Conservative Christians are increasingly being caught up in the political/cultural issues and less zealous for Biblical ones....
Our Thanksgiving Service this year will be Wednesday, November 23 from 7:00 – 8:15 PM. Like a normal worship service, we’ll gather to sing, pray, and hear God speak through Scripture and sermon... [plus] testimonies from members and visitors ...
Sharing the Gospel depends heavily on three priorities in a church: speaking, praying, and eating. These things can seem so common to us (perhaps with the exception of prayer) that we can underestimate the power of the Holy Spirit......
Covenant theology is just the conviction, born out of the Scripture, that God always deals with mankind according to covenants – and those covenants are made with individuals AND their descendants. ...
This month began with a bang as twenty-five Harvest members participated in the Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation’s National Conference in Hershey, PA (19 of us in person plus 6 by live stream). The worship, teaching, and fellowship (and chocolate!) were fantastic. But let me share three examples of how the flywheel is gaining steam as we grow forward. ...
Election season is an opportunity for the world to reveal its true colors: its lust for power, its hatred of those who disagree, its rejection of reason and discussion, and its delusional conviction that their future well-being is wholly dependent on the outcome of the next election. The whole scene is the sad spectacle of a world that has lost its way because it has lost its sense of God. That is our current cultural context - and it is a tremendous opportunity for the church to be visibly different. It’s a chance for us to show our true colors....
Does your work really matter? Yes, it pays the bills and maybe provides a helpful service to clients – but is your work significant in light of eternity? Does it matter for the kingdom of God? Are there some callings that have more eternal significance than others? For instance, do pastors and missionaries have a ‘higher’ calling? Is our work more significant for eternity? Most Christians have a hard time answering those questions. This is a shame because our forefathers knew the answers very well! ...
In our progressive, post-Christian culture, Christianity is one giant “No” to things our neighbors deem as essential to personal happiness and fulfillment. Promiscuity, homosexuality and transgenderism are not appealing in and of themselves. The appeal is solely rooted in the conviction that they are a “yes” to human freedom and self-determination. And, in the mind of our neighbors, that makes Christianity a hateful “no” to human flourishing. ...
The One:Ten Team exists to develop a culture of discipleship at Harvest Church. We are defining discipleship as the process of learning Christ in faith and repentance so that we are growing like Christ in our actions, attitudes, and life’s agenda. When we say that we want to see a culture of discipleship at Harvest, we mean that we want to see the way we act and talk to be increasingly focused on learning and growing in Christ one step at a time. ...
Paul can describe anxiousness, or concern, as a good thing when directed toward what God desires. Therefore, we become free from anxiety, not by simply making it stop, but by directing our anxiety toward a focused care to know the grace, acceptance, and love of the Father towards us in Christ....
What do you want? When difficult decisions come up, like whether or not to commit to marry someone, once we’ve clarified the appropriate first question asking if the Bible allows something, oftentimes the even more difficult question to answer is, “Do I want this?” And if so, “Why do I want this?”...
Keep ReadingAccording to Scripture, “wisdom” is the art of knowing how to live, and one behavior that the Book of Proverbs is especially concerned to highlight and transform is the way we speak. Since God is the speaking God, and since we are created in his image, key questions confront us: Does the content of our talk image God’s truth, and does the intent of our talk image God...
Keep ReadingEarlier this month, Joanne and I had the pleasure of visiting a sister OPC denomination. I always enjoy visiting a church where I am not preaching and not known. It frees me to just “be a visitor” and observe a church from that perspective....
Keep ReadingLike many of you, I have watched with horror, anger, and grief over the chaotic and panic-stricken scenes being broadcast from Afghanistan as the Taliban resumed power. I’m sickened by images of people falling from airplanes, young women pleading to escape expected sexual violence, and reports of parents passing their children over barbed wire fences in hopes that at lea...
Keep ReadingMy wife and I are thrilled to be back in the USA and at Harvest OPC to begin a new chapter of our lives. Katie (formerly Wagenmaker) is a past member of Harvest who went to Westminster Seminary California in 2006 and met a debonair, slightly balding Texan. I got my Masters of Divinity and Katie got her Masters of Arts in Theological Studies degree in 2008 and we married in...
Keep ReadingI love introductions. This is probably a little weird. Most people pull toward the familiar and are unsettled by meeting people, making small talk, and trying to move a conversation along with someone with whom they're not sure how much they share in common. So I recognize I'm the odd one out....
Keep ReadingWhen I was growing up, no one in my world asked this question. There was one and only one option for anyone who attended a conservative Dutch Reformed church (unless they were RCA). The Christian school was seen as an essential, non-negotiable third leg of the “three-legged stool” of a committed Christian community. (The other two “legs” were the home and the chur...
Keep ReadingGotta moment for something different? Cindy and I got such a kick out of the following that I thought you might enjoy it, too;...
Keep ReadingWhat a difference a welcome makes! I recently had a very enjoyable conversation with a family that had attended Harvest and Living Hope. They shared how they were encouraged by the welcome that they had received at both churches. They said people were friendly and took the initiative in engaging them as guests. They even shared how much it meant to them that some memb...
Keep ReadingIf you knew my Uncle Bill, who died last month at 52 years old, you would have liked him. Everyone did. He was a charmer. Uncle Bill loved going to weddings. He always found a way to fill up his dance card with the pretty girls at a wedding. He would sneak over to the DJ to play his favorite hits and then proceed to command the dance floor. We also had to keep a watch o...
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