Honest Thoughts from a Pastor

When I decided to blog again, I was faced with some questions I had to answer. Was I going to change the focus of the blog? Was I going to target a specific audience, or was I going to paint with a broad brush? After having over 1,600 followers on the old blog, was I going to try to rebuild and regain a large audience like that or be content if the audience was smaller? I decided to go broad and narrow.

My writing style tends to lean on the encouraging side with the occasional rant that challenges status quo Christianity. If you want someone who will crusade on preferential issues or controversial doctrinal stances, you don’t have to look far to see them. In my broad-narrow approach, you will find me crusading one thing – the Lord Jesus Christ.

Some may ask why I don’t spend time hard-hitting some of the hot topics in evangelical Christianity. I will be glad to tell you. It is not that I don’t hold conservative stances. I have friends on both sides – some who see me as too conservative and others who see me as not conservative enough. I would much rather develop relationships with people and have civil discussions than dogmatically get in someone’s face and lose my chance to share the most important thing of all – Jesus loved you enough to die for your sins and give eternal life to all who would place their faith and trust in Him. I would call that broad and narrow. I’m not going to limit myself to only those who believe like me, but I will be driven in what I do by the great love of the Lord Jesus.

As I close this post, I want to ask some questions and make a plea to you. The question: Does proving yourself right or strongly conservative mean more to you than the souls of people? Jesus never said that a lost world would know we are Christians by how we will vote at the next denominational conference or whether we will boycott what we don’t like. He said they will know we are His disciples if we have love for one another (John 13:35). My plea is this – make Jesus the most important thing! He promised to draw people to Himself if we lift Him up. Let’s get to our real job – lifting up Jesus (narrow) for all to see and know (broad).