PJ's Journal

  What is the Church? Perhaps there is no better time in history since Acts 2 to ask the question, “What is the Church?”  We live in a time when church attendance is in sharp decline all around the United States. Technology has made it easier to just stay home and watch a service and convince yourself that it is church. So often when we assess the health of a church we think of buildings, bodies, and budgets. We live in a culture that has become increasingly individualistic and consumer driven, and the church is not untouched by such thinking. Americans are not known for our communal habits. Because of all these factors and more, we develop some kind of idealistic view and somewhat individualistic view of the church, which ultimately renders this powerful idea powerless. The church is God’s idea. It is His idea to build His church, to love His church, and to use His church to accomplish His divine plan on earth as it is in heaven. The church is more important than most of us a...

 If you are reading this and attend the church that I pastor, then you are likely aware that I start a three month sabbatical next week.  When the elders brought up the subject and our chairman asked if I would be interested in a sabbatical, I was very humbled and relieved.  The idea of a sabbatical is a new concept for First Baptist Church and can be meet with a variety of reactions.  I know some have expressed to me that they are glad I will get some time to rest, while others don't know what to think about it.  Trust me, it is not lost on me that most people who work full time do not get this kind of extended time away from their work.  However, I wanted to communicate why a sabbatical for pastors is a healthy practice for any church.   Pastors are always on the clock:   This is not a complaint, it's just a reality, especially in today's world of technology.  I will receive phone calls, text messages, emails, and messages on social me...

As you likely already know, this week the big news coming out of every media outlet is about the leaked opinion draft of the United States Supreme Court.  If you watch one media outlet, the focus is on the egregious breach of trust on the part of whoever leaked the draft, which is certainly unprecedented and very problematic.  If you watch other media outlets, the focus is on the audacity of the Supreme Court to overturn Roe vs Wade, making this an issue to be handled at the state level.  Of course this fires up the rhetoric used in media circles to amp up people's emotions, and of course it will try to be leveraged for political gain.  Such is the world we live in!  Since it does bring up the conversation, I want to be clear as to why I believe that the unborn should be protected and why this goes beyond a political issue into a justice issue.  So here are my thoughts. First, I am going to start with Scripture.  I believe human beings are made in the ...

 The past four months have been a tough time for our church, more so than any other time I can remember.  Our people have experienced great loss and heartache during that stretch of time, which includes at least 6 of our own FBC people who have gone on to be with the Lord.  I find my own heart aching in a way I have never experienced.  Loss is never an easy thing, but so many in such a short period of time seems a bit overwhelming.  It is in these times that our go to question is "WHY?"  We know that God is sovereign and good, yet His purposes for allowing such heartbreaking things is beyond our wisdom and capacity to fully comprehend.  We are left to give it over to God in trust.  I was lamenting close to midnight last Sunday on my way home from the hospital knowing that it was only a matter of hours before one of our brothers in Christ would leave his earthly tent to occupy his heavenly dwelling.  I called Trish on my way home to let her kn...

 There is a lot of conversation around the question, "What is my purpose?"  As people,  most of us like to know the WHY behind our life.  Rick Warren wrote a best selling book called, "The Purpose Driven Life."  You may be familiar with it.  It became so popular because people want to know that their life counts.  As a believer in Jesus, I have settled that question long ago.  My purpose was spelled out for me in Ephesians 1 (and many other passages in the Scriptures).  God created me to live for the praise of His glory.  He chose me in Him to be holy and blameless in His sight and predestined me to be adopted as His child to the praise of His glorious grace.  Three times in one sentence the Apostle Paul reminds believers what their purpose is... that you and I might be for the praise of His glory.  Perhaps none more clear than verses 11 and 12... 11 In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to t...

 As I read through the Old Testament this year, I am consistently amazed with how God challenges my thinking.  This year my focal point has been the theme of God's glory and our dependence upon Him in the battles we face daily.  Of course it should not surprise us to know that the Bible is about God and that He is the primary character throughout the narrative.  He is the creator and our covenant making God who makes it abundantly clear that His glory will not be shared.  He even calls Himself a jealous God.  Those two words don't seem to fit in the same sentence.  As a matter of fact, many have leveraged those words to paint God to be some petty being who is threatened by others.  When, in fact, the narrative uses these words to communicate that God is the only God and to glorify any other "god" or person is to commit idolatry.  And since God is God alone, He is the one for whom all glory is due.  So God is not threatened but rather off...

 One of the teachings from Scripture that has challenged me over the years relative to my own struggle with temptation and my relationships with others is Eph. 6:10-18.  This passage has many rich truths in it that orient my thinking as to the identity of the real enemy and to how to effectively navigate the spiritual battle that we are all in.  Paul begins by saying,  "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might." (Eph. 6:10) Right off the bat it is a reminder to me that my strength does not come from a strong will or a disciplined mind, my strength comes from the Lord.  I am strong in Him and in His mighty strength.  How often do we attempt to overcome temptations in our own strength?  We attempt to overcome the temptation to worry by trying to control everything around us.  We press on to overcome lust by just trying harder next time not to look or give our desires a foothold.  We attempt to overcome the temptation to g...

This Sunday I will be preaching from Romans 16.  In this chapter, Paul is commending a lady name Phoebe to the church and then proceeds to send greetings to many others.  Paul writes that Phoebe is a servant (deaconess) of the church in Cenchreae, which is a small city right next to Corinth.  This mention of her brings up an interesting topic and that is the role of women in ministry.   I know this is a very sensitive topic and my aim is to wrestle with the Scriptures relative to this issue.  There are those who believe that women should not hold any leadership position in a local church and there are those who believe that women have no restrictions at all relative to leadership in the church.  Most people that I have had conversations with in ministry circles fit somewhere between those two views.  My goal is to deal honestly with the Scriptures relative to this topic without writing a book.   First of all, I believe the mention of Pho...

 As we read through the Old Testament, I have been struck by the extend that God goes to dwell with His people.  This is actually part of the Covenant God made with His people on Sinai.  He will dwell with them in a chamber set apart for Him alone called the Most Holy Place.  He would dwell behind a curtain, which was crossed only one time a year on the Day of Atonement by the High Priest.  God dwells with his people, but is still separated from them.  Leviticus 26:11-12 is a record of God telling His people, "I will make my dwelling among you and my soul shall not abhor you.  And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people."   This really is the first time since the Garden that God is reaching out to dwell with His creation.  However, His dwelling, though limited and not fully realized, seems to be based on Israel's obedience to the covenant made on Sinai.  No sooner is the covenant made when Israel rebels, tu...

 Over the past few months one of the issues that I have been thinking about is how so many in our world are sucked in by a narrative of events either spun to paint a false understanding of reality or simply made up to propagate something that is false.  I have watched as the media will commentate with a blatant double standard to spin a story or events in such a way that fits a narrative that they what to sell.  This is especially true when it comes to politics.  I have watched it happen on main stream media outlets as well as cable news outlets.  I have also experienced people get sucked into conspiracy theories that have no basis for truth.  This is true of QAnon theories propagated by a person who is known as Q.  However, this past week I encountered this in a more personal way.  Someone who I love dearly and know to have a heart of gold was researching something that caught their attention, and clicked on a video that was couched as secure abo...

 I recently had a conversation with a pastor in Grand Rapids who told me about an illustration one of his elders used in a sermon, and like any good illustration, it has stuck with me.  This elder stood before the congregation with a cup in his hand and asked, "If this cup gets bumped, what comes out of it?"  Certainly, some were over thinking the question and trying to come up with some clever answer to what they may  have taken as a trick question, but the answer was simple... whatever was in it.  Of course the answer was so obvious, but then the elder asked the congregation, "When you get bumped, what comes out of you?"  I was struck by the simplicity of the illustration and the powerful truth it was illustrating.  When we get bumped, what comes out is whatever is in us.  It is manageable to keep hidden what is inside you when things are going ok and you don't get bumped too badly.  However, when you are "bumped" what  is on the insid...

 Our church has been reading through the entire narrative of Scripture and we currently find ourselves near the end of Moses' life.  He has been leading the Israelite people for nearly 40 years.  In that 40 years, the people have experienced their God destroy the most powerful army in the known world at the time.  He parted a huge body of water in such a way that over a million and a half people crossed to the other side on dry ground, and then watch, from the safety of the other side, while the waters collapsed, destroying the mighty Egyptian army.  These people saw the glory of the Lord in the form of a pillar of smoke by day and fire by night.  They tasted manna and meat that God provided for them during their journey.  They witnessed God's confirmation of Moses' leadership over and over again.  However, none of this was enough.  I was reading in Numbers 20 and was struck with a thought I would like to unpack. 3 And the people quarreled wi...

This entry is the text from my message this past Sunday concerning disputable matters from Romans 14:13-23. I believe it to be a very relevant topic for believers today. Here you go: This week I found myself lamenting over a conversation Pastor Andrew and I had.  We were talking about convictions that people in our church have that would fall under the category of disputable matters.  I caught myself verbalizing that the best thing is for people to probably avoid those conversations for the sake of peace.  But my own words did not sit well with me.  Avoidance does not help a relationship to grow.  The reason I even said that was because I feared people being ugly toward one another, not being able to have tough conversations about disputable matters without projecting their conscience about an issue onto the other person.  I began to lament because of all people, we should be able to have healthy conversations with one another regarding these issues witho...