10/21/2013 — Chances are if you’ve attended a wedding, church camp or youth rally at any time in the past three decades, you’ve sung or heard Bob Gillman’s song “Bind Us Together.” The refrain goes like this:


Scripture has a lot to say about believers being bound together by covenant and in community. I certainly believe in the importance of gathering together as bodies of believers for worship, prayer and fellowship. Our church has a small-group ministry, called LifeGroups, for precisely that reason.

In that sense, the cross – the central truth of the Christian faith – binds believers together. Look around a Christian community that you are a part of the next time you are together – what are the odds that the same group of people would gather together for any other reason than a common faith in Jesus Christ? Slim, I would guess.

In my research for my new book, “The Cross: One Man...One Tree...One Friday,” I learned about another sense in which the cross binds us together. Read More

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10/14/2013 — When I was in my 20s, the world of contemporary Christian music was both smaller and more genre-inclusive than it is today. One of the more popular Christian artists at that time was Don Francisco, who brought a folk-music sensibility to Gospel narratives. He’s probably best known for “He’s Alive,” the story of the first Easter morning written in the voice of the apostle Peter.

Another essential Don Francisco song, “Too Small a Price,” has come to mind frequently since I began writing my new book, “The Cross: One Man…One Tree…One Friday.” The epic song (there’s a version here) is an account of the crucifixion told in the voice of one of the thieves who was executed at the same time as Jesus. Specifically, he was the one to whom Jesus said (in Francisco’s lyric), “Before the sun has set today, you'll be with Me in Paradise.”

Last words are important, aren’t they? Read More

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10/07/2012 — Twice last week in the tabernacle of World Harvest Church – at our midweek service and the next day at Valor Christian College’s weekly chapel service – a dance team from Pastor Louis Reyes’s Church of Joy in Zion, Ill., ministered. The team had a great impact on our students and the staff and faculty alike. But the team’s ministry was clearly targeted specifically to the age group represented by the majority of Valor students – less so to those with bifocals and gray hair.

There’s no shame in that; the Gospel is expressed artistically in a multitude of ways. The only problem is when the old folks in the audience decide reflexively that a hip-hop song can’t be “of God,” or when younger people turn their noses up at a choral anthem, mistaking a lack of volume for a lack of passion.

There is one thing that our varied expressions of faith can, and should, unite around, however, and that is the cross of Calvary. Read More

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09/30/2013 — It’s a schoolyard bully’s taunt to anyone who dares to stand up to him or her – “Who do you think you are?” Unfortunately, far too often it carries over into the conference rooms of office buildings, spoken by former schoolyard bullies. But it’s something every believer should say into the mirror on a regular basis.

Who are we, really? Each of us fulfills many roles, to be sure. But no matter what else we are, first we are sinners whom Jesus Christ redeemed via His horrifying, excruciating death on Calvary’s cross. Jesus’s death was motivated by a love for us so deep that it’s impossible to appreciate it outside of a relationship with Him. And yet, the symbol of His sacrifice and His love for us – the cross – has been marginalized and trivialized not only by the culture, but also within the Church. Read More

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09/23/2013 — More than 40 years ago, the folk-rock band The Eagles made the charts with a song that included the lyric, "I'm standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona." I was in high school when "Take it Easy" was a hit, but even then I surmised that corner was a lonely place.

It's become lonelier still. In the late 1970s transportation planners created an interstate highway that eliminated the need for people to drive along the famous U.S. Route 66, which passed through Winslow. Like the fictional Radiator Springs from the Disney movie "Cars," Winslow hasn't exactly thrived since then. The most recent U.S. census shows that the city has less than 10,000 residents.

There's a lonelier intersection than the one The Eagles immortalized in song, though. It is the intersection of two rough-hewn beams of wood that formed the cross on which Jesus Christ died. It is, as I write in my new book, "The place that no one desired to come to and yet, the very place where all humanity must be summoned to make their appearance."Read More

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