My career as a bully was short-lived and thankfully so. I was probably 13 when I decided to try pushing around a kid a year or two younger but half my size. I figured he’d […]
Tag: Mission
Social distancing & the call to holiness
We’ve been in a weird time where our culture has required us to separate ourselves from one another. At the same time, we’ve been incredibly focused on cleanliness. As a hospital chaplain, I wander all […]
The alliance
My family loves to play games together. And we can be fiercely competitive in our game-playing. With a fairly strategic mind, I do well much of the time. In fact, my kids have concluded that […]
Psalm 67
A rendering of Psalm 67, which moves us from a desire for a small, me-sized blessing to a global, God-sized blessing for all people.
The heart of Thanksgiving
I love eating and Thanksgiving is easily the best eating day of the year as far as I’m concerned. And with its leftovers that stretch over the following week, my joy is good food is […]
If the church isn’t a community, it’s nothing
The church exists to be a sign of the breaking in of the kingdom of God into a world of torn apart relationships. The church does not exist to sing songs; to listen to sermons; to […]
Prepare to share (or, one practice for an uncontainable faith)
When I was growing up, the churches I was a part of had two services each Sunday morning that weren’t identical like most multi-service churches now. The first service was shorter, about half an hour, […]
The gospel on a mountain bike
The text came last night: “Be ready at 8:30.” It was ominous, but in a promising sort of way. So, morning came. I dressed, took kids to school, and got my bike ready. My friend […]
When God dumps out your toy box … it must be time to play!
You can always tell what toys my kids are into, because they’re all over the house. I do a lot of cleaning up of the toys behind my kids. But they just keep dumping them out again. […]
Will I love God's baby as much as my own?
The book of Genesis is about babies. And as we read, we discover having babies is rough business. Abraham and Sarah are promised babies. Lots of babies. But when it comes down to it, getting […]
A simple spiritual health survey
What does spiritual health and maturity look like? How do I gauge where I’m at and where I need to grow? When I think of discipleship — a life of following Jesus — I see […]
Getting real — four pegs to hang your life on
Our lives are a complex mass of thoughts, emotions, relationships, and activities. And there is no time of the year that is free from experiencing personal traffic jams. With four kids in four different schools and all their […]
What does your sign say?
When our youngest was four, he was the only non-reading member in a household of readers. And he knew it. So, he decided that he wanted to know what all these words around him meant. When […]
When "skipping church" isn't skipping church (and when it is)
I love the meme that accompanies this post because it points to several mistakes about what it means to be the church while intending neither. 1. The first mistake is equating being in a building with church. […]
How to read the Bible, part 4 — Live — I live a life of active response to the God who speaks.
What we’re after is a life well-lived. Not just well-thought. Not just well-talked about. Not just well-reflected on. Not just well-prayed. These are all good things and a full life includes them. But a life […]
Of volcanoes and living missionally in a post-Christian world
We have lava in our backyard. I’m not talking about the red rocks that people people use for landscaping. I’m talking about the bedrock that Bend is built on — and there it is, sticking […]
Sports, idolatry, and mission
The Incarnation. It’s a topic for sermons each December. God takes on flesh in Jesus and enters into our circumstance in the humblest of ways in order to save us. It’s one of the most […]