The cost of discipleship

When you look at the amount of persecution and martyrdom ofย Christians around the world, the statistics tell a sobering story. According to Open Doorsโ€™ World Watch List,ย 4,476 Christian were killed for faith-related reasons in 2024,ย and some 380 million Christians today suffer high levels of persecution and discrimination for their faith.[1] A martyr is literally a …

A grain of wheat

John 12:23-24; Luke 9:23 Sprouted shoots of barley and wheat. Walk into almost any church, and you will see one of two realities โ€“ either the predictable machinations of moralistic therapeutic deism and passive consumer religion,ย or the beauty, mystery and enthusiasm of a gathered community of Jesus followers, experimentally living out their faith. One reality …

Come and see

John 1:35-39 If you were a young Christian in the 1990s, you may have seen, or you may even have worn, a wrist band with the letters โ€œWWJD.โ€ Itโ€™s an acronym for the question, โ€œWhat would Jesus do?โ€ For the nerds among us, the phrase is drawn from the subtitle of a novel by Charles …