mission was one of an “organic pastor” in philosophy, approach, and ministry. I want to give you a definition for the term “organic pastor” which is a term that I like to use when talking about those called of God to pastoral ministry through an organic development of church planting. Partly, I am sharing this definition because … Continue reading →
Yesterday, May 23, 2017 would have been my birth mother’s 79th birthday, had she not died in 1990. I was thinking earlier today that when I get to heaven I will have two mothers – the mother that adopted me and the mother that birthed me. Interestingly, the mom who raised me is named Irene and the mom who birthed me has the middle name of Irene. The mom who raised me had a brain tumor removed … Continue reading →
I have been out of the Seventh-day Adventist church almost as long as I was in the Seventh-day Adventist church. Since I have been among and ministering within non-Adventist churches, I have observed some things that I have always thought would be worth sharing with my Adventist friends. These are observations that I wish were shared with me when I was a SDA pastor. Where these observations come from.. Immediately after leaving the SDA church I became … Continue reading →
I finally got my baby feet. What I mean is, I just received the card stock paper where the nurses at St. John’s Hospital in Fargo, North Dakota inked my feet, shortly after being born on October 1, 1962 and made an impression of my baby feet with ink. As I looked at the paper with the impression of my new born feet, the thought occurred to me that after 52 years, I now posses something … Continue reading →
I am an adoptee, and you can read my personal testimony to learn how that impacted my conversion and sustaining faith in Jesus Christ and His word. Here I wish to share 3 Scripture verses that I believe speak to the real significance of every individual who may be wrestling with their identity because of being an adopted child. Jeremiah 29:11-14 (NIV) “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord , … Continue reading →
Today at CrossHope Chapel we took a cross-reference jump from 2 Thessalonians 2:5 to 2 Timothy 3:1-5 and read this: “But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the … Continue reading →
Here is a 15-point sequence of events for the pre-tribulation rapture… The Lord Jesus Himself descends from His Father’s House where He has been preparing a place for His bride, the church. John 14:1-3 • 1 Thessalonians 4:16 He will come to receive us to Himself. John 14:1-3 He will resurrect those who have died – those who have fallen asleep and whom we will not precede. 1 Thessalonians 4:14-15 He will shout as He descends with … Continue reading →
As we get into 2 Thessalonians 2 in our teaching series at CrossHope Chapel, we’ll see that Paul is trying to explain to the believers there that they have not missed the rapture and they are not now in “the day of the Lord” (2 Thessalonians 2:2 ESV). These next weeks as we look at 2 Thessalonians 2 and 3 we will look at the reasons Paul mentions to assure the Thessalonians that they are … Continue reading →
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