Pastor Matthew shared the following remarks with the New Hope Church community during the time of lament in the worship gathering on Sunday, May 31, 2020, less than a week after George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis. These past several days I’ve been in Tennessee because, as many of you know by now, my mom READ MORE
At a global ministry conference in Beirut, Lebanon, I was asked to share my reflections on the state of the American church and the implications of my observations for global ministry. Here is a survey of what I shared: First, evangelicalism, which is a rich theological construct, has been co-opted by American politics and is READ MORE
In the margin of my Bible, right next to Psalm 45, I have written the following words: take the lead, at the front, for causes bigger than you—don’t be shy. To the right of these words I have placed a star, scrawled in pencil, and to the left of these words an arrow pointing toward READ MORE
With a gentle nod toward General Dwight D. Eisenhower and his powerful message to the Allied forces just before they landed at Normandy in June 1944, the following statement, reframed as if from our Heavenly Father for our marvelous ministry team at New Hope Church, but poignant for the ministry laborer wherever she or he may READ MORE
Our world is starving for real men to step up and lead. Not empty-suits, vacant behind the eyes and the ties. Not passive fools whose life ambition is to be nothing more than the sex-starved, beer-crazed baffoons in the average commercial or sitcom. Not the guys who spend their time feeling sorry for themselves and READ MORE
I was asked recently to share about the way spiritual warfare works in my own life. What a tough thing to tackle! Dare I be brutally honest, conveying the depths that I can go in my own struggle against the “cosmic powers over this present darkness” (Ephesians 6:12)? Generally speaking I shared along two lines. READ MORE
