Thought For the Week

Dear Friends, Today's "thought" has to do with pornography. The sad statistics are that porn is one of the biggest industries in the world, bringing in more revenue annually than the NFL, NBA and MLB combined. It's a major problem both inside and outside the Church. According to statistics, 68% of men in the church, over 50% of pastors, and 33% of women confessed to struggling with porn (a little less than the non-churched, but not by much). Pornography increases the infidelity rate by 300%, obsessive interest in it is a factor in 56% of American divorces, and 70% of pastor's polled said it adversely affected their church. Yet, given the number of people who say they struggle with it (and that's only based on those who actually admit it) only 7% of churches say they have a ministry to help people break free from it. Today's blog entry is by Tim Challies. It is written to help Christians see that looking at porn (if they have convinced themselves ot...

Dear Friends, Today's "thought" is one man's reflection on the topic of grace. And not just grace, but things we should do to make ourselves more aware of all the ways we have been the recipients of it. It comes to you from Barnabas Piper (who lives in the Nashville area with his wife and two daughters, and works as the brand manager for Ministry Grid. You can follow Barnabas on Twitter @BarnabasPiper ). His words are simply a reminder that we should never let grace stop amazing us. Never let grace become too commonplace. Never allow ourselves to stop being awed by it or grateful for it. In fact, he offers ways we can train ourselves to recognize it, so as to make use we never stop being overwhelmed by the fact that we receive it. Enjoy. Over-the-Top Grace  God is over the top. Really. He goes too far, in every direction, including dimensions we can’t even fathom. His grace is just too much. By definition...

Dear Friends, Today's "thought" deals with something many of us find hard to do -- be content to live in the present moment! Those who are more spontaneous in nature are surely better at this, but long-term planners will surely struggle big-time. I once had a professor who encouraged us (as seminarians) to have a five, ten, and fifteen year plan (or strategy) for the ministry. One that included all the steps detailing how we would get there. Since I'm one of those people who tends to be more spontaneous, and enjoys 'living in the present' more than having my whole life planned out ahead of time, a fifteen year plan would be far more difficult for me to do. Plus, there's something inside me that says, "If we have a detailed 15 year plan laid out ahead of time, doesn't that take all the adventure (fun/mystery?) out of life?" And doesn't it risk violating a few verses of Scripture? (Like Prov. 16:9, Matthew 6:25-34, James 4:13-17 an...