Kidnapped, enslaved, and forgotten—until God spoke in a dream. The story of Patrick isn’t just history; it’s an invitation. What happens when we say yes to God, even when it leads us back to the places we’d rather avoid?
Happy Juneteenth! Here’s some books I’ve read the last few years that you can check out as we grow in our anti-racism together. The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James H. Cone The Color of Compromise: The Truth About the American Church’s Complicity in Racism by Jemar Tisby Woke Church: An Urgent Call for…
I preached at Rivertree Community Church here in Jackson, MI yesterday. Together we dove into Jesus’ parable about the Kingdom of Heaven being like leaven. You can check it out here or in the video above. My message starts right at the 36 minute mark.
There in the slums of Mozambique, Heidi Baker prayed for every single blind person she ran into, despite the fact that nothing ever happened. But God had promised her that one day she would see people healed, so rather than give up, she continued to pray over and over again. A year passed and no…
Acts 9:31 has a weird ring to it. It tells us that the early church walked “in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit.” Fear and comfort are not words we usually put together in the same sentence, but there they are. And they’re not even used as antonyms,…
At 17 years old, Ravi was about to commit suicide when God spoke audibly to him and stopped him. Since then, God has woken him up at 4 A.M. every day and given him instructions for ministry. One day God gave him directions to go and preach at a village in India with few specifics…
“What do you want?” the annoyed man seated across the plane aisle asked. Pastor John Wimber, the founder of the Vineyard church movement, had been caught staring at him; for he saw the word “adultery” supernaturally written across the man’s face. Then he sensed the Holy Spirit drop a woman’s name into his mind. “Does…
“Hey man, can I get a cigarette?” a drunk man sitting against the side of a building on the outskirts of downtown Jackson asked me. “Sorry man. I don’t have any of those to give,” I replied. “But I can pray for you if you want. I’m a pastor.” “A pastor? I’m so messed up…
“You just agree with them because of their money!” a congregant once lashed out at me. What nonsense, I thought to myself. I’m the son of a pastor—I knew there was never any money ahead of me way before I got into ministry. On top of that, I willingly and intentionally work in urban ministry…
“Heel realization” is a classic storytelling trope, but it also happens in real life. This is the moment that a character realizes they’re a villain and exclaims something like, “What have I done?” The Bible has such characters in its own text. While we often think of Jewish and Christian religion as two different things,…
You may not remember angels being present at Mount Sinai when Moses was given the law, but the rest of the Bible does. David, Stephen, Paul, and the author of Hebrews make mention of this theme. This is because Moses mentioned that God met him on Mount Sinai with thousands of his “holy ones.” The…
Jamin Bradley 