Free Daily Meditation mp3s

I write little essays from time to time, usually in response to frequent questions I receive from my students (sometimes in conjunction with my responsibilities as a ministerial trainer). I have gathered as many as I can think of here. Enjoy. Feel free to reuse them in noncommercial contexts. Likewise for the Bible studies.

Essays

This little essay is something I’ve begun making available at my meetings for nonbelievers to take on the way out. I talk about three simple reasons to believe in God, and then show how to go about deciding whether Jesus is truly the path to God. This is a companion piece to the Why Jesus essay – it explains what we can know about Jesus even if we don’t think that the Bible is inspired. Questions include: “Is There Any Record of Jesus Outside the Bible?”, “What Did Jesus Look Like?” and “What Did Jesus Teach?” I wrote this piece for my seminary’s alumni magazine, . If you ever wonder why people like me are so passionate about college ministry, this will clear things up for you. This is a 10 day devotional guide for new students at Stanford which begins on the first day of New Student Orientation. This is the Fall Quarter 2010 version. This is a meditation on one of the foundational concepts of character. This is one of my favorite essays. Thinking about hell makes many Christiansuncomfortable and (ironically) even keeps some unbelievers from considering the faith, so in this essay I seek to make the doctrine comprehensible to people. . Every once in a while I meet someone who’s not sure whether they’re a Christian or not, and so I wrote this meditation on 1st John to help them discern where they’re at with Jesus. This isn’t really an essay on how to share your faith effectively so much as an essay on how not to irritate God when sharing your faith. Some thoughts on evaluating my use of time. A very short essay directed at ministers (although there’s really only one line making it minister-specific). Nothing very original here, but we find it helpful. This isn’t really a full-fledged essay. It’s a one-page summary of what the Bible says about money (which is more than most people think). : a very short summary of the Biblical evidence for the deity of Christ. It’s written for believers, in case that wasn’t obvious from the title. : an exhortation to Christiansto be baptized along with an explanation of what baptism is all about.

Tools

This 3 page handout guides you through a week of praying for those whom you serve using the prayers of the New Testament as a model. This one page handout is one of the most important things I teach people. I forget where I first learned this idea, but I know it is not original to me. This is an unusual little tool. I wrote it because I require my ministerial trainees to read from the writings of other religions. This little handout explains why and how.

Bible Studies Most of these are for personal and not group use. They could be adapted for group use, but don’t think you can download them and stroll into a small group meeting with no extra prep.

This is a very good study to give to a student who believes that Bible is God’s word but is uncertain about what it means to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. It is for personal and not group use. This study will require a lot of thought and a willingness to think outside the evangelical box. This is a study for worship leaders, although I suppose any Christian could profit from it. I really like studies like this one which list many examples of something from the Bible and ask you to infer conclusions. They feel so scientific. This is a handout I give my ministerial trainees before they wade into the vast literature for and against women in ministry. It’s a way of making sure that they’re familiar with all the relevant texts before they see them cited. This personal Bible study is about giving and receiving rebukes. Mostly receiving. Okay, it’s really about receiving rebukes and only implicitly about offering them. This is a very short Bible study comparing how Jesus talked withNicodemus with how he talked with the woman at the well. A very short study about not being a slacker. A one page study of a passage most people don’t know as well as they think. A very short study for new campus ministers. I bet there are people shocked to know that I’ve spent time reflecting on what it means to speak wisely. A study for new ministers. Kind of self-explanatory. This study is worded for new campus ministers, but 98% of it works for people in other vocations.