Is the American church failing in our duty to follow Jesus’ last command while on earth to “go, therefore, and make disciples of all people groups…teaching them to observe all that I commanded you”? There are 17,000 people groups in the world of which 7,000 are...
My wife has an obsession with that bagged ice you buy from the large freezers outside gas station convenient stores. As often occurs, she buzzed me recently to ask if I would pick up a few bags on my drive home so she could keep her oversized plastic cups full of...
My wife Jennifer and I were at the Cairo airport. She had not felt well for a couple days and by the time we reached passport control, she was nauseous and dizzy. The line was long, winding back and forth between the short pylons, and consisted of Arabs, Egyptians,...
If you’ve been to Israel, you know that there are uncomfortably close quarters in places like Jerusalem. In one sweeping panorama, you can see both the Dome of the Rock, the second holiest site in Islam, and the Western Wall, the holiest site in Judaism that the Jews...
When I was 15, I wanted to be a professional golfer. I was pretty good for a freshman in high school, but the jump from “pretty good teenage golfer” to “make a living on the course golfer” proved to be a substantially larger chasm than I anticipated. I've had the joy...
The road seemed to be extremely dusty for that time of year. I was traveling through the Rufiji River Basin near the East Coast of Tanzania. It was the rainy season and naturally one would expect the roads to be muddy and the landscape to be green and lush. The...
Here at The Stone Table, we celebrate the sacredness of every day work. All kinds of it! Whether you’re a brain surgeon or sweep floors, redeemed by the Gospel your work matters. This is a message so many of us never grew up hearing, so when we see this being declared...
I just returned from 8 days in China with a group of pastors and businessmen. (I’m still recovering from the 12-hour time change and gluttonous platters of Kung Pow Shrimp, so please take that into account as you read this). We spent a week exploring some powerful new...
Recently I passed a life milestone, a major milestone – retiring from my “day job.” This wasn’t like hitting age 40, 50 or 60; those are just numbers. Retiring is a significant life change, one which – as my wife likes to point out – does not affect just me. A...
This is an interview with one of our Business as Mission (BAM) practitioners using business as a mechanism for planting the church in areas of the world where you can’t do that with traditional missionary methods. In order to protect the work being done we will not be...
Let’s talk a little bit about humility in leadership. You know leaders are leaders oftentimes because they are very skilled. They’re very talented, they are charismatic, they can draw attention, they have good ideas, they can cast vision, and sometimes that can cause leaders, including me, to begin to think they are the driving force. And so, as Christians, we know that we are called to humility; that arrogance doesn’t really partner itself well with the gospel and the gospel redeemed life.
Nothing like some valuable #teambuilding advice from Erik Cooper for your Monday morning!
Is there any eternal value to your day job? Is it possible to find gospel meaning in your "secular" career? If you really love Jesus, shouldn't you quit your job and go into full-time ministry? How does your everyday work have anything to do with God's mission in the...