As I learn to adjust to the reality of diminished capacity, I’m seeing God prompt people who I’ve invested my life into and mentored in the Lord. Others are now step forward – without me asking – to fill the voids. This, to me, has been the most precious affirmation of God’s grace,
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Fathers and Teachers
May 11, 2012
6 Comments
Fathers (and mothers!) in the faith are compelled to help others be more than themselves and to exceed their own understanding and experiences.
Read more Outside the Box
March 20, 2012
3 Comments
Yes, Christ can be found in the box. But He does His best work, I’ve found, apart from and outside the box.
Read more Modern Day Pauls?
March 17, 2012
18 Comments
Beware of gifted but itinerant men and women who want to “help” your local church as modern-day Paul’s, but lack roots in, commission from and accountability to another functioning local church.
Read more True Leadership
February 10, 2012
2 Comments
What is the true measure of leadership in the Body of Christ?
Read more The Priesthood of All Believers
January 23, 2012
6 Comments
Then how is it, brothers? When you come together, ONLY ONE of you can have a psalm, a teaching, a tongue, a revelation, an interpretation….
Read more Old Covenant Church
November 25, 2011
10 Comments
Why are most churches Old Covenant, rather than New Covenant?
Read more Ordained to Fail
November 16, 2011
17 Comments
Those who take on the mantle of “Pastor” are operating within a framework, and on assumptions and traditions, that God never ordained.
Read more The Question of Leadership
October 31, 2011
4 Comments
We do it all backwards. We expect fellowship to emerge from leaders. In God’s providence, leaders emerge from fellowship.
Read more Narcissists with Power
October 9, 2011
3 Comments
I’ve finally come to realize that the most dangerous people, and the most charming, are narcissists with power.
Read moreMentoring Entrepreneurs
September 4, 2011
0 Comments
Here’s a TV program that’s been airing in our area about one of the ministries in which I’m involved. I, and others, have been mentoring and working with folks who are gifted with entrepreneurial aptitude. Our focus is helping them start and grow new businesses, based on solid, real-world experience and sound Biblical principles.
Read more Confronting Abusive Pastors, Part 4: Civil and Criminal Law
May 30, 2011
13 Comments
So you’ve tried to follow the procedure of 1 Tim. 5, as discussed in Part 3 of this series, by investigating and exposing church leaders who abused their positions of power and trust. But what if you were rebuffed? Or what if – despite public reprimand, confession and repentance – you reasonably fear that they [...]
Read moreConfronting Abusive Pastors, Part 3: A Mandatory Public Reprimand
May 29, 2011
3 Comments
What if an unrepentant leader’s sin is public and brings reproach on the church, or is an abuse of his position of trust and power in the church? Then he must be openly rebuked as a public warning to all – no exceptions! 1 Timothy 5 teaches this.
Read more Confronting Abusive Pastors, Part 2: How Should We React?
May 28, 2011
12 Comments
How should we react to an unrepentant pastor who’s used his position of trust and power to prey on women – often after turning to him for spiritual counsel and support during vulnerable times in their lives?
Read moreConfronting Abusive Pastors, Part 1: My Personal Angst
May 23, 2011
9 Comments
Much to my dismay, God keeps bringing people to my door who have been abused by a pastor or other trusted church leader. Over the last year, I’ve taken on three cases against abusive pastors. Two involve significant embezzlement and fraud by pastors in different churches. A third involves extensive sexual abuse and misconduct by [...]
Read more Understanding the Seven Motivational Gifts
January 2, 2011
0 Comments
This PowerPoint presentation looks at the seven gifts listed in Romans 12, and the motivations and ways that different people use those differing gifts.
Read moreChurch, Community, Faith, Fellowship, Gifts, Grace, Leadership, Mercy, Prophetic, Virtue
The Church in the New Testament: Its Form, Function and Purpose
October 31, 2010
2 Comments
Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride! In this PowerPoint presentation, all that you think of as “church” is about to be challenged so God can woo us back to being, once more, the multi-faceted, wonderful, exciting Body of Christ.
Read moreMy Prayer
September 26, 2010
1 Comment
How long, Lord, will you continue to tolerate those leaders among us who bring shame on your name and prey on your people? How long, Lord, will you tolerate those who enable such predators, thus allowing even more harm to your precious children? For your name’s sake, bring righteousness and judgment. Purify your Church, Lord, [...]
Read moreLife!
September 3, 2010
0 Comments
My greatest joy is walking with guys as they learn to stop being knuckleheads and become men; to minister to hurt and wounded women as they find not just healing, but health and wholeness; to let others come forth into life and gifting as they exceed me in the Kingdom. For all of this, Lord, [...]
Read more Helping or Enabling?
June 21, 2010
12 Comments
For me, if the Gospel doesn’t work for the “worse” of us, then it doesn’t work for any of us. But I’ve learned some hard lessons along the way.
Read moreReboot
March 15, 2010
3 Comments
God seems to be laying a foundation for yet another of His periodic, history-changing interventions in the affairs of man. Over the last two thousand years there have been many such paradigm shifts, and it’s naive to think that our current, settled status quo will somehow be exempt from the unsettling but progressive advance of [...]
Read more The Lost Art of Dialogue
October 18, 2009
6 Comments
Our whole paradigm for “doing church” needs to radically shift from monologues delivered from podiums that safely isolate our leaders from effective fellowship.
Read more Evangelical Prophets or Martyrs?
October 6, 2009
6 Comments
Why do those “on point” for the Kingdom of God increasingly seek refuge from the prevailing pop-theology (or dare I say lack of theology) and me-focused brand of Christianity that animates many of our church leaders and cuts believers off from the great historic doctrines and creeds of our faith?
Read more Participatory Church
September 17, 2009
23 Comments
My journey from traditional “church”, and some of what I’ve learned about being the church – the exciting, enticing, enthralling and multifaceted Body of Christ!
Read moreThe Challenge of Intercession
August 27, 2009
5 Comments
The intercessory prayer movement of the last several years is at a crucial junction. Driven by angst over our nation’s declining commitment to basic principles and the growing malaise of our increasingly dysfunctional churches, many Christians are crying out for God’s intervention. What I’ve rarely seen, however, is a matching embrace of effective, transformational repentance [...]
Read more The Gift of Mercy
August 4, 2009
8 Comments
Mercy is the most powerful, but most abused, of all the spiritual gifts.
Read more Following God’s Presence
August 2, 2009
12 Comments
Life, and the sweet presence of God, await us as He simply bids us “come”.
Read moreThe Church in D Pod
July 26, 2009
8 Comments
This Sunday, like most Sundays, I will be fellowshipping with the “Church in D Pod” at the local jail. D Pod is a unit housing around a hundred men, and God has been pouring out his new wine in an exciting way among those inmates. A couple of months ago, I started shifting my focus [...]
Read moreNew Wine Sucks
July 7, 2009
3 Comments
As God brings forth new wine in a new generation, there’s a fundamental dynamic that can’t be ignored. To put it bluntly, new wine sucks! In my younger days, I was an amateur wine maker. So I know what Jesus means when he says, “no one, having drunk old wine, immediately desires new; for he [...]
Read moreNew Wine And Old Skins
July 1, 2009
1 Comment
Here’s an interesting article, reprinted below, on how people will stick to what they believe or think even in the face of contrary facts or circumstances. As I’ve watched people react to challenges and controversies over the last couple of months, and to God bursting old wine skins as he brings forth new wine, I can [...]
Read more New Covenant Fellowship? Beware!
June 30, 2009
2 Comments
New Covenant Fellowship in Manassas, Virginia, has seen massive numbers of people leave as the church sinks into cult practices and cult doctrines, with massive fraud and improprieties by its remaining “leaders”.
Read more Dealing with Chronic Fatigue
June 17, 2009
6 Comments
As I struggle with an autoimmune condition called systemic sclerosis, I have begun to understand chronic fatigue and how to cope with its effects.
Read moreFellowship and Light
June 1, 2009
1 Comment
“This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he [...]
Read moreChurch As Starbucks?
May 26, 2009
5 Comments
I’m not sure about who did this parody, or know anything about them, but it’s too good to pass up. No church is perfect, and each has its problems and quirks, but I suspect we’ve nonetheless all experienced something like this video. So the question I’d like to pose is whether “church” as we’ve known [...]
Read more Dealing With Church Leadership Abuse
May 20, 2009
14 Comments
So how do we handle leadership failings, especially when they go beyond merely personal sin and involve an abuse of position or trust which harms the church and hurts others?
Read moreJim Wright
Church sower, mentor, teacher, foe of tyrants, friend of the dispossessed, Christian, thinker, author, attorney, entrepreneur, pilot and so-so bass fisherman.According to the internet tracking service Networked Blogs, Crossroad Junction is among the top 100 blogs worldwide on "Christianity", among the top 100 on "faith", and also among the top 100 blogs on "culture".
As a friend said on Facebook, "I don't write things people need to know. I share things. If people care, they comment." I invite you to care.
I have nothing to sell, and nothing to peddle (not even myself!), but I love to hear from folks. You can contact me at Fulcrum Ministries.
Let’s Connect
- The Mythology of Tithing
- A Hollow Gospel
- Participatory Church
- Rethinking Missions
- Sufficient Grace
- Modern Day Pauls?
- Ordained to Fail
- Beyond Evangelical? (Part 3)
- Pimping the Gospel
- Does Jesus Want You to Vote?
- God in a Box
- Sufficient Grace, Part III
- Fathers and Teachers
- Peeking Through the Cracks
- “Us” and “Them”
- Is There Not a Cause?
- Millennials and Old Farts
- The Fierceness of God
- Sufficient Grace, Part II
- Inside Out
- Jim Wright: Thank you, Constantine. I agree....
- Constantine: Greetings from the suffering Athens, Greece. I...
- Jim Wright: A box is how we limit Christ to our own attitudes,...
- Ockert van der Westhuysen: I am curious about the 'legalism', which I don't q...
- Rob Kampen: Too often (always?) our view of who God really is,...
- Jim Wright: Esther, the points in my blog go "beyond" (no pun ...
- Esther: Hi! I haven't commented here before, but this pos...
- Barbara Alsip: This is good, Jesus wants us to be one absolutely,...
- Eli: brilliant, great challenge and encouragement. i ho...
- Janet Maxim: To look for Christ in others, rather than analyzin...
