Justin Whitmel Earley is no Olympic athlete (that I know of). He’s an attorney, a husband, a dad, an author and most importantly, a Christian. His winsome tone and similarly smelling feet of clay (like ours) makes his book The Common Rule a helpful and hopeful resource on the formation of lasting habits. He really hasn’t invented anything new, but what he has done is dust off some ancient practice...  Read More

Chances are you have been stuck. If you aren’t now, you will be. And that state of stuckness can pervade almost every vocation of our lives. Enter The Common Rule.This is the beginning of a series about wrestling with life’s distractions by considering habit formation. It’s about how habits can help free us from some of the logjams we get ourselves into. Justin W. Earley’s book The Common Rule: Ha...  Read More

Those of us in our early earning years must ask ourselves how much of our income is being spent unnecessarily. Biblical giving is sacrificial giving and will result in there being “things we should like to do and cannot do because our charitable expenditure excludes them.” How many times a week do you eat out? How often do you buy coffee? What entertainment platforms are you paying for? These ques...  Read More

Being a college student is a unique period of life. You are independent but not fully “onyour own.” You work hard but do not have a full-time job. You have community but also know goodbyes are on the horizon. This unique season results in obstacles that can keep college students from experiencing the joy of giving financially to primarily their church and secondarily the ministries that are blessi...  Read More

Don't you love it when you don't have to prepare for something? You can just show up and receive? It's that part of parenting sometimes when the most prep we have to do is get the kids out the door to their game, and we just sit and watch Sally net another point into the corner of the net!...  Read More

A couple of months ago, my sister called me to inform me that her dog had passed away. During the conversation, she shared the difficulty she was having trying to explain to her children that they would not see the dog again without telling them that he was dead. I sympathized with her struggle, but I thought to myself that it would actually be beneficial for these children to learn about the deat...  Read More

Lemuel Haynes (1753-1833) was long considered the “invisible man of African American theology” due in part to his affinity for Jonathan Edwards and his open critique of Thomas Paine, which “led many to the mistaken belief that he was not an abolitionist.”The illegitimate son of a slave and a white socialite, young Lemuel didn’t know his parents. He was indentured to and raised by a Baptist deacon,...  Read More

The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, initially published in 1998, is now on its 25th-anniversary edition. In its lifetime, it has sold over four million copies. In this review, my approach will include a brief summary of each law and thoughts about its application to the particular context of Addison Street Community Church.  Read More

Would you let your most trustworthy friend operate on you even if they didn't have much medical training? Probably not.  Read More

Google© has become the dominant online consumer search engine. We should know this as its brand has seamlessly snuggled into our vocabularies as a verb. Who of us doesn’t access this powerful search tool and its counterparts to get quick answers to our everyday questions? Where would we be (literally!) if we didn’t have online maps supported by real-time Global Positioning Systems (GPS)? For you y...  Read More

When it comes to sexual abuse or assault, we as the church need to listen better to survivors and then speak more. The trauma suffered, whether once or multiple times, among many other things, robs the victim of their ability to voice their pain. But even getting to the point of listening may take time and lots of trust built up over time.Not for a second do I pretend to understand what a sexual a...  Read More

If prayer is much like talking, then it should come naturally. But if prayer is the “breath of dependence,” then it doesn’t seem as easy. And that’s because depending ain’t easy at times  (especially the more independent we become). Of course, there’s the fact, too, of talking to someone we can’t see or audibly hear that makes this kind of religious expression more elusive to us. There are sinful ...  Read More