My blog is an intentional look at the world around me. My sermons are an intentional look at God’s Word. There is not a lot of exposition of daily life in my sermons. Instead, on Sunday we look at what it means that God breaks into our world with communication. He speaks and we seek…
If I had a dollar for every time I read or heard the phrase, “I just don’t know how a Christians could vote for _________” I would be able to go to Disney and maybe even take my family with me. But at the risk of entering into a political discussion as a pastor, I…
I keep hearing comments and seeing memes that act like 2020 is a curse word. And although most of those things are just meant to be jokes, I think it is clear that people are tired of everything we have faced since January 1, 2020. But there are still good things. And I realize that…
There is a phrase from Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech that has resonated deeply in my soul. As a person that grew up in a very homogenous white farming community in Michigan, I only had the thing I read to go on. I read the speech in high school. And this…
Fall is my favorite season except for every four years. There are some political seasons that I wish we could just skip and go straight to winter. But this morning, God met me in a quiet moment as I was reading an obscure corner of the book of Daniel. Daniel is offering a confession to…
Doldrums is a word that is used to describe a strip of ocean about 300 miles wide to the north of the equator where there is little to no wind. Sailors in more wind dependent times knew to avoid navigating into this area of the globe. Ships that wandered into the doldrums ran the risk…
Jesus will win. His love will triumph over hate. His healing will triumph over the Rona. His kingdom will not be shaken. His throne will not be challenged. His Father will make his enemies His footstool. His justice will prevail. His bride will flourish for eternity. Jesus will win.
Nothing seems stable. How can a person plan in times like these? Our governor may open things wide open based on the data or she may close everything back down next week based on the same data. There are charts and graphs that support every opinion and course of action. And I don’t know if…
We need good news. Every direction I turn, there is negativity, division, fear, and worry. And for this reason I continue to point to Jesus. I cannot think of a more stereotypical Christian cliche than “Jesus is the answer.” Whenever I hear that phrase, my mind hopes that the question wasn’t “what is 8×4?” But…
Quarantine has caused us to redefine many things. For example ‘social’ in the phrase “social distance” means something like “unsocial.” And the ‘distance’ in that same phrase means 6 feet. But there is one word that is close to my heart and close to my area of expertise that I have seen shifting over the…
As I sit here at the local coffee shop, I have the privilege of having my daughter sitting beside me. She is listening to music on her phone and texting friends while I have been studying and writing this blog. She is now in high school. She is a freshman. Every glance in the proverbial,…
I could never imagine when I became a pastor, that I would be called upon to declare my personal stance on murder. Nor could I conceive of a cultural climate in which I would be pressed to verbalize my opposition to racism. These are two things that have felt so self-evident to me that I…
