I have been a pastor for 20 years and am closing in on 100 weddings that I’ve officiated. And there a couple of trends I have seen in the past several years that I think are worthy of note.

Most weddings are now outdoors. I don’t have a STRONG opinion about this, but just an opinion. A church building is meant to evoke thoughts about the presence of God. I will be the first to admit that He is NOT any more present in a church than He is in a vineyard, or on a farm, or at an outdoor wedding venue . . .

The whole nation seemed to be united behind one thing for the past week or so . . . Two people in a spotlight at a Coldplay concert. Now I have a confession . . . I like Coldplay.

I am preaching my way through 2 Timothy and I encountered this verse this week in my deeper dive for my sermon.
2 Timothy 3:9

One of the largest task of any leader is to clarify the answer to the question “why!?” I have been listening to the book “Extreme Ownership” by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. Leif participated in many of the missions to regain the Iraqi city of Ramadi.

The Christian who believes the Bible is true, knows that this world is NOT the way it was supposed to be. We know we are frail. We know disease is real. We know we are dying. I start in this place, regarding the topic of holistic health, simply to set the field of play for this discussion.

I went through a yo-yo phase. I could walk the dog, I could rock the baby, and do the elevator. All of these are fairly entry level tricks, but I thought I was cool . . . If yo-yos could be called ‘cool’.

War is a a huge concept found in a tiny word. If words carried the gravity of their meaning, the word for the concept of ‘war’ ought to be something like 17 syllables. But this is English so “infinitesimal” means really small and “big” means large. I woke up thinking about war this morning, because…

[11] so that we would not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs.   I just finished a podcast series on the Satanic Panic of the 80’s and 90’s. I enjoyed listening in, because it was a trip down memory lane. The decades of the 80’s and 90’s were formative…

I sit here and write this blog in between conversations.  So far this morning I have had three conversations with people who attend ReCAST church.  (After I wrote the previous sentence I had a great conversation with a young couple who just came through to grab a coffee and stopped to chat).   I am…

I have recently been made aware of a particular woman with a large following who has made a list of unapproved theologians and pastors and authors.  Of course, she is the common thread.  Her list includes Daily Grace Co.  Her list includes John Piper.  Her list includes Tim Keller.  Her list includes the Bible Project.…

I often tell people in my role as a pastor that we need to keep reading the Bible in order to keep exercising our faith.  I think many of us have a tendency to think of faith as a static thing.  Either I have it, or I don’t.  But faith, as evidence of things not…

While I was rereading ‘The Pastor’ by Eugene Peterson last week, I was struck again by the nature of my full time role as a pastor.  I have a strange job.  I am employed in the service of a people in order to shine as a consistent spotlight on the invisible God.  He is there.…

Several years ago, I was more in touch with contemporary culture.  I would blog nearly every week on Thursdays and I used my blog as an opportunity to exegete our culture, much like I use my sermons on Sunday to exegete a passage of the Bible. But something shifted, and I am not sure if…