A family altar will alter your family.  One of the most important things you can do to secure the spiritual atmosphere in your home is establish a place of corporate prayer. For many families this is a difficult thing to accomplish.  Homework, ball practice, business trips, and extracurricular activities monopolize our time.  Unfortunately, some homes go weeks and months without praying together.  When constructing a family altar remember these five important suggestions:

1. Consistency

Inconsistency stumps our efforts and limits our growth.  Place this time together with your family as a top priority and stick to it.  Do it until …

The essence of evangelism is simply this: Ordinary people telling ordinary people about an extraordinary God. In my experience I have discovered that lost men never respond to a program, they only respond to people who are spiritually authentic and organically changed by the message they proclaim.

Oftentimes we make sharing the Gospel more difficult than it should be.  We live in a day and time when people think only trained theologians or snotty seminarians are the only ones who can articulate the faith.  Such a sentiment would not bode well with the early church.  The men who revolutionized the …

“There is little we touch, but we leave the print of our fingers behind” –Richard Baxter

“Influence is not twisting people’s arms to get them to do things.  It is not pleading with them to do things.  You don’t turn influence on and off like a light switch.  Influence is a mindset.  Influence is a cumulative pressure that gets thing moving and keeps them moving.” –Mel Lawrenz

“You don’t have to be a house-hold name to change the house.  You don’t have to have your name out on the marquee to change the marquee.  Small people doing small …

The most gut-wrenching, head-splitting moments for me personally have been those moments when I tinkered back and forth on the edge of a decision with hesitant and melancholy momentum.    James, the half-brother of Jesus, declared in his letter, “For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed…A double minded man is unstable in all his ways” (James 1:6-8).

Confession time: I have been that double-minded man.  I am not speaking doctrinally, I am speaking practically.  I have been tossed on life’s sea while desperately riding the ship called Uncertain.  Who among us …

Studies show that most men purchase gifts for their wives either the day before or the day of Valentines.  If you are in the south, this is an issue.  This is an issue because for the past three days most of us have been confined to our homes.  If you have bravely weathered the treacherous roadways, it has probably been to the grocery store for bread and milk, not jewelry and roses.  Honestly, how many men do you think bought Valentine gifts last month?  I hate to even remind you, but Valentine’s Day is tomorrow.

If you have preplanned, good …