Author: Trevor Komatsu

The Spotify Top Ten and Discipleship According to Spotify’s most recent report, there are 675 million monthly users. The music streaming service is particularly popular with young people, with an estimated 62% of these users falling within the 18–34-year-old age bracket. Because Spotify is ubiquitous among teens and young adults, the weekly Top Ten Chart functions as a “pulse check” on youth culture. What are their favorite songs? What are the songs about? What does this tell us about their values? Whether you are a faithful Spotify user or a parent trying to figure things out, I want to give three principles for engaging Spotify’s weekly top ten like a Christian. 1. Music can shape your thinking and desires. Listening to your favorite song on repeat is like spending quality time with...

When You Don’t Like Your Job “Here we go again,” I said as I clocked into my shift at a local department store. I was newly married, working full time, and trying to get through seminary. That morning was a low point for me. I felt stuck at a job I did not like, surrounded by employees I did not get along with, and now I had another 12-hour shift to get through. As I walked through the store to reach my department, I wished I could float away from work and be elsewhere. My experience is not unique. Many people struggle to find enjoyment and purpose in their work. What if I told you that God completely transformed my attitude? So much so, that I went from watching the clock as a bored sales associate to being sad that my shift was over because there was more to be done. The Passage that...

Jesus Cared for Kids We live in a culture where children are devalued, cast aside, and treated as burdens. The Bible teaches that the ancient world bears striking similarities to this modern mentality. In Mark 10, the disciples are trying to stop kids from seeing Jesus. Here was their logic: Jesus is important. Children are not important. Jesus needs to do important things and see important people. Therefore, we need to keep children away from Jesus. This logic gets turned upside down with Jesus’ words in verse 14, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them…”. Far from pushing kids to the side as unimportant, Jesus commands them to be brought near! Jesus cares about kids. Because of this, we, too, want to care for the kids and teens that are in our church. Here are three steps you...

When Conflict Comes to Church The local church is an amazing place. There is nothing like it in the entire world. The church is a spiritual family adopted by God, purchased by Jesus, and united by Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:4-7). The church is a spiritual greenhouse where Christians are discipled into maturity and engage in mutual care. Because all these things are true, conflict in the church can be particularly disorienting and damaging. As Christians, we are called to be “eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3). If you want to obey this commandment, you must know how to help resolve conflict in the church. Here are three steps you can take to help those who are in conflict at church. Step 1: Address their Heart If you want to solve a problem, you...

The Post-Graduation Exodus Something has gone terribly wrong. For the past few decades, young people are exiting the churches they grew up in at alarming rates.[1] Vast amounts of church kids are graduating from our youth groups and never coming back. What happened? What went wrong? These kids were raised in the church. If we want to understand Christianity’s decline and secularism’s rise among young adults, we must answer a simple question: who is teaching the children? This question matters because students will become like their teachers. Jesus says in Luke 6:40, “A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher.” When Jesus uses the word “teacher,” he is not referring exclusively to what happens during school hours (although this is...

Reclaiming a Biblical Vision for Dads To say that our culture is confused about gender and gender roles would be the understatement of the century. Young girls are trained by the feminists to be aggressive in the workplace, while young men are domesticated and told to be gentle lambs who must never mansplain. This has produced a topsy-turvy situation where society’s ideal woman is a dominant leader, and the ideal man is passive, gentle, and always agreeable. While this vision is bad for society at large, it is especially damaging in the home. A home led by a domineering wife and a passive husband is a disordered home. If First Baptist Church is going to reach all of Jacksonville, our marriages and families must look remarkably different than the culture. Our homes must be places where...