“There’s certainly a war against the prevalence of visual pornography in many corners of our society—especially in the Christian culture. There is an attempt to expose pornography for its promotion of unrealistic sexual expectations and exploitation of human sexuality. And that attempt is a very necessary one. But what about the unhealthy emotional and relational expectations portrayed in so much of our media? Is there really much of a difference in the hyperbolized sexual imagery of typical pornography and the…

Those who know me well know that I’m not really a “worship” guy. What I mean by that is I’m not the type of person that usually connects emotionally with God through singing worship songs. Third Format definitely gets close for me, but I’m just not wired that way. I’ve met many people who are. One of the days that we were in Egypt we visited an Oasis in the middle of the Sahara Desert. It was a five hour…

I spent some time praying at the Gilbert campus tonight for this year’s 24/7 prayer event at Central. It was a great time and very spiritually refreshing. In one station, people could write thoughts onto a white board. I took a picture of one comment that stood out to me. As I sat and stared at these three sentences, I suddenly remembered two years ago when I was doing the same exact thing. I was at a 24/7 prayer station,…

I was having lunch last week with my friend Tom and he shared with me an unbelievable story of how God has been working in his life lately. I had goosebumps as he told it to me. I asked him if I could blog it for you guys to read and he sent me the following “Reader’s Digest” version. This is absolutely incredible, and it shows the opportunity we all have to experience the thrill of God’s Spirit if we…

Last Saturday as I picked up Gavin from children’s ministry in Mesa after our Third Format service, I was told about something interesting that he did during the service. Apparently he was pretty mellow and was cuddling in a lady’s arms in the nursery until she walked over to part of the room where they were playing the service live on a tv. I happened to be teaching at the time. Gavin immediately started looking around when he heard my…