Along the Way w/ Bro. Ryan

In our day and age, people of all ages, but especially our youth, are searching desperately for something.  And at the foundational, bare-bones level of what people are searching for is the sense of needing to feel loved, the need to feel wanted, and the need to belong .  For example, when you do a little research into why people join bizarre and abnormal groups or movements, like cults or like the LGBTQ, you find that these three elements are always present – people join these things, even if they don’t make sense to the person, because they offer love, acceptance and belonging.             If you research further, you find that these groups offer these things but only on the surface.  Once you get involved in these groups, things drastically change and it’s difficult, and in some cases impossible, to leave them.             Only Jesus can truly offer lastin...

Galatians 1:6-9 "I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the Gospel of Christ.  But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed.  As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed." In Paul's day, not unlike today, he was having to confront   accusations of being a fake Apostle with an illegitimate and false message.  With those accusations came many other gospels that popped up in the local church scene.  The false gospels being presented then ranged from the 'love and Law' gospel of the Judaizers to the overly-spiritualized and/or Gnostic gospels.  There were many forms of Jesus being preached which introduced a myriad of teachings and belief...

Tracing genetics and ancestry can be fascinating.   I remember for the longest time thinking that my family, especially on my dad’s side, was from Germany.   Turns out, we’re actually from England and the Netherlands – and I think even some Scottish was thrown in there. Through our genetics, we get both physical and mental traits from our parents.   I have my dad’s face, eyes, and voice but the rest of me is like my mom’s side of the family.   But what we can’t figure out is how I became 6’5” when my dad is 5’11” and my mom is 5’4”.    Personality-wise, I’m more laid back and introverted like my dad while my mom is very outgoing and extroverted. We get things passed down to us from our ancestors – there’s no avoiding it.   Sometimes they’re things we like and other times we may not like them at all.   Romans 5:12-21 demonstrates two family trees – the original human father of all mankind, Adam, and Jesus, the eternal Son of God who makes ...

Tithing, offerings, giving - when these words are brought up, sometimes they drive us to clinch our wallets a little tighter. Especially with tithing and offering, these words have come to develop a sort of bad reputation for many in the church world.  What do these words mean and how to they apply to our lives as Christians and as the New Testament Church? I would venture to say that so many people feel uneasy about tithing/offering because of the several cases of financial abuse that have come out over the years in various church scenarios.  Often, these stories center around larger congregations or megachurches where a pastor has taken the liberty of using the tithes/offerings given by his congregants for selfish and personal gain.  Cases of fraud, embezzlement, and outright thievery have stained many a local church's reputation because the leadership was dishonest with the funds. In other cases, where there has never been any misuse of tithes/offerings, people may...

I recently spoke with a pastor of a new and young congregation about the Gospel. He was wanting to know about the possibility of his congregation meeting in our church building on a different day for worship. During the "interview" process, the topic of the Gospel came up, how it is defined, and how we are to present it. This pastor shared that he likes to "preach the love of God because people's lives are hard enough already, so why burden them by talking about sin and God's judgment?" When I asked him if he believed we were all sinners ( Rom. 3:23 ), he did agree, but he did not agree that that needed to be preached. This struck a cord within me and was eerily reminiscent of an interview given by megachurch pastor, Joel Osteen, a few years ago. Osteen is no doubt a major proponent of this "love-only" gospel message - a message geared toward sharing the love and grace of God for all people without confronting the sin problem, much l...