http://joestallard.com Tue, 23 Jun 2009 02:50:24 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en A few years back, there was a movie introduced with this title. It told the story of a young woman being held captive in an abusive relationship and her attempts to escape. The parallels and comparisons to today's western church are quite remarkable - with one important exception. Today's church is sleeping ... http://joestallard.com/sleeping-with-the-enemy/ In the last installment of this series you were given the opportunity to view one of the most popular video clips ever posted at tangle.com. So, in the interest of keeping things "fair and balanced," I want to present you with one that falls at the other end of the spectrum. Having ... http://joestallard.com/offensive-unpopular/ This is the second installment of the series on deception in the church today. My original intent was to present you with a single post and highlight a few sacred cows that seem to be fairly commonplace in churches, however, it grew to be such a large article that I've decided ... http://joestallard.com/deception-in-the-ranks-a-little-leaven/ Ready to slaughter some sacred cows? For some time now, I've been observing how many of today's "christians" have willingly swallowed the deception that is rampant in today's world. And, for the most part, the church has been the first to belly up to the trough. There are exceptions, of course, but ... http://joestallard.com/spiritual-or-soulish-deception-in-the-ranks/ There is one area of the Christian life that I notice many of us encounter real difficulty. And I believe a lot of this difficulty stems from a combination of bad teaching and our own misconceptions. It's certainly no secret to anyone that attempts to live the Christian life that there ... http://joestallard.com/a-few-rules-of-engagement/ Most of us have been there at some point in our lives - faced with the prospect of losing a loved one. And that's exactly where we were just a few years back. As it often does, the situation we were in had been thrust upon us without any warning. I had ... http://joestallard.com/if-you-believe-seeing-his-glory/ Since we're now in the throes of a new year, I finally bit the bullet and updated the site (did someone say, "what, again?"). Yes, again. And I really say that with just a bit of reluctance. I actually liked the old design, but I had begun to notice some things about ... http://joestallard.com/new-year-new-look/ Over the past few weeks, some of those closest to me have been caught up in what has been revealed to be a two-pronged attack by the enemy. The attack itself began, as it almost always does, very subtly and almost unnoticed. Building into a major battle. I want to spend a ... http://joestallard.com/a-double-edged-attack/ Just as fitting, this particular post could well have been named Continuing Lessons in God's Economy. It certainly is no secret that our economy is, at the least, a bit troubled right now. Banks in trouble, government bailouts, record unemployment levels and a stock market behaving like Chicken Little. And the whole ... http://joestallard.com/constant-amazement/ Some time back, my wife had gotten a phone call from one of the banks that she does business with in her job at the car dealership. It seems that they had been running a promotion and she was to receive a gift card from the bank in the amount of ... http://joestallard.com/another-lesson-in-gods-economy/