Mike Leake

Last year I wrote a little devotional on the book of Colossians and gave it to my son for his fifth birthday. We gave him the devotional and his own Children’s Bible. At the time I simply titled it “Isaiah’s Big Boy Bible Study”. Now I’ve been inspired to tweak that devotional and make it available for others. The goal of the project is to continue to write devotional on various books of the Bible that parents (primarily dads) can use with their sons*. It is written on a level for K-2 children. The first devotional is on Paul’s letter to the Colossians. It is tentatively subtitled Jesus … [Read more...] about Help Title My Next Writing Project

Last July I felt convicted to be more intentional in praying for my wife. I figured that it might help me to join with a few other guys and commit to using the month of August to pray every day for our wives. To that end I set up the 31 Day Pray For Your Wife challenge. I was astonished to see over 2,000 men commit to praying. And I’m even more astonished to see that this challenge is still going on every day—thanks to our free eBook and the P4W app. (All our challenges can be easily accessed here). In October and January we prayed for our sons and daughters. Once again many people … [Read more...] about Will You Join Us For 31 Days of Purity?

“Get me my amanuensis,” shouts an angry Paul. An amanuensis is the guy that writes letters. In this case he’ll write out the angry ranting of a perturbed apostle. You see, Paul was just informed that some dudes are going about Rome preaching in such a way that it will stir up trouble for him. Their preaching is relatively orthodox but it’s vindictive. They hope that as they preach Paul’s gospel that it will cause more pain for him in prison. And Paul’s going to have none of it. After all he’s got a name to protect. So, Paul calls for his amanuensis to set these turkeys straight and put … [Read more...] about When Paul Couldn’t Move On

Jim was thirty-three, but the marvel in his eyes made him look like a toddler exploring new worlds. One searching look at his own pale white skin and then another look at the man lying on the bed. It was like looking in a mirror—but only a mirror that told the future. The same hooked nose that stared at him in the mirror in the morning was the same one on the face of the man on the bed. He chuckled a little as he looked down and realized that at thirty-three he was already dressing like his grandfather—scraggily beard, flannel shirt, jeans that were on day three, and tennis shoes that had … [Read more...] about Are Believers and Unbelievers All That Different?

For the third time that night my chattering teeth woke me. You’d think I could have defended myself. My foe was barely 40 pounds, but that little dude could grip a blankie. On and on this battle waged through the night. I would awake and re-steal the covers. I would warm up and drift into a comfortable sleep. As if he could smell my security, the little minion would slowly pull the massive blanket over his tiny frame, uncovering his poor daddy in the process. Every time I thought I had myself covered, secure, and able to finally get a little peaceful sleep I’d wake up, cold, shivering, … [Read more...] about Fighting for Cover

“…since Genesis 3, legalism (self-salvation) has always been our biggest problem. And this problem does not shift to something else when the cultural mood shifts–it just takes one of two different forms.” –Tullian Tchividjian. (Quoted from Church We Have a Problem) Tchividjian has argued quite forcefully that legalism and lawlessness aren’t two ditches for us to fall into. Instead they are two different responses to the one problem—legalism. One person attempts to save himself by his good works (legalism). Another person attempts to save himself and find freedom and life by breaking the rules … [Read more...] about Is Legalism the Problem of the Hour?

There are some jokes that you know a preacher is going to tell. Like whenever he goes through a list like the ten commandments. Almost as if it’s a duty forced upon him he’ll tell the joke, “All of you that didn’t raise your hand and confess to lying—just told a lie.” The congregation dutifully chuckles as if they’ve heard the joke for the first time. But are they lying with their fake laughter? I’m asking this just to point out that we can get distracted about lying and try to justify our lies as if a good portion of them are actually for the sake of others and advancement of the … [Read more...] about 6 Reasons We Lie

“Everybody’s opinion is valid,” said the teacher as she parroted the curriculum. It was one of those happy-feely Monday’s where the school was trying to help us love one another, accept differences, and play nice. We likely would have sang Kumbaya if it wasn’t so offensive to the atheists. One of my wise-cracking friends asked what I thought was a pretty solid question. “What if my opinion is that no other opinion is valid?” I don’t remember her answer. And I didn’t really care, nor did the kid asking the question. We just wanted to laugh. But I actually think that he had a good point. … [Read more...] about What If Your Opinion Doesn’t Matter?

The inquisitive lads look at me like a little dog when he knows you are getting ready to drop treats in his bowl. I’m so happy that they are this hungry. We’re learning how to study the Bible better and they are soaking it up. “Jesus is the hero of every text”, I inform them. Then I go about showing how this is the case and how to find Jesus in texts of the Old Testament. Then one of our guys goes home and decides he wants to apply what he has been learning to 1 Chronicles 16:4-7: Then he appointed some of the Levites as ministers before the ark of the Lord, to invoke, to thank, and to … [Read more...] about Is Jesus Really the Hero of Every Text?

For the past month or so I’ve been slowly reading Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry. It’s a fascinating look at how LEGO nearly went under about a decade ago, but righted the ship when they returned to what made LEGO unique. It’s an engaging story and one that I believe has many lessons for the Church. In the 1990’s LEGO responded to a rapidly changing toy market by pursuing innovation in a number of areas. In essence they got away from the brick (the thing that makes LEGO unique) and it almost killed them: The company was trying … [Read more...] about Does Christian Blogging Rend the Bride of Christ?