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Video Contest: Listening Prayer

After releasing The Art of Listening Prayer over ten years ago, I have been blessed enough to hear countless stories of how Listening Prayer and the simple concept of hearing God’s voice has changed lives.  Realizing this, I want to give you all the opportunity to share your stories of hearing God’s voice and how that […]

The 10 Year Art Of Listening Prayer is HERE!

Ten years ago I released The Art of Listening Prayer: Hearing God’s Voice Amidst Life’s Noise, a 26-day devotional that introduced the basics of recognizing and listening to the voice of God. (Get it here.) It was at that time I, myself discovered and experienced this principle in my own life. Since then, it’s impacted […]

Introducing The Three-Day Listening Prayer Devotional

Today I’m thrilled to launch The Three-Day Listening Prayer Devotional. Since launching The Art of Listening Prayer a decade ago, I wanted to offer a brief primer that can introduce you to the life-changing experience of listening prayer.  You can download it here. The Three-Day Listening Prayer Devotional devotional will help you: Hear and interpret […]

Listening prayer groups start 7/18 – sign up!

Periodically we start virtual small groups for those who want to grow in their ability to hear the Lord’s voice. We’re starting another one the week of 7/18. Sign up by emailing one of the people (Mary Beth or Kevin) listed below. Heidi Landes gives a testimony concerning her experience: I was craving community and […]

Listening prayer is normal for Christians

In past blog posts, I’ve made the case for listening prayer. Here I take on those who try to make the case that God limits himself to speaking through the Bible, that in fact listening prayer is not normal. This is an unusually long post because I want to help equip you to respond to […]

The case for listening prayer

Get a Free eBook: Do you want to grow closer to God in your prayer times? I’ve written a free guide called The Three Day Listening Prayer Devotional and I’d love for you to download it. Click here to download the free devotional. Vicki Gross was struggling with the concept of listening prayer, and described a breakthrough that the […]

Listening prayer and new age faith

AIM encourages short-term mission participants to listen for God’s voice. After doing so, one said, “Sometimes I find myself feeling hesitant to just sit and listen to God because I think that he’s going to tell me what I did wrong that day or bring up something from the past, but the other day he […]

The critics and listening prayer

People like me who believe that God speaks to people using a variety of means and not just Scripture face two frequent critiques: Luther’s tenet of Sola Scriptura and Hebrews 1:1-2. Sola Scriptura, according to Luther, meant “All that man needs for salvation is contained in the Bible.” He was responding to the abuses of […]

Learn listening prayer – our gift to you

One of the surprising things about this blog has been the sense of virtual community it has fostered. Many of us first connected through the blog, but then went much deeper in a variety ways beyond the blog. For example, we’ve formed online discipleship group for men and for women that help their members learn […]

When listening prayer is hard

Get a Free eBook: Do you want to grow closer to God in your prayer times? I’ve written a free guide called The Three Day Listening Prayer Devotional and I’d love for you to download it. Click here to download the free devotional. We have an outdoor cat named Chloe who, in the winter months […]

Obedience to God thru listening prayer, Pt. 2

  As I stated in yesterday’s blog, learning to listen to the Lord’s voice and then obey him is the most important thing we’ll ever do in life.  I love watching young people begin to walk in faith as Meredith Dinsdale, Jan ’08 World Racer, did in the story she relates here.  You can’t grow in discerning the Lord’s […]

Obedience to God thru listening prayer

Learning to listen to the Lord’s voice and then obey him is the most important thing we’ll ever do in life.  We derive everything of any long-term value from that – identity, the ability to love, and direction for starters.  Yet it can be such a struggle for us!  I know it is for me.  […]

An example of listening prayer

I believe in taking risks. When a risk has been prayed over and is God-directed, it is a form of faith. Here’s an example: This past week I was on my regular jog, which, when I’m not having random thoughts, is a venue for God and I to have a conversation. Although I write about […]

Using a journal to grow in listening prayer

Here’s another excerpt from my book, The Art of Listening Prayer: The Bible says, “For God so loved the world” (John. 3:16), but you need to see for yourself that God cares; that he cares about you. You need the experience of listening for and hearing his voice for yourself. The good news is that […]

Learning listening prayer

My book, The Art of Listening Prayer, keeps selling without any promotion from me. I think it sells because people are hungry to hear the Lord’s voice and are looking for help in doing so. Here’s how I begin the book: To me, India during the summer of 2001 might as well have been Mars. […]

A mom’s lesson in listening prayer

Ten years ago I met Chris Montgomery and her husband in Costa Rica. It’s been years since we talked, but she got a hold of The Art of Listening Prayer and wrote the following: I began this book only a few days ago and immediately God used my own kids to teach me a lesson. […]

What is listening prayer?

Growing up, My devotions were dry, routine affairs. I’d whip through a chapter in the Bible. I’d run down a list of prayer requests, and I’d check that part of my day off the list. What a contrast with, say, a date with my girlfriend. When I took her out for dinner and a movie, […]

The one hour prayer experiment

It seems that if you like to pray, you fit into one of two categories. Either you prefer to take blocks of time to pray, or you tend to pray through your day. Scripture tells us to do both, but finding a block of time to pray in our hectic society requires discipline. If you’re […]

Listening to God and obeying: an example

As I was running yesterday morning I picked up my pace – Toya had asked me to speak to her mission team and I needed to rush to get there by 8:45.  It was my usual route around the neighborhood – the first mile is fairly flat, but then, after passing Robert Wetherford’s house it […]

Careful listening

Therefore consider carefully how you listen.  Luke 8:18 Hear God’s word and put it into practice.  Luke 8:21 To consider carefully means to mull it over in your mind, to look at it from all angles. It means reflecting on it, understanding that some truths reveal themselves slowly. Only careful consideration will reveal flawed assumptions. […]

A story of how listening to God leads to ministry

A coworker moved to our based in Philadelphia and shared this story about listening to the Lord’s voice. One day I went to the park to read my Bible and listen to the Lord’s voice about how to minister to my new neighbors. Allen, a friend I’d made recently, walked up and immediately commented that […]

Prayer saves a life in L.A. yesterday

Abortion as a national discussion is too often abstract and polemical. Yesterday a life was saved in Los Angeles – that is real. When my coworker Mark heard that a relative was going through with an abortion tomorrow, he prayed about it. Something inside him said, “NO! Go to Los Angeles!” So Mark dropped everything […]

Ministering to Girls Caught in Sex Trade

It was 1995, I took a team of about 40 young people from Omaha to Tampico, Mexico on a mission project. We arrived well past midnight. It was a hot night and the church was still up waiting to greet us. Clint Bokelman was their leader. He was from a Presbyterian church. When I used […]

Books I’ve Written, Including Some You’ve Never Seen

I began writing when I was young. Since high school, I’ve kept a journal. And as a 23 year-old working overseas, I wrote my first book. I began blogging in 2005 and have written 3000+ posts. I’ve written 14 books in all – half of them published. 

Book-writing has been complicated for me. I say complicated because, there’s a big difference between what I feel led to write about and what I care enough about to go through the process of publishing and marketing.