I want to tell you about a time I almost wrote a blog. So, here around the office, we have a blog-writing schedule in which blog writing responsibilities are passed around to the pastors with an expectation that a couple of us, each month, put together words that are smart, challenging, informative, and all those other good blog qualities, in such a way that you will read them, like them (figuratively and literally, c’mon Facebook!) and be moved in some way by them. The last

My neighbors really are hard to get to know. I keep working at it, but they have little or nothing to do with anyone. They leave in the morning for work, come home in the evening, and, every so often you might see them doing lawn work. All of them are very nice people when we get to have a rare conversation, but the relationships are superficial at best. I feel this attitude has infected church life. Some people gather as the church for the music, sermon or an activity, but t

While the USMC rightly is able to call themselves “the few, the proud”, God please show us mercy when it becomes the same mentality within the Church. Jesus commands us to go to Jerusalem (our town), Judea (our region), Samaria (their region), and to the ends of the earth (no explanation required) carrying His message. But it seems like those who take that complete command are “the few, the proud”. We compartmentalize that command. We stay in Jerusalem. We neglect our Jer

There is a crack in a wall at our house which appears every year or so. Sandi and I have fixed the crack a few times, knowing that the repair is only temporary. Unless Christ chooses to return sometime soon, we will eventually have to deal with the real issue – that the problem is not the wall itself, but in the foundation of the floor. All good builders know that unless a structure is built on a strong foundation, some of the walls will eventually crack. Jesus used this anal

Words have meanings. In different areas of our lives we use vocabularies that that have little or no meaning to people outside of that area. For instance, in our professional lives, in our life's work, there are often words we use that have little meaning to others not in our line of work. Carpenters have a language; bankers have a language; farmers have a language; computer programmers have a language; doctors have a language, etc. The same is true in Church life. There are