Mel Lawrenz

Mel Lawrenz serves as Teaching Pastor at Elmbrook Church and is the author of 19 books with InterVarsity Press, Zondervan, Baker, Jossey-Bass, and others.

The Willow Creek Crisis – Time of Reckoning for All Leaders

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The ever-widening scandal of Pastor Bill Hybels’ behavior with women over many years is only the outermost edge of the shockwave. Equally as devastating has been the woeful response of Willow Creek’s leaders. The resignation of Hybel’s successor, Steve Carter, with a stinging rebuke of Willow Creek’s leaders’ response, all before the convening of the Global Leadership Summit, ought to put hundreds of thousands of Christian leaders around the world on notice: this is a time reckoning. And an opportunity to correct.

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The Power of Devotion

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Devotion is the conscious commitment to doing those things that will fill our lives with what is good and right. We were designed to be filled by the God who created us. That is how love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control become the shape of our character. In its simplest form,

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Building Character

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The word “character” goes back to the word for a stamp which leaves an imprint, like the dies used to make coins. Your character is the very shape of your inner life (your thoughts, motives, values, impulses, responses), which is revealed in the shape of your outer life (your actions, behaviors, speech, relationships). And then

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Opening the Doorway to God

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Below are two prayers that may be helpful in your pattern of reading and studying Scripture. And here is a sermon Mel Lawrenz some time back about how to make prayer a practical pattern in real life. “Real Prayer: How Prayer Works in Good Time and in Bad Times”… Sermon: “Real Prayer” A Prayer Before Reading

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The Sound of Freedom

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Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. Leviticus 25:10 If you go to the city of Philadelphia today, you can visit a historic eighteenth-century building which contains a room called Independence Hall. This ordinary room was the place where, on July 4, 1776, men signed the Declaration of

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Reverence and Respect

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On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?” He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with

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Facing Mortality

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Today I feel compelled to write a more personal expression of what it means to “live the Bible.” I have not mentioned before now in these writings that in the last year I have had to exercise faith in God’s character like never before. One year ago this week my 30-year-old daughter Eva suddenly died.

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Like Christ, In His Death

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In his poignant letter to the Philippians, written from desperate moments in prison when Paul thought that his life may be poured out in sacrifice at any time, he contemplated the form of death and the form of resurrection that was his hope. What more complete proof do we need of the transforming Christ, than

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