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John 15 talks about connecting to God through abiding and connecting to others through loving, but if we stop right there we have stopped too short.  Jesus said, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit — fruit that will last.” Have you ever wondered what lasting fruit is? We don’t have lasting fruit here on planet earth; all our fruit spoils and rots. But there is a fruit that is everlasting, and Jesus appoints us to go and bear it. There isn’t much in this life that is eternal anyway. We know that God is eternal, we know that His Word is eternal, and we know that God gives our souls eternal life when we believe in Jesus. So this must be what lasting, eternal fruit is all about: connecting the eternal God and the eternal Word of God with the souls of men. Connect with God. Connect with others. Connect others to God.   This has been God’s purpose since the beginning of time. From Genesis to Revelation we see God pursuing his p...

When I first moved to Africa, I wanted to change the world. I thought I knew what missions was about since I had been on nine short term trips which obviously (sarcasm here) must qualify you as somewhat of an expert. Boy was I in for a wake up call. I quickly learned that short-term missions are about short-term projects; long-term missions are about long-term relationships. My plan had been to come and get stuff done, you know, change the world. I didn’t realize that the realest change happens in the long-suffering work of building authentic relationships. Here’s how it happened to me. After the honeymoon phase of living in Africa wore off, I found myself waking up in the mornings and staring at the ceiling, having no earthly idea of what I was supposed to be doing that day. I had no plans. I had no 8:00 to 5:00 job. No supervisor setting expectations for me. I had no hobbies (at least not ones that I could do in West Africa), no friends, no idea how to spend my time. I barely ha...

When Jesus talks about abiding in John 15, what does that actually mean? What does abiding look like, and how do we do it?  One very practical way is spending time with him. Just like we connect to other people by spending time with them, we connect to Christ by spending time with him. Growing up, I heard this referred to as “quiet time” or “devotionals”. In French, the term for this concept is “culte personnel”, which translates personal worship . So we have corporate worship, and we have personal worship. We very much need both.  Generally speaking, most Christians have a pretty good handle on the importance of corporate worship and make an effort to meet with the body of Christ weekly. I wonder though how many Christians see the value of personal worship and make the effort to practice that discipline daily. Because here is the thing: You can’t expect to get all the spiritual nourishment you need out of one hour on Sunday when you need the daily abiding that comes from...

Who can say, “I am completely happy with the pace of my life right now?” Like you are just one hundred percent pleased with how you spend all your time and wouldn’t do a single thing differently? Yeah, notice that I’m not raising my hand on that one either. What I am writing to you about here is not from the voice of an expert, but from the voice of a learner. God is teaching me a lot about rhythms, pace, rest, and abiding...which I want to share with you not as a teacher but as a fellow journeyman on a difficult path. Our culture values connectedness, no doubt. We connect online, we connect on social media, we connect all our devices to one another. We connect at our local gym, book club, coffee shop. We connect our kids to all available extracurriculars. Before you know it, connectedness turns into activity overload, commitment overload, choice overload, debt overload, expectation overload, fatigue overload, hurry overload.  Jesus also has something to say about connectedn...

I want to take you with me to a Saturday morning in West Africa, where the director of the mission hospital and his family opened their home every Saturday morning to the entire team. It was a standing invitation, an open invitation, and for a couple hours every Saturday morning, people gathered around a table. It was several tables, rather, of differing heights and widths all pushed together, stretching from the front door almost all the way to the back. We crowded chairs around those tables, and people with heights and widths as different as the tables we sat around sat together and passed the eggs and the waffles and the mango jam and lemon curd. Not only did we share breakfast, we shared life. And life in West Africa was not easy. The tiresome, endless work at the hospital was not easy. Standing face to face with poverty and suffering and pain was not easy. Dealing with death was not easy. Ministry among people who were lost apart from Christ and didn’t seem to know it or even ...

One cloudy day in my childhood, I sat on the floor of my room in front of the window with my Bible open to John chapter 1. I read that people who believe in Jesus and receive him become children of God, and I understood in a new way why the Word had to become flesh and make his home among us. In my 11-year old heart, I heard the invitation of the Lord to become his child by believing in Jesus, and there on the bedroom carpet, I accepted the invitation. I believed in Christ and received him, and I knew even stronger that He had received me.  I had sat down on that floor dead, and I stood up from it alive.  Just a short time later, I made my commitment public and was born again through baptism on the twenty-third of February.  ~~~~~~~ A young woman moved into the apartment with me in January. This was part of the deal, of course, since I am serving as a resident assistant with an organization that meets “youth in crisis” right where they are, giving them comm...