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Question To Ask At The Start of A New Year

December 30, 2015 by Phil Auxier

My former seminary professor Don Whitney has done a great service is helping us think through some questions to start the new year.  Here’s how he begins:

Once, when the people of God had become careless in their relationship with Him, the Lord rebuked them through the prophet Haggai. “Consider your ways!” (Haggai 1:5) he declared, urging them to reflect on some of the things happening to them, and to evaluate their slipshod spirituality in light of what God had told them.

Even those most faithful to God occasionally need to pause and think about the direction of their lives. It’s so easy to bump along from one busy week to another without ever stopping to ponder where we’re going and where we should be going.

The beginning of a new year is an ideal time to stop, look up, and get our bearings. To that end, here are some questions to ask prayerfully in the presence of God. 


I’d encourage you to download the questions and consider how God may redirect and/or refocus you in the coming year.  

Filed Under: Don Whitney, new year, questions

Weekend Recap – 1/12/14

January 12, 2014 by Phil Auxier

My 1/12/14 sermon, God’s Greatness and His Word, from Psalm 145 is now online.  The sermon sought to connect the big thoughts of God’s greatness to the revelation He’s given us, very specifically of Himself, in His Word.  One of the big applications was from Psalm 145:5 and its call to meditate.  I mentioned in my sermon some applications from Don Whitney.  His website is filled with great articles, resources and other  readings to help stoke the fire of Biblical meditation.  So, this week.  Slow down and see the wonder of God’s greatness in His Word.

Filed Under: Don Whitney, God's Word, meditate, Weekend Recap

Family Worship Summary…

March 18, 2010 by Phil Auxier

Here’s a post summarizing my thoughts on Family Worship.

On Sunday, Don Whitney was with us and gave us 2 amazing messages on Family Worship:

Part 1
Part 2

The basic outline was: Read God’s Word, Pray, Sing.

I hope this is applied in your life and increasing in its practice.

Filed Under: Don Whitney, Family Worship

More on Family Worship – Sing!

March 17, 2010 by Phil Auxier

In this brief series of posts, I am exploring some resources for family worship, after the compelling weekend our church recently enjoyed with Dr. Don Whitney and his teaching on family worship.

In singing, we ought to have a few goals, I think. On one level, we want to try and sing songs that are related to the truths we are discussing. With my children right now, we studied a story about worshiping God over idols, so we sang My God Is So Big. On Monday night in family worship, we talked about God punishing sin and looked to Jesus. Jesus Loves Me seemed appropriate. So, we want to let God’s Word dictate our singing.

Having said that, though, there ought to be some further goals. We should help our children know deep, rich, God-honoring hymns. I think the story is told of Spurgeon. The story goes something like this: His father offered him a nickel for every Isaac Watts hymn he could memorize. This nearly broke his father, but years later, Spurgeon would confess that he learned his theology from Watts. We ought to make it our aim to expose our children to the amazing hymns that are available to us. Cyberhymnal is an amazing resource to this end.

There are also some contemporary music possibilities like Seeds Family Worship, which seeks to help children remember God’s Word in musical formats. Sovereign Grace Ministries has done 2 kids projects: To Be Like Jesus and Awesome God. Our church usually does a VBS that has music as well. These are all possibilities for training children to make a joyful noise to the Lord.

Let’s worship God in our families by reading God’s Word, praying and SINGING!

Filed Under: Don Whitney, Family Worship

More on Family Worship — Pray!

March 16, 2010 by Phil Auxier

This is continuing our series of posts following up on Dr. Don Whitney‘s visit to our church this past weekend and the call to reform our families with active family worship.

Today, I want to encourage you in prayer. Hopefully, you were here for Friday night’s sessions as Dr. Whitney gave an overview on praying through Scripture. Here’s an article entitled “Don’t Always Pray the Same Prayer.” The simple outline, you remember, for family worship is the read a portion of the Bible, pray and sing. As we seek to pray, simple grab a truth from your time in the Word with your family and use that as new language in prayer.

Some families have prayer lists. In Disciplines of a Godly Family by Kent and Barbara Hughes, they say,

“Experience has taught us that a prayer list is indispensable. Our own tendency to mental laziness in times of prayer, especially when we were tired, necessitated a list. A prayer list helps concentrate the mind and helps us recall the little things as well as the big. We found that when we did not have our lists, we would forget to pray for needs that we had presumed were impossible to forget. Likewise, prayer lists aid you in being more systematic in prayer, and they help monitor intercessory progress as requests are scratched off and added. (p.75).

A prayer list could easily become, to quote Whitney, saying the same old things about the same old things, but it could also be a means to journal, as a family, about how God is answering the prayers you are consistently bringing before him. It is merely another tool to use.

But above all, use your time together as a family to PRAY!

Filed Under: Don Whitney, Family Worship

More on Family Worship – Read the Word!

March 15, 2010 by Phil Auxier

Yesterday, at our church’s 2010 Bible Conference, Don Whitney called us to reforming our families by instituting family worship. I thought I would drop a few posts this week with resources we use and some others Whitney mentioned.

One resource he asked me if I had, but I didn’t was Catherine Vos’ Child’s Story Bible. He recommended this for older, elementary school aged children.

Two resources I typically recommend for really young children are The Big Picture Story Bible and The Jesus Storybook Bible. Both of these help orient younger children to the big storyline of the Bible. I used the Jesus Storybook Bible in my personal devotions a while back to reacquaint myself with the big picture. The Big Picture Story Bible will have more of an emphasis on pictures with a few words on the page. My one year old is able to keep looking at the pics then. My older child (turning 4 tomorrow) likes looking at the Jesus Storybook Bible and even brings it to church.

As children get older, though, reading a chapter here or there and working through books of the Bible and asking meaningful questions about passages is where we want to go. During the teenage years especially, Proverbs helps lead them to the walk in the way of wisdom. God’s Word is where our families need to center a good portion of our time.

Filed Under: Don Whitney, Family Worship

Sunday Review – Family Worship

March 14, 2010 by Phil Auxier

We had quite a morning today with Dr. Don Whitney finishing up our Bible Conference. He did 2 sessions related to family worship:


Family Worship – 1

Family Worship – 2

I thought God was really working in our hearts as Dr. W closed with the fervent appeal for men to be courageous leaders and for others to be followers to that end. I hope everyone enjoyed the weekend.

Filed Under: Bible Conference, Don Whitney, family

Bible Conference 2010 (Part 1)

March 13, 2010 by Phil Auxier

For the past 2 days, our church has been enjoying Dr. Don Whitney and his teaching on Praying Through Scripture and Biblical Meditation. Here are the sessions so far:

Friday PM:
Praying Through Scripture – 1
Praying Through Scripture – 2

Saturday AM:
Biblical Meditation – 1
Biblical Meditation – 2
Biblical Meditation – 3

In the course of one session, Whitney mentioned a chapter from his book Simplify Your Spiritual Life entitled Do What You Can, a helpful encouragement for women with young children. He has that particular article online for your benefit, so check it out.

We look forward to his teaching tomorrow on Family Worship.

Filed Under: Bible Conference, Don Whitney, Weekend Recap

10 Questions for the New Year

January 3, 2010 by Mere Agency Support

Donald Whitney, who will be speaking at Crestview March 12-14, has pieced together some excellent questions to ask during the New Year. We put these in a bulletin insert today and you should really make time to consider these things in your stewarding your life to God’s glory.

Filed Under: 2010, Don Whitney, Planning

Thanksgiving Help (Spiritually Speaking)

November 21, 2009 by Mere Agency Support

Don Whitney has had a huge influence upon my life in many ways. He was a professor of Spiritual Formation for me back in seminary days. Each church I’ve had the privilege of serving since then has had Don come and help us equip our people in spiritual things. He has many helpful resources on his website. (He will be back at Crestview in the Spring of 2010, March 12-14). He offers some practical encouragement for Thanksgiving in what he calls Sing The Table Blessing as a means to foster family worship during this upcoming holiday. Allow your thanksgiving time to be one in which you as a family are able to come together to thank the Ultimate Giver.

Filed Under: Don Whitney, Resources, Thanks

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From One Degree To Another?

Yeah, that's right. My one, consuming passion is Jesus Christ, my Lord. I'm totally gripped by one message: the Gospel - the good news that God came after me when I was far from Him. So, the life I live, I live by faith in Him: He loved me and gave Himself for me.

From One Degree To Another is the change that He's accomplishing in me by grace. Growing downward in humility, upward into Him, outward toward others, and inward with renewal characterize my existence.

This site is where I flesh all of these types of things out, including my life as a slave to Jesus, husband, father, coffee-enjoyer, and pastor. I hope it encourages you.

RSS My latest sermons at Crestview

  • Love One Another April 27, 2025
  • The Word of Contentment April 20, 2025
  • Good Friday 2025 April 19, 2025

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