You probably know those people who have an innate ability to turn a conversation back upon themselves, even if it has little or nothing to do with them. Say you are casually talking about a movie you saw, and by the end of the conversation the topic has somehow swung to the other person boycotting …
Month: January 2019
Lost and Found (Luke 15)
My mom tells the story of a time when I was lost as a child. Correction, I wasn't lost, I knew exactly where I was. Back in the 80s you could go for a walk with other neighbor moms with nothing to fear, and this was one of those cases. I probably told this sweet …
Going Deeper: Bad Things, Good People, and Hard Questions
I lost count of the number of natural and man-made disasters that tormented our country in 2018. As of this writing, the latest was a magnitude 7.0 earthquake with an epicenter just north of Anchorage, Alaska. Significant structural and infrastructural damage ensued, but thankfully no lives were lost, this time. The same cannot be said …
Continue reading Going Deeper: Bad Things, Good People, and Hard Questions
The Point of Prayer, Part 2
Admittedly, prayer many times doesn't feel like an accomplishment, like you're actually doing anything. But we also must admit that our actions, in the long term, ultimately don't accomplish what we're after either. Both can feel futile, like you're investing too much energy into something that doesn't show real results. Perhaps then we need to …
The Point of Prayer, Part 1
We have a curious relationship with prayer. Historically we have acknowledged God in some fashion and thus our need to communicate with him. I'm sure the hallowed saints of the past were quite serious about the effectiveness of prayer, but what about us common folk? Do we really take it that seriously? In recent years, …
Sunday Session: Isaiah 66
Thus says the Lord: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest? All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord. But this is the one …
Going Deeper: Identity Crisis
Recently a Dutch man attempted to have his age legally changed from 69 to 49, citing several personal episodes of age discrimination, the most prominent of which was his inability to connect with potential dates, twenty years his junior, on Tinder. His argument can be summarized by this quote: "We live in a time when …
The Feedback Loop
I hate to speak ill of social media. It is after all how you got here, and the vehicle by which this post is delivered. There are many good voices out there who are trying to "redeem" this fledgling infrastructure, and in some respect I hope to be one of those. But in order to …
D.I.Y.
More than once in my church experience have I heard someone say something along these lines: "If I can just get my friend into church to hear the preacher, maybe they can get saved and I would have done what I was called to do." This idea came up in conversation with my wife and …
Not The Answer You Want
I apologize up-front about the ambiguity as I want to keep names and particulars out of the spotlight, but the story and bigger issues surrounding it are quite relevant. Some close friends of ours recently endured yet another criminal act against their family. This marks two events in two different homes within the same city. …
Each Step a Story 