NextGenKent

You have no doubt been in circles where someone has name-dropped. Perhaps you have done so yourself. I know I have. I happen to know some "big names" in some areas of ministry that I can drop at times to gain a hearing. To be honest, I don't know why I do it. And even more honest, I don't think it has ever done anything for me. I teach evangelism and discipleship courses for OCU (is this name-dropping?) and have done so now (online) nearly ten times. One of the projects in the class is for students to write out their testimony as if speaking to a non-Christian who might be interested. Did you catch that last part? Write it out for someone who doesn't know, or perhaps has never heard about, God, Jesus, the need for salvation, and how God has answers for their life's problems. I've graded over 150 of these testimonies and just started keeping track of some patterns I am seeing. One of the things I am hearing over and over again is: When evangeliz...

I played guitar for the praise team at our church this past Sunday, and there was a new song (to me) that has stuck with me ever since I heard it. It is called Hills And Valleys, by Tauren Wells. Below is his testimony about how he wrote the song. "When you are on the mountain tops of life learn to bow low; when you are in the valleys of life, learn to stand tall." This mimics so much the truth from an older song I sang many years ago and my group the Men of Mercy sing called, God on the Mountain. I can remember testifying at a church in southern Ohio I was serving as youth pastor, and had a similar revelation come to me. It was,  whether we are on the mountain or in the valley,  if we keep eyes on Jesus, we will never know the difference.  Tauren's lyrics communicates that truth much better, much more to the heart, of what I was hearing from the Lord.  So today, are  in you in the valley? Or are you on the mountain top?  Wh...

Two of my four children are still in grade school. The other day I heard the one recounting that age old mantra of "tattletale tattletale!" We are trying to teach our children when it's right and wrong to be a tattletale. I can only hope that the advice is taken when needed. But this morning I was meditating on Acts 1: 8-9, where Jesus tells his disciples that they better be his tattletales. They MUST be his tattletales. Yes, and they were going to have help to be his tattletales. He said to them, "When the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you will be my witnesses . . ." aka, Blabbers! Imagine that! Divine power to be a tattletale. "Hey! What is your superpower?" "Being a tattletale, of course!" How can I express to you the necessity of being Jesus' tattletale? When anything good happens to you, blab and jaw it to others! Go on, gab and jibber jabber about the Lord and what He's doing in your life! Prattle, rattle, ...

In the beginning God spoke and said, Let there be light and it was so. What was created was something we would train ourselves doesn't exist. This light God spoke just was and existed without a sun which hadn't been created yet but is now what we have trained ourselves to see is real. The first light lets call 'heavenly light' for it is from God's world and so continues to be. Once sin entered into our world the heavenly light, although still existing, shrunk from our sight and relegated itself to what we many times call the spiritual realm. This is understandable because sin brings darkness. But something else came with that darkness, another presence that found how to live and exist in it and develop authorities and seats of governance and powers.  Although the heavenly light still exists in this world we humans cannot see it for the matrix of darkness is keeping blinders on our eyes so we cannot see it. The truth is, ever since one man has come into this world th...

I had a life-transforming experience when I was about 19. A MEGA-shift that was so simple I am still moved by it 25 years later. It happened when I bought my first NIV translation of the Bible. All of my life I was exposed to the hearing and reading of the KJV of the Bible. I am not bashing it. But that is all I knew--one verse after another in tabbed formation. I memorized it, studied it for Bible quizzing competition, knew some passages frontwards and backwards. But something happened deep within me when I read the Bible for the first time in paragraphed form. I can still feel the newness of the distractions (those little super-scripted numbers which represented the verse I was on while reading) caused me and how I had to search through words and even sentences to catch up with others while reading to find where we were together so I could keep up. That learning curve is behind me now. But the impact the Word of God has had on my life since is ever in front of me. I was re...