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 There is a magnificent evergreen tree on the road to our house. It seems completely out of place in the swamp like terrain of our neighborhood.  It towers above the small house near it and stands adjacent to a sugar cane field. I don’t know the species, but it looks like it belongs in the Rocky Mountains and not just outside of Broussard. My wife says it has been there for years. She insists it was Christmas tree size many of the twenty plus years we have been passing it by, but in recent years has shot up to its current height.It’s so like we should be. We want our world to be more Christian, but the truth of it is that we are suppose to live in a world where we are dramatically different and stand apart. Folks should be saying “What is that?” When they pass us by.Our growth should be like the tree as well. We may sit planted for years, but in God’s good time, he puts all the elements in place for a dramatic spiritual growth spurt. Maybe suddenly we experience more Son shine.  Maybe our life experience suddenly catches up with us and […]

Satan desires disunity in the church. How do we fight that? We use the tools that God has given us. According to Ephesians 4, he has given each of us a spiritual gift that is given to serve one another. He has given you a gift. He doesn’t just pull gifts out of the bag and toss them around.Your gift has been picked specifically for you and for your situation.  Part of mature responsibility is to learn what our gift is. We do that through listening, prayer and acting out the urges from the Holy Spirit. We listen and we do.  But why? The gifts are the glue of the body. They are what holds us together. They provide unity.  We have unity when we have a common purpose AND a role to play in bringing that purpose about.  This means that pastors aren’t suppose to do everything. It also means that church staff is not suppose to do everything. The pastors are the shepherds, the equippers, the leaders, everyone else is a minister.  We are all to minister to one another. There is a church that is incomplete without you and you are incomplete without that church. You do not have […]

“And having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace” (Ephesians 6:15). So far four of your brothers and sisters have offered to meet with me to share their story. Thanks to them all. We can look forward to hearing this stories soon. It’s never too late to add your name to the list. nsigur@gmail.com  Paul tell us we need to be ready to share our story.  He writes in Romans 10:13–15: “‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’” How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’” (NIV) In the original Greek, the word preparation used in Ephesians 6:15 can be defined as “firm-footing; a strong foundation.” We need to have a firm foundation in God’s Word. This word preparation could also be translated as “readiness.” The idea is to be ready at all times to share the gospel Sometimes we think that means we need to […]

Satan is the great enemy of God and his people, and one of his enduring tactics to disrupt the church and to hinder our witness to the world by fostering disunity. He does it by eroding the love between brothers and sisters in Christ. Satan is actively working in every church right now to drive a wedge  between the people there.  He will split churches into factions by first making those Christians find reasons not to love one another, not to bear with one another in love. We need to be aware of Satan’s tactics, but we don’t need to be afraid.  People in the local church are bound together.  We all chained together in unity through Christ, through what he has done in each of us. The problem is that we don’t recognize the commonality of our experience with the Lord. Most of us know very little about how Christ has worked in the life of the christian who sits next to us in church. I would like to see us do something about that.  I would like to do a series of interview with fellow Christians. I want to hear everyone’s story about what Christ has meant in their […]

I was born and raised a Catholic. I was born and raised VERY Catholic. I went to Catholic School. I served as a Altar Boy. I even went to the seminary for a year and a half. By the time I met my bride I had drifted away from that church, but I was still Catholic. She was a fiery little red-headed cute baptist. She greatly confused my world.She used terms like “personal relationship” and “born again.” I thought she was pretty crazy but she was so hot… I ignored that. Okay so I was twenty. I proposed the same month I met her and we were married soon thereafter; but my confusion continued for many years.I don’t think I’m the only one. I grew up looking to the church for all things spiritual: salvation, training, service. We evangelicals look at things differently. In fact, I think most everyone does now. Salvation is a personal thing. We are each responsible (that’s the key word) for our salvation. Salvation doesn’t come from membership in a church either by being born into it, joining up or getting baptized there.So what’s the function of the church? The church’s job is to mature […]

 This was a week of many lessons. Perhaps the most important was the reminder that “We are the Church.” During a Kairos weekend, one of the most memorable talks is entitled “We are the Church.” The purpose of the talk is to remind inmates that the church is not a building, organization or denomination, not a pastor or youth director, worship team. We are the church. This is particularly important to the incarcerated who have often  had a bad experience with “church” and have thrown out Christianity with the bad taste they have for a church experience. It’s also an important lesson when you lose your pastor. Many in a good church have had a bad experience with church somewhere else. One of the new elements of the church in which they found Jesus is the pastor. But it’s just an element. Jesus is the imnportnt part. The pastor is not the church. For some who have equated the Pastor with the Church, this was a harder week than it needed to be. I pray especially for those.  The rest of us need to remember that lesson, for it is easily forgotten. In the weeks and months ahead we […]

Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!” Matthew 3:2Over two thousand years ago, Jesus came to announce the arrival of the Kingdom of God. Sometimes I feel like He got the timing all wrong. Like when I watched the Presidential Debates. Seemed like less than perfect guys who all want to be King. Don’t they know the King has come?And there lies the problem. Jesus brought good news. One day He will come back and his Kingship will be obvious and undeniable. What a day that will be. I can’t wait.  But there is more good news. We don’t have to wait. We can make Him King now and begin to reap the benefits of living the in the Kingdom of God now. Admittedly its a bit strange to live in the Kingdom when those around you are still fighting about being King themselves. But there are those who see and those who remain blind. One day every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord. Some of us just realize that it’s wise to do it now. It’s not just because we want to be some of the first, but because there are […]

 People don’t meet the Lord in the Church. Not usually anyway. They meet Him out in the world. They don’t always know that it’s Him. Sometimes they don’t figure that out until later, perhaps in Church. They meet Him as they struggle through their lives, not finding happiness, joy eluding them.  They live in fear; until they see someone who should be fearful; but lives fearlessly. The temptation becomes too great. Finally, they ask or they just listen closer and discover the reason for the peace, the cause of the absence of fear. One day last week I  noticed a change in a waitress that serves me often. Before she had seem defeated and gloomy. Suddenly she smiled more. She was friendlier. Then one day, out of the blue, she began talking to me about going to church, something she had just started doing. We had a great conversation about the Lord. At one point she said, “You seem to have peace in your life.”  She had seen something she wanted. Jesus had shown her something in my life without me even knowing it. I don’t always feel peaceful. But there was enough there for her to see Jesus. […]