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Writings on Christianity

Selfishness: The Illusion of Freedom

This week I’m preaching on Phil 2:3-4. The passage has really got me thinking about the notion of selfishness and selfish ambitions.  We live in a culture which drinks up the belief that pursuing self interest at any cost will result in our greatest happiness and most vibrant liberty.  The most hienous evil is when […]

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Writings on Christianity

Ministry Books

Over the next few months I’ll be working through these books.  I’m really looking forward to learning from these godly thinkers and hopefully growing in my pastoral knowledge.     What books would you suggest for those preparing to enter into full-time vocational ministry?

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Writings on Christianity

Happy Birthday Rach!

Happy Birthday to my beautiful, lovely wife Rach!

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Writings on Christianity

The Grace of God Has Appeared (book of Titus)

I love putting Scripture to music.  Over the years I have put different passages of the Bible to music (you can hear some of my songs here and here).  I find that putting Scripture to music is very edifying and encouraging to my own soul. A couple years back I spent a summer studying Titus […]

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Writings on Christianity

9 Reasons Why You Should Learn the New City Catechism

Why learn a catechism?  What is the point of memorizing a bunch of questions and answers?  Aren’t there better ways to spend our time, effort, and energy?  Here’s 9 reasons why you should learn the New City Catechism (NCC). 1. It will teach you the basics of Christianity.  What do you believe and why do […]

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Writings on Christianity

New City Catechism 1-4 Discussion Questions

As mentioned in an earlier post, my community group has been going through and learning the  New City Catechism (NCC) together.  The catechism is an excellent resource for small group study.  To help others utilize NCC, my friend Brian Malcom and I have recently begun creating discussion questions for each of the questions. Here’s what […]

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Writings on Christianity

3 Hopes and 3 Challenges for Growing in Community

The church I attend (Redeemer Fellowship) does a great job of emphasizing the importance of small group gatherings.  We call these gatherings community groups (CG), and the function of each CG is to provide a place to gather for community, fellowship, prayer, and service.  The focus is on the gospel and the groups are biblically […]

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Writings on Christianity

More than Just a List of Names: 1 Chronicles 1-9

Chronicles: Retelling the Story of Israel More than Just a List of Names: 1 Chronicles 1-9  (this post is the second in an series on 1-2 Chronicles, the first found here: http://www.ttschmidt.com/blog/chronicles-an-introduction) Chronicles begins with nine chapters of genealogies, a fact which causes many modern readers to consider the book to be boring, irrelevant, and […]

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Writings on Christianity

New City Catechism

New City Catechism I want to commend an excellent resource to you today: New City Catechism.  A catechism is a summary of the Christian faith put into question and answer format.  Basically, it is a tool used to teach people about the basics of Christianity.  Typically, individuals memorize the questions and answers as they learn […]

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Writings on Christianity

Preach to Yourself: Rest

Return, O my soul, to your rest; for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you. Ps 116:7 Martyn Lloyd Jones and my pastor Joe Thorn are surely right: we need to preach to ourselves. Such a mandate finds its support in Scripture in passages like Ps 116:7: “Return, O my soul, to your rest; for […]