Tommy Mann

One of the newest debates among Christianity is over our name: are we still called Christians, or is it time for something new? Some have become so dogmatic in this discussion that they refuse to be labeled a Christian. The Christ Followers say that the term Christian has a negative connotation in our culture; they assert that society has a bad taste in its mouth from all the hypocrites in Christianity, from disgraced leaders and fallen pastors, to money-grubbing faith healers and abortion-clinic bombers. On this issue, I cannot help but agree with them. These tragedies all hurt the cause of Christ. But the way I see it, the world should have a negative view of Christians, just in a different way. In Acts 11:26 we see the first time that the disciples are called Christians. It is important to note that they were called Christians; they did not call themselves Christians. History shows us that the term was actually bestowed upon them by the ones who criticized them. Society di...

In case you were wondering… When I was living in the dorm of my Bible college there were a handful of guys that loved to stay up late debating the nitty-gritty matters of the Bible. These people would spend hours yelling at each other over the necessities, like whether or not Adam had a bellybutton ( of course not !). And they loved to be the one to come up with the most controversial new idea, then adopt that into their theology. I am not one of those people. It doesn’t matter if Adam had a bellybutton or not ( he didn’t !); I don’t want to spend all my time trying to convince a Christian about some unimportant biblical trivia question. Instead, I want to try to convince the lost to give their lives to Christ. Furthermore, I want to teach Christians about the things that do matter. As the pastor of students at our church I have an obligation to teach our students, but this teaching should not be confined to just Sunday and Wednesday. If I have the opportunity to teach about...

Aside from Tommy, Legalist might just be what I’ve been called most recently. The tricky thing about legalism is that it is easy to accuse someone of being a legalist, and it is hard to prove that you are not one. So with my work cut out for me, let me try to explain why I am not a legalist. A legalist is a person who emphasizes the outward appearance over the inward appearance. For example, a legalist might have a rule that you always attend church on Sunday, but once at church, he may never pay attention. To a legalist, the matters of the heart don’t matter as long as you look right on the outside. One of the obvious problems with legalism is that the legalist soon begins to demand that everyone else look and act just like he does, even though a lot of what he does is not biblical. There are no moderate legalists; they are all extreme, and they all think they are better than everybody. To the observer, there is a very fine line between a legalist and person who is simply tryin...

One of my favorite parts of what I do is going into the schools. We have a Bible study called First Priority that meets at the high school, and at our three junior highs at Lockhart, Sims, and Jonesville. There are hundreds 6th-8th graders that pack out Sims every Wednesday morning, and some days it can be difficult to keep the crowd quiet. I’ll be the first to admit that the majority of these students are not there because of their love for Jesus or their desire to hear the message, but we always believe that we are helping to make a difference. Last Wednesday, due to other circumstances, I was the only pastor at Sims. The room quickly got out of control, and I was even mocked by a few students. In my frustration I later told my wife that I wasn’t going back to Sims. That night at church a lady handed me a hand written note from one of her students who goes to Sims. The note was very simple, thanking me for visiting each week and teaching her the Bible. Aside from making me cr...

You’re probably surprised that it took me this long to do it, but I am finally going to blog about one of my favorite people, Tim Tebow. There is a lot of controversy surrounding the 30 second commercial that Tebow will appear in with his mother, Pam, during the Super Bowl. The ad is sponsored by Focus on the Family (who did not put any money into the project). Naturally, many women’s groups have been upset about the ad, which is a little funny since it has not aired, and only a select group has seen it. There has been no transcript released, except that CBS has said the words “abortion” and “pro-life” do not appear in the ad. Every fan of abortion pretends that they view their sacred right as a necessary evil, claiming that they want to limit the number of abortions (while making it cheaper, easier, faster, and available to minors without parental consent—you know, all the things that will limit the number of abortions). They want the undecided segment of America to think they on...