Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year. People seem nicer, with the two exceptions being Black Friday and checkout lines. Christmas music with words about Jesus gets played in stores other than Chick-fil-A. And who doesn’t love pictures with Santa? How do you feel about Christmas? Our theme for our Christmas series is “Coming Home for Christmas.” Depending on your experiences growing up, that may or may not give you the warm fuzzies. But this series is not about returning home to Wichita or Wisconsin. It’s about the story behind the story. It’s about coming home to the One who created you, loves you, and wants to be in a relationship with you. One of the best-known Christmas passages in the Bible doesn't appear in the Gospels but in the Old Testament book of Isaiah. Isaiah is an interesting character in the Bible. He’s known as one…

Mr. Trotter was my freshman basketball coach. Short and squatty, he once told us during practice, "I only yell because I care." I didn't think so at the time (or even today), but he must have been one of the most caring people ever! One of his favorite phrases to use, yelling or not, was "dog meat." He could use that phrase as a noun or adjective, even turning it into a verb on occasion. "Hensley, that pass was dog meat." He never called you by your first name and if he didn't like what you did, it was "dog meat." Needless to say, Coach Trotter wasn't the best motivator I've been around. Many of us fall into the trap of using external motivators to motivate ourselves and others. Reward or incentive, fear or guilt. These external motivators provide a momentary bump but are hard to sustain. More importantly, many…

Because of what Jesus has done for you, you have the ability to deeply impact another person. My parents were married in 1952 and lived most of their married life on West Eden Street in East Peoria. I was brought home from the hospital to 100 West Eden and attended the East Peoria Church of Christ until I left for college in 1987. While in junior high and high school, there were several older men from the church who taught our Sunday and Wednesday Bible classes. One of my favorites went to be with the Lord in November of 2000 -- Jeff Glover. Along with the others, he was a consistent presence in my life through very important years. In 1984, I was baptized by our preacher -- Brad Carman. Not long after, he invited me to give a devotional at church. Then he asked me to preach on a…

Our vision: "Mountainview will impact South Denver and beyond by fostering a movement to start healthy 3G campuses and churches." Do you know what is the eighth largest country in the world in terms of population? China India Indonesia Brazil Pakistan Bangladesh Churchgoing Americans Non-churchgoing Americans! Churchless Americans are more numerous than Canada, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, South Africa & New Zealand … combined! Here's another fact in American Christian culture: Most of what gets counted as “church growth” is actually transfer growth, rather than conversion growth. In other words, it's saved people moving from one church to another rather than a new person crossing from darkness into light. Where I live, Metro Denver, is one of the highest unchurched areas in the country! I had coffee recently with John Leach, senior pastor at Jubilee Fellowship Church. They began in 1998 and have grown to several thousand people worshiping in…

We lived in California for 15 years and lived through several earthquakes -- though we were never close to the epicenter of any of them. The first one we experienced was the 1994 Northridge earthquake. At the time, we had a little Peek-a-poo dog who woke us up around 4:30 in the morning. We didn't know what was going on. The dog was yipping and yapping, running in circles on the bed. About 30 seconds later, our walls began shaking and we knew we had experienced an earthquake. As bad as the earthquakes are, what follows them can often be worse: fires and aftershocks. If you’ve lived very long, you know that life’s troubles can be like that -- there’s the first explosion and then the aftermath. A family member has a stroke, followed by rehabilitation and perhaps even learning how to speak again. A person goes through a divorce,…