Current Thoughts

About twenty-five years ago I was on staff at Fulkerson Park Baptist Church in Niles, Michigan. Today the church is in very good hands. Their pastor is Brian Hedges. He is a gifted writer and he is dead-on with the gospel. He has written a helpful article on how to present the gospel to children. Everyone with children, or who works with children should consider this article. Brian has three concerns about how to share the gospel with children:

1. That we not replace the true gospel with false or distorted versions
2. That we not confuse the gospel with a child’s response
3. That we not equate a true, inward, spiritual response with an outward physical or emotional response

You can read it here.

I was reading John Piper’s practical book; “When I Don’t Desire God” and I found a humorous reference to coffee. Read on:

“The discipline to rise early is not as difficult as the discipline of going to bed. This did not used to be so. Before electricity and radio and television and the Internet, going to bed soon after dark was not so difficult. There wasn’t much to do. Today the strongest allurements to stay up and be entertained are against us. Therefore, the battle against weariness, which makes us drowsy as soon as we open our Bible in the morning, has to be fought in the evening, not just in the morning. When you have decided when the alarm will call you to prayer, then decide when you must go to bed so that you are not exhausted when the alarm goes off. If you need caffeine to keep you awake in the morning, I will leave that with your conscience. Maybe that’s why God created it. Staying awake to pray is certainly a better use of caffeine than staying awake for almost anything else.” (emphasis mine)