The Good News in Cleveland

I'm growing familiar with one the greatest weaknesses of our society, especially in its next generation: entitlement. It's the idea that we indisputably deserve something we didn't earn. Not only does it produce weak families, plunging motivation levels, dim futures, etc., entitlement has emerged as a major barrier to belief and sanctification because it runs in direct contrast to the gospel. The Bible says that we only deserve the death we did earn, but Jesus came to give us something didn't deserve. The only thing we're entitled to is death (Romans 6:23). Entitlement shackles us from understanding and embracing grace (getting something we don't deserve, Jesus' perfect life and death in our place) and the gratitude living which follows. That's what makes the Jesus follower different; he or she is marked by gratitude rather than entitlement! This was our message at our Shoreway Thankstaking, an event for our teens and their families in early December. It...

I recently preached on worship. Without question, it's what I've studied most both in seminary and real life. An average weekend has me leading worship in three services! However, leading up to the sermon, I found myself struggling to put an effective presentation of worship before a group of unbelieving teens. They have no relationship with Jesus, and they aren't about to worship someone they don't know. I had the foreboding sense that this message would be perceived as if I were speaking in a foreign language. It didn't all click until several days later when I in realized the transcendent truth that we are a nation of worshipers, every one of us. Sometimes we fail to see it, but do keep an eye out for the worshipers flooding streets, arenas, prisons, Twitter and Facebook feeds, the news, and just about everywhere else you look. I see people who value WWE wrestlers above all else, honor them by constantly speaking of them, and serve them with their time and money;...

It seems to be a time of serious transition. CityView has been downtown for nearly 8 years with a central Sunday service in the Wyndham Hotel. In recent weeks, hotel ownership has changed hands and increased its price point. We can expect to pay nearly quadruple what we are paying now to continue meeting in the hotel in the new year. In the last month, the leadership team has been meeting up regularly on the square near the hotel to pray.  While we are talking to God, I can hear the group of homeless bantering behind us talking. A lady walks by screaming "The devil, he won!" Drugs, crazy, and/or demon-possessed. People are constantly coming with their stories and asking for money and cigarettes. While we meet, people from church filter through the square. Downtown is crazy, but I'm convinced that God wants His church to stay there and thrive in the midst of it. The Eldacrew is surrounding the church in prayer Wednesday night and Saturday afternoon. Maybe we became to...

If our will to make worshippers ceases to be an act of worship, then we've only served to hit the mark on idolatry.

MLK said "There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love." Julia and I got to take fourteen teens to the Banished retreat at Camp Patmos, seven guys and seven girls. The truth is that most of them have no relationship with Jesus, even after we’ve walked and talked Jesus with them for more than a year! Saturday night, I took the guys deep into the woods at night, lit a torch I had hidden out there, and told them a story. “On a dark night in Lake Erie, two ships collided. Some heard the cries ‘To the life boat! The life boat!’ but believed that they were safer in the ship. They perished. Others heard and even believed the life boat could save, but they were afraid to jump out into the darkness. They, too, perished. Lastly, there were a few who heard, believed, and jumped. Only they were saved by the life boat. Which group would you say believed?” Obviously those on the ship, torn and unwilling to move, did not have saving faith in the life boat. I am disa...

The Saturday service in Detroit-Shoreway has been going well! Especially after some culturally-sensitive tweaks and a whole lot of prayer. We put a prayer time an hour and a half before the service so that our leaders, myself included, would go into the evening with a Spirit of unity and worship. Going through name by name, we pray knowing that only the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead can raise spiritually dead up to follow Jesus. I think about the Fellas who passively come around, but Zeke, Chris, Tyler, and Ronald are alive and hungry. Fonzo is one of those guys that I never would have expected to still be with the ministry. He came to us about a year ago, ardent atheist. He's one of the nicest kids, smart, rough home life though. I have to believe the Spirit is working in him, or why else would he be hanging out with us? I could go on and on with snapshots like this. We reach them the best we can though church, Man Time or Girl's Night, and discipleship, but it's...

The destiny of every human is a face-to-face meeting with Jesus. Some will greet Him as friend, others as enemy. For whatever reason though, we believers suffer from a sort of “spiritual constipation” as my pastor friend Craig has dubbed it. After speaking out at Pastor Craig’s church in a Wisconsin, a woman from the church asked me about the park ministry at CityView. Her question went something like this: “So how do you do it, have a Jesus conversation with someone you’ve never met before?” It took a long and round about answer for me realize that I didn’t have a procedure for it. Yeah, I go to parks with intention, but the witnessing isn't choreographed. To speak of Jesus should be a natural outpouring of my real relationship with Jesus. Furthermore, what I am saying should address and answer the longings of the human heart! That answer kind of sounded like a spiritual sidestep to a good, practical question. The truth is that after a while, you just drop the junk, and t...