Matt and Nancy Heerema

Noel has created a helpful flowchart for dealing with someone who has sinned against you. I was expecting this to be humorous at first, but it ended up being very helpful. Check out his post and download the flowchart.

Some notes from Ed Stetzer’s talk at Catalyst. Worth a read.

Ed Stetzer Shares 7 Big Church Planting Mistakes

As a teaser, here are the 7 mistakes: check the article for the explanations.

1. Forgetting the mission.
2. Being married to a model (way of doing things).
3. Not taking care of yourself. (physically, spiritually, taking care of family)
4. Arrogance.
5. Not taking believers deeper.
6. Ignoring hidden agendas.
7. Afraid of finances.

Excellent post over at The Gospel Coalition blog about evangelism.

The Gun-Belt Gospel at The Gospel Coalition Blog

Three quick bullets (pardon the pun) from the article:

1. The lost are not targets of opportunity. They are not prospects. An encounter with them is not an argument to be won.

2. Converts are not the goal. Disciples are. Any method of evangelism that ends with the ‘Believer’s Prayer’ or a quick dunk in the baptismal pool but fails to produce disciples fails to be evangelism.

3. Evangelism is not about the evangelist. Evangelism isn’t about the potential convert. Evangelism is about the glory of God, spreading his renown, and adding to the chorus of those who will praise him forever.

CJ Mahaney interviews David Powlison about this quote from his book:

Don’t ever degenerate into giving advice unconnected to the good news of Jesus crucified, alive, present, at work, and returning.

—Seeing with New Eyes (P&R, 2003), p. 43.

A quick 4 minute interview well worth your time.

Most of you know Josh Harris as the “I Kissed Dating Goodbye” guy. I have gotten to know him as a great preacher of God’s word. He blogs regularly and is even my Facebook buddy (though I’m really just more of a fanboy…).

A recent post of his caught my eye: What I’ve Learned Since I Kissed Dating Goodbye (Josh Harris)

“I still stand by the message of that book that premature, short-term romantic attachments can be a big distraction from serving God—especially for teenagers. But in the years since I’ve also seen that a legalistic application of these ideas can be unhelpful, too. One of my main concerns in my church or any other church is that there be no disunity among Christians over issues of dating and courtship. We need to learn to hold our own convictions on this matter with charity. Most importantly we need to make sure that our convictions are shaped by scripture—not culture, church culture or my books.”