Welcome to “Seven Good Things Week,” where we are sharing several encouraging works with you that we have a small part in. Today, we share a book that we have a very small part in, but we are glad to let you know about. Michael Whitworth wrote a book last year called The Epic of God, which was a guide to the book of Genesis. Whitworth’s writing style and obvious knowledge made the book, literally, an award-winner. I was honored to edit a chapter of that book, as well as donate to help get it to preaching students at several brotherhood schools. Just a few days ago, Whitworth released his second…

Welcome to “Seven Good Things Week,” where we are taking good works that we are pleased to be involved in, and sharing them with you to provide you with encouragement. Today, we are thrilled to share a great resource for teenagers–and those who are interested in teenagers–with you. Several months ago, I was honored by being asked to serve on the board of Kaio Publications, which produces helpful, Biblical material for families. This organization, led by Joe and Erin Wells, stresses that the content be high-quality and that it be sound to the Word of God. The “flagship” product of Kaio Publications is a magazine called iLuminate, which is more…

Welcome to “Seven Good Things Week,” where we want to share with you one encouraging work each day that we are blessed to know about and be part of. We begin the week with a mission work getting ready to start that will greatly encourage you. We have been blessed to know Daniel and Tiffany Gaines since our days together at Freed-Hardeman. This family is as faithful to the work of the Lord as anyone you will ever find. We are honored to call them friends, but they are about to be very long-distance friends. In a matter of just a few weeks, their family will begin a three-year missionary tour…

I want to be pleasing to God. That one sentence really is the basis for this entire article, and it should be the basis for everything I do in life. I must admit, however, that I get very frustrated at how many Christians talk one way in person, then a very different way through online means of communication. From Facebook posts to blog comments and from tweets to quotes on Pinterest, it is sometimes embarrassing to realize that someone sings “I Want to be More Like Jesus” on Sunday morning then “talks” this way online. The real struggle is that we can too easily compartmentalize our lives, and I firmly…

Okay, so I am late to the game in writing about Miley Cyrus’s performance at the recent Video Music Awards, produced and televised by MTV. Plenty of others have written about her performance and how it did far more than push the lines of decency. No, I have not watched the performance, nor will I, so I must admit to writing from a perspective of partial ignorance, but I am grateful to be ignorant of the specifics in this case! However, there is another angle to this ordeal that needs to be addressed. My friend Steve Higginbotham did a tremendous job in his short article of pointing out that, for…

We returned home yesterday afternoon from a wonderfully uplifting week at Polishing the Pulpit. Over 3000 Christians gathered in Sevierville, Tennessee for this annual event, and we were truly uplifted by great lessons and fellowship. I gained so much, from sermon ideas to program “helps” to encouragement. My biggest takeaway was not just from something I heard, however. It was from things that I saw. What did I see? I saw preachers and youth ministers who are my age or younger. Ministers like Wes Hazel, Joey Sparks, Eric Lyons, Josh Ketchum, Gantt Carter, David Dixon, Robert Hatfield, Chris Clevenger, and many others I spent time with during the week were…