Action - The Practical Disciple

How to Escape Spiritual Dry Times [Episode 31]

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27th Mar 2018
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Image from Ozyman

Dry times, times of feeling a loss of God’s presence, are inevitable in the Christian walk. All of the historic saints expressed in their writings periods of longing to hear God’s voice and to feel God’s peace. Spiritual droughts occur for a variety of reasons.

Neglect of the relationship: If you are not investing time in drawing near to God don’t be surprised if God seems hard to find. God hasn’t moved, but your priorities, time, and attention may have pushed a gap into your awareness of God’s presence.
Neglect of duty: I
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Your Privileges And Responsibilities As A Child of God [Episode 29]

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20th Mar 2018
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John F. Kennedy’s children used to play under his desk while he worked in the oval office as President of the United States. Here was a man who was one of the most powerful men in the world and perhaps one of the most highly protected. He was surrounded by secret service and dealing with some of the most demanding problems in the world. And

The Ugly Truth No One Wants to Hear about How to Get People to Church [Episode 27]

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6th Mar 2018
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In a prior church I served, one Valentine’s Day we had 27 children attend a parent’s night out program at our church. That figure is remarkable when you consider a couple of facts. We were a modest sized church with four or five children present on Sunday mornings and maybe eighty to ninety people in attendance on an average Sunday. The vast majority of the children who attended the Valentine event weren’t from our church. So twenty-seven is a rather huge number.

Why so many kids?

Did we pay for a bunch

How to Keep a Sabbath (and Why You Should)

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20th Feb 2018
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A number of years ago I asked a medical doctor, “What is the most common reason people come to see you?” She talked about a variety of health issues and then said something to the effect of, “While those are the things people come to see me, by far the most common problem I see in my office is depression. People come to me for other things, but a huge number of them are suffering from depression. It’s just not the presenting condition that brought them in.”

We proceeded to discuss why so many people were depressed. I proposed that a major contributing factor is

An Intro to Lent and Ways It’s Impacted My Faith [Podcast Episode 22]

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30th Jan 2018
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Whether you are from a tradition that observes Lent I hope you will listen to today’s podcast. In it I give an overview of Lent, but more importantly I talk about how taking 40 days (whether it’s in Lent or not) can formatively change your faith. I’ve personally been adopting a different spiritual discipline during Lent for over ten years and it has been one of the most important times of spiritual growth and renewal each year.

This post isn’t about dropping chocolate for six weeks or only eating fish on Friday. The post is about how select a focus for your faith and a nurturing a significant spiritual habit can transform anyone’s life.

Surrounding Yourself with Objects that Reinforce Your Faith

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9th Jan 2018
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golfball1

I spent a summer doing mission work in Alaska when I was in college. For three months I bounced around the southeast peninsula offering vacation bible school in mostly isolated communities. I visited my church right before I began and my pastor invited me into his study and said, “Here I have something for you.” He extended his hand a dropped into my open palm a small silver pocket cross. sany1354 It was the first time I ever saw one of these. I asked, “Is there some sort of story behind this.”