One simple rule for the Church: Don’t criticize or complain about things you did not participate in.

For example, when someone comes out and says, “The worship music was lousy today,” they usually have no idea what truly happened. Someone had to pick out the songs, and another person found the music in the correct key for the singers. People had to practice, and who knows what their minds and heart are processing. Sound people are trying to get a good mix and relying on their ears and instincts. This is not to mention the pressure of a live performance in front of your peers. Quite literally, a thousand things could go wrong on any Sunday morning. It is much more complicated than it looks.

Your criticism might be valid, but there are numerous reasons for this result. Everyone did their best, and it didn’t go as planned.

Please don’t tell people how poorly they did their ministry when you do not even know what their job entails.

Prayer is talking to God and presenting him with our requests. One of the privileges of following Jesus is our open access to the throne of grace. It is easy for a Christian to stop anywhere and pray anytime.

The problem is that I do not think most believers take it seriously enough. We throw up prayers without thinking about how God might respond.

We might pray to spend more time with our family, never thinking that it might mean my job might change and force me to stay home.

We might pray for God to give us patience and not consider that he might force us to wait in some area of our life that we find unbearable.

We might pray for greater faith, and He might respond by testing the limits of our trust in him through an illness.

We might pray for more robust relationships, and the answer might be forcing ourselves to work through issues with some difficult people.

One prayer might very well set in motion a series of events you never expected.

Be very careful what you pray for … because you just might get it.

I love learning new things. I equally find joy in discovering a unique insight into an old truth.

This desire to grow in knowledge pushes me to read numerous books each year, listen to podcasts weekly, and read blogs daily. People are writing and recording innumerable things that I want to learn.

Jesus pushes us one step further. He says his followers will “hear these words of his and put them into practice” (Matthew 7:24).

The goal of learning is not information but transformation. We are to do more of the things of God and not simply learn about them. A full mind is noble, but a new life is Jesus’ goal.