Every time I go to the dentist the hygienist yells at me for not flossing.  I can’t say anything because she usually has three hands in my mouth along with an assortment of utensils.  All I can do is stare up at her and try to indicate with my eyes that I’m truly sorry and […]

Everyone is on a mission.  Jesus wants us to join his.  Before coming to Jesus, my mission was “me” (to be honest, for a long time afterwords too!).  Comfort, money, status, coolness, freedom from hassles, acceptance, you name it, we go after it…  even those of us who claim to be and truly are followers […]

Following Christ is more about the heart than I have often realized.  I’m not talking about the physical organ pumping in the chest, I’m talking about the spiritual “organ” described in the Bible as our will, the receiver of our thoughts, emotions, physical impulses and the part of us that leads us.  When God chose […]

In defining the purpose of Opiso we acknowledge a tension that exists in the spiritual growth process: “Rock solid truths are in the Scriptures, but people need time, space and a process to integrate them into their lives.”  A seeker/new believer recently shared with me how someone had trespassed the “need time, space and […]

I recently made friends with a Christian in a distant country (aren’t e-mail and Skype terrific?!), and in the course of our friendship she asked for prayer for some members of her extended family, because they were in the midst of a family crisis. So I began a period of earnest prayer for her […]

But I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you shortly, so that I also may be encouraged when I learn of your condition. For I have no one else of kindred spirit who will genuinely be concerned for your welfare. For they all seek after their own interests, not those […]

In his first poem on prayer, George Herbert (1593–1633) refers to prayer as the soul’s blood. What can he mean by this? Two things, I think.
First, I think he means that, just as the blood is one of the essential agents for sustaining our life, so prayer […]

No. And yes. The master of spiritual growth is the Spirit and only he can guide us. But the Spirit works through people and the OPISO people want to help position you to sense the leading and work of the Spirit in your life. We have identified some basic traits of a […]

Last night my wife and I watched “Munich,” the movie about assassins sent to kill the Palestinian kidnappers/murderers of 11 members of the 1972 Israeli Olympic team. It was appropriately rated “R” as it had all the biggies: “strong graphic violence, some sexual content, nudity and language.” In terms of images on […]

OK, not entirely, but there is something missing. While we hope to build community through OPISO, we want to be real about the limitations of cyber-friends. If you really want to grow, you need flesh and blood in your life. We think OPISO will work best as a resource to spark growth […]