Author Archives: joelkime

“Effective discipleship builds the church, not the other way around. We need to understand the church as the EFFECT of discipleship and not the CAUSE. If you set out to build the church, there is no guarantee you will make disciples. It is far more likely that you will creat consumers who depend on theContinue reading “Church as CAUSE or EFFECT? What do you think?”

Is it possible that detours are actually good things?  Do any of you actually look forward to detours?  Does anyone have a great story about a detour  that surprised you by being wonderful?

As you may have already heard, we are taking the month of September to prepare ourselves spiritually for The Church Has Left The Building on October 7th.  So we’re pausing our Minor Prophets sermon series, and we’re learning from some events in the life of Jesus, primarily in the Gospel of Luke. First and foremostContinue reading “Are we allowed to not have a worship service on Sunday and instead worship by serving the community?”

There are loads of laws in the Old Testament.  Some of them are really bizarre, and for the most part Christians don’t follow them.  We like the 10 Commandments though.  So we say “Jesus came to fulfill the Law” and happily decide we don’t have to obey the weird commands like not eating shellfish, notContinue reading “Do Christians really have to follow all those weird Old Testament laws?”

How did you react when you heard about Harold Camping’s prophecy that the end of the world was going to be on a specific date last year?  There were loads of interesting responses.  Some people cashed in their life savings and signed up to travel cross-country telling people to beware.  Some people ignored it completely. Continue reading “The end is near!”

If God asked you to start dating and marry someone who, guaranteed, would commit adultery, would you do it? Maybe the better question is why would God ask that? Read Hosea and then let’s discuss this further.  What happens when we read Hosea’s story is that we put ourselves in Hosea’s shoes.  We feel hisContinue reading “Committing adultery against God”

Does God feel distant? Have you wondered if he has abandoned you? Or maybe you’ve abandoned him? It’s a common experience, that inward fear that you and God aren’t doing so well. Why does this happen? Why do we allow ourselves to get to that point? As we prepare to start a new series thisContinue reading “Does God feel distant?”

Is there something that you are waiting for?  What is it, and how long have you been waiting? Are you going through something difficult that doesn’t seem to end? I was in seminary for 8 years, and that seemed like a long time.  For the first 4-5 years it seemed like there was no endContinue reading “How long have you been waiting?”

So to continue where we left off, you are rich, and you are not paying your workers fair wages!  Yes, you. Take a look at the tag on the shirt you are wearing right now.  Where was it made?  What is the name of the person who made it?  Chances are they were not paidContinue reading “Paying our workers”

Thanks to my friend Rich Peachey, here’s a strikingly visual way to see how rich you are.  Check out the Global Rich List!  All you do is key in your income, and click “show me the money”, and the site quickly shows you where you rank.