Deus Misereatur

  (From my letter to my congregation sent out on 15 April 2026) Since life at Heritage is about truth, worship, and Christian love to equip us in making disciples who will belong and believe with us as we grow in truth, worship, and Christian love, then we are rightly concerned about being disciple makers. In the words of Kevin DeYoung, “If you walk with God and walk with people, you’ll reach the next generation” (“The (Not-So-Secret) Secret to Reaching the Next Generation,” pg. 4). Simply put, disciple-making is not a program or project, but a person-to-person lifestyle, and our Lord Jesus has placed it in our hands with a powerful promise (Matthew 28:19-20).   Besides one-on-one fellowship ( Part 2 ) and parents raising their children ( Part 1 ), another venue where disciple-making naturally happens is in our Care Groups [Some congregations call them Life Group, Community Groups, or Small Groups]. The time we spend together eating, fellowshipping, applying Scripture to our...

  (This is from my letter to my congregation today) As you know, life at Heritage is about truth, worship, and Christian love to equip us in making disciples who will belong and believe with us as we grow in truth, worship, and Christian love. We are interested in being disciple makers. Last week I wrote about parents being on the front line of disciple making . Today, we widen our circle to consider the role we all have in making disciples.   Since disciple making is not a program or a project, but a person-to-person lifestyle, then disciple making calls for relationships. That seems very obvious, but is easily slipped past. As Marshall and Payne note, “The relational nature of training means that the best training will often occur by osmosis rather than formal instruction. It will be caught as much as it is taught” (Colin Marshall and Tony Payne, “The Trellis and Vine,” pg. 76). This is what is behind Kevin DeYoung’s point, when he writes: “If you walk with God and walk ...

 (From my letter to my congregation today, 18 March 2026) Life at Heritage is about truth, worship, and Christian love to equip us in making disciples who will belong and believe with us as we grow in truth, worship, and Christian love. We are rightly concerned about being disciple makers. It goes along with what our Lord told us in Matthew 28:18-20.   As I said last Sunday, disciple making is not a program or a project, but a person-to-person lifestyle. That’s what Kevin DeYoung tapped into when he wrote, “If you walk with God and walk with people, you’ll reach the next generation” (“The (Not-So-Secret) Secret to Reaching the Next Generation,” pg. 4). Before you complain about another age group, ask yourself, “Am I walking with God and walking with people?” In our present time in history, walking with people, face-to-face and not online or at a distance, as you walk with God is becoming extremely valuable.   And it’s important to see that Christian parents with child...