One of the easiest mistakes in the Christian life is believing that because we have done something before, we can do it again by our own power. We think that we can breeze through life without God.

We have experience. We have knowledge. We have a plan. We know the routine. And then we move forward in our own strength.

Prayerful dependence is the continual recognition that we need God today just as much as we needed Him yesterday. It is admitting that our wisdom is limited, our strength is insufficient, and our plans are imperfect.

Prayer is not something we do when we run out of options. Prayer is how believers acknowledge that God is the source of every good thing in their life and work. It is a declaration that we trust him more than we trust ourselves.

The temptation is to depend on our abilities while asking God to bless them. As believers, we are called to seek His direction, rely on His strength, and trust His timing. We lean not on our own power, talent, or experience.

Today, before you rush into your responsibilities, spend a few moments in prayer. Dependence on God is not weakness. It is the pathway to strength.

Every community of believers creates a culture when they are together. Some Churches are small, and you feel like you are in someone’s home and with family. Others are large, with an emphasis on high-quality production. In some Churches, the staff does all the pastoral work, and the people do little as volunteers. Others are driven primarily by volunteers and have very few staff.

There is no right or wrong way to do Church, and each community is free to create its own culture.

At the Church I lead, I am working continually to build a community that seeks to reach unbelievers with the message of Jesus. The goal is to create a safe place for people with little to no religious background to come. I strive to welcome people who have not been in Church for a decade or more. I desire to see people come to know Jesus for the first time or for the first time in a long time.

Building that kind of culture requires many small, intentional decisions. It means greeters who are genuinely warm and a welcome team that goes out of its way to make people feel seen. It means background checks on workers, so every family feels safe. It means explaining things from the stage that regular churchgoers take for granted, because there’s always someone in the room hearing it for the first time. It means sermons that don’t assume Biblical fluency. And it means covering all of it in prayer, trusting the Holy Spirit to do what only He can do.

At the core, our culture is driven by one desire: to see lost people become found. Prodigals coming home. Sinners saved. People who feel far from God experiencing grace up close.

I haven’t arrived. But that’s what I’m building toward. A place where everyone is welcome, and Jesus is exalted. If that sounds like your kind of Church, we’d love to have you.

Encouragement means giving someone a boost of courage when they’re feeling weak or unsupported. It lifts another person and gives them the confidence they need to press forward and finish what they started.

Discouragement, on the other hand, strips people of that desire. It drains their motivation and leaves them feeling like there’s no point in going on.

So when someone is discouraged, what they need most is someone who will come alongside them and remind them to keep going.

That can look like a phone call, a letter, an email, a text, a visit, a kind word, or even a simple prayer. You have the ability to help someone make it through their day, and maybe even through one of the hardest seasons of their life. When you go out of your way to encourage someone, you may never fully see the impact, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

You carry more power in this world than you realize. Use it for good. “Therefore, encourage one another and build each other up.” (1 Thessalonians 5:11)

Our Church sings a song entitled “All the People Say Amen.”

While singing this song during worship recently, I began to wonder how many people truly understood what they were vocalizing.

The word amen originated in ancient Hebrew as a phrase meaning “so be it,” “truly,” or “verily.” At its heart, it carries the idea of saying, “I believe this is true,” or “I trust what has been spoken.” Whenever Christians say “amen,” they offer a note of affirmation and agreement.

That means amen is much more than a religious punctuation mark. It is not merely the signal that a prayer is over or that a sermon point was appreciated. It is a declaration of faith.

When we say amen to a prayer, we are expressing our confidence that God hears and answers according to His will. When we say “amen” to a Scripture reading, we affirm that God’s Word is true. When we say “amen” to a sermon, we acknowledge that God’s truth should shape our lives.

Perhaps the next time we say “amen,” we should pause and consider what we are affirming. Are we simply repeating a familiar word, or are we genuinely agreeing with God? Are we willing to live out the truth we are saying amen to?

May our amens be more than words spoken with our lips. May they be declarations that rise from believing hearts and are demonstrated through obedient lives. After all, every time we say amen, we are essentially saying, “Lord, I believe You, I trust You, and I will follow Your truth.”

Whenever someone you know is going through a difficult time, I firmly believe that one of the most important things we can do for them is pray. We can take the matter before God and ask for him to intercede.

But I want to emphasize that this is not where our compassion should end. The follow-up step is to help actively.

James writes this in his letter to the Church, “Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead” (James 2:15–17).

There is a tendency among people of faith to wish people well, even to ask God to work, and then sit back and do nothing. It’s even possible that we might be asking God to do something, so that we don’t have to get involved. To this, James highlights that faith is tied to action. The two are so locked together that claiming faith without acting is the mark of a dead faith.

As Christians, when we hear of a need, we should most certainly pray, but we must follow that up by actively seeking to fix the problem. If we only do the first thing, our faith is of little value to the person struggling.

The goal is for us to pray and do. Perhaps you are the answer to someone else’s prayer.

The preacher said, “I was never taught that as a child.”

My immediate thought was, Are you sure? It is entirely possible that you were taught it, but you were not listening.

Over the years, I have heard people say things like, “My preacher never teaches on that topic.” The interesting part is that I know the subject was addressed recently because I was there when it was preached.

There are many possible reasons for this. Maybe they missed that Sunday. Maybe they were distracted. Maybe they heard the words but were not truly listening. Whatever the reason, they did not receive the teaching and quickly concluded that it was never taught.

Listening is harder than we often admit. We can sit through a sermon, Bible study, or lesson and still miss what is being said. Being present is not the same as paying attention.

One of my struggles as a preacher is realizing that I can carefully prepare a message, clearly communicate it, and still have people miss it entirely. At the end of the day, all I can do is faithfully teach God’s Word. Whether people truly hear it, receive it, and apply it is up to them.

Jesus often ended His teaching with the words, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” The challenge is not simply being present when truth is taught. The challenge is truly listening.

I was riding with a charter boat captain, and we had to make a one-hour run from the dock to the fishing grounds. As we went, we kept passing clusters of boats in the river. He raised his hand and said, “They are fishing memories.”

What in the world does that mean? He explained that, normally, at this time of year, given the water temperature, the fish would be in those locations, but they are not there. So people go out and fish those spots because they were successful years before, even though they are not catching anything now.

As a pastor, I could not help but think of the Church and the followers of Jesus who are called to be “Fishers of Men.” One struggle in the Church is that we keep running programs that were successful years ago, but the fish no longer respond. Christians can hold onto methods that are no longer productive because they worked years ago. In the end, we are fishing memories.

The challenge for a Church that wants to reach non-Christians with the gospel is to go where the fish are and use effective tactics. When what worked in the past stops working, it is time to move on and try something new. This is true whether we go out to catch dinner or to make an eternal difference.

One temptation for every person as they grow in their knowledge of the Bible is the desire to explain everything. While I am all for reading, learning, and going deep into God’s word, I am also comfortable with the unknown. 

The way I see it, if my finite and flawed mind can know everything about God, then I have probably got a very small view of God. If the master creator can be completely explained in a few minutes, then he is probably not worth worshipping. 

I believe we worship a God that is bigger than my thoughts and whose ways push the boundaries of human understanding. He is bigger than, greater than, more powerful than, and beyond our comprehension. As a result, I am okay with some theological mystery.

He listed his occupation as content creator. Then I watched some of his videos, and all he did was recycle other people’s jokes and observations. He was making content but was truly creating nothing new.

One challenge, both now and in the future, will be finding your own voice and using the gifts God gave you. Ephesians 2:10 describes you as God’s handiwork, and, as many scholars have noted, this could easily be translated as “God’s masterpiece.” You are his one-of-a-kind creation meant to do good works for the kingdom of God.

God put each member of his family in a place where they can use their unique lives, experiences, abilities, and personalities for him. We will never be able to do that if we are only copying what everyone else is saying.

Biblical interpretation is a quest to seek the Author’s Intended Meaning (AIM). What did John mean when the Holy Spirit inspired him to write that down? To achieve this, we will need to consider the context of the paragraph, the book, and the Bible as a whole. It is also good to consider the historical setting and the literary genre. We will also need to examine individual words or phrases, possibly consulting the original language to catch any nuances.  

Reading and interpreting the Bible correctly takes some time and effort, but the more you do it, the more natural it will become.

There is one more aspect of proper interpretation that gets overlooked. This concept was driven home to me on social media. A man posted a video of the Veggie Tales theme song as a “dark rock anthem.” He takes the words to the Christian children’s cartoon and uses AI to make them sound like the metal rock music of my youth. While it uses the same words, the tone is completely different, and, in many ways, it changes the meaning.

I think we can do the same thing when reading the Bible. We can take the words and use them exactly as written, but change the tune to change the meaning. Words of joy that were spoken as a promise quickly turn into harsh commands and angry rants. Passages that are full of grace and hope are given a minor key and somehow show us all that we are not achieving.

One valid question is not only what this means (AIM), but also how it sounds. How did the first reader hear this? Were they filled with joy, hope, and love, or were they challenged, corrected, and embarrassed by their behavior?

VeggieTales as a dark rock anthem is fun to listen to only because I know the original wasn’t written like that. I understand that it was a fun and funny song meant to bring joy to kids.

Similarly, we must make sure the promises of God remain a joyful sound rather than the dark tones meant to frighten us. And the commands of God don’t become happy little tunes with no sense of urgency. Using the wrong notes can lead to the wrong interpretation and mess up the whole soundtrack God is using in our lives.