The Surprising Value of Hopelessness 

"You wearied yourself by such going about, but you would not say, ‘It is hopeless.’ You found renewal of your strength, and so you did not faint." - Isaiah 57:10
H O P E L E S S - In the 2011 NIV there is only one instance in Biblegateway.com's search function where this word comes up. Once. Search for just the word "Hope" and you will see it appear 180 times. Anytime you hear someone utter that word "hopeless", it is usually spoken with a tone of defeat, resigned to NOT seeing their hopes and dreams… Read more

Did You Hear What I Heard? 

  "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”  - Matthew 28:20   After our first Christmas concert of the season we had a lot of younger kids take advantage of the free posters we give out. Asking for signatures and autographs from the band, the kids overcame some fear and talked with many of us making for some neat moments to just encourage young ones.   As I was writing my signature I kept coming back to including this line: "Emmanuel, Always" As we went through the album and spoke… Read more

When the Gospel Isn't Good News 

In my work with young adults, I've been wrestling with the realities and challenges of children transitioning to independence. This is quite the process that involves major challenges to our identity, meaning and purpose.

The apostle Paul writes this in 1 Corinthians 13 - "When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me." As we grow up, our identity is no longer rooted primarily in the family or friend/high…

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"I Don't Know How You Get it All Done!" 

The Battle Between Capability and Capacity 

I have been doing some studying on a personality test called the Enneagram. Finding I am a 2 on the Enneagram was somewhat liberating, but also a bit like getting splashed with cold water. Called "The Helper" I learned that while I am healthy I am positive and people oriented and a great asset for building community, I am motivated by pride and have an unconscious motivation of being needed. People Pleaser? Yeah... that's me. 

Over the past several weeks, stress…

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Then... 

"On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then... they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts..." - Matthew 2:11 

THEN... 

A few weeks before Christmas as I was preparing to play my first concert in 9 months I remembered why I love the story of the Wisemen so much. It has to do with that word THEN. As a worship leader I've heard it said that worship is about hearing, or about seeing, or about responding. Those are all parts of that I…

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And God Said No - Higher Authority 

I've said it a lot. I know you have too. I want to get back to normal. A wild wild west of living from day to day, week to week, closings, openings, masks, distancing, protests, politics, elections... it is stretching all of us. Our social media and media shows just how frustrated and tired we all are. Even the strong among us have rough days. So the prayer continues to go up to the Lord (for the Christian anyway) and the wish goes up to "karma" (for the unbeliever in Jesus) I JUST WANT TO GET BACK TO

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Do You Not Perceive It? 

Isaiah chapter 43 was the focus for my Awake and Alive small group a couple weeks ago, and I really appreciated the time we spent with the encouragements from God's word. Of the ones that jumped out to me, the most interesting was the verse that I selected for this months' blog. Here it is in a bit more context: 

18 “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. 

19 See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. 

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What to Do With Stinkin Thinkin 

Last week, I was challenged as I delivered a chapel to our grade school kids at St. Paul's. The text was the passage above, and as I prepped for it, I remember back to my mom's challenges to me when I was a kid to "quit yer stinkin thinkin!" As I talked with the kids, I recounted the times stinkin' thinkin' comes into play when: 

We get a bad grade. 

We do bad in a sport. 

We get in trouble at home. 

A friend doesn't want to play with us. 

On the heels of events like these, come the voices that we are dumb…

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I Need a Savior, Not a Santa! 

I get asked sometimes about why I think Christianity is different. Why Jesus is different than all of the other religious figures? What makes Jesus so profound that I would make him my world view, and it keeps coming back to the reality of Grace and the reality of Karma. 
  
Karma, probably the traditional way Americans think about it anyway, usually comes around the idea that "what goes around comes around" You get what you deserve in the end. Your good deeds must outweigh your bad deeds. In other words…

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When God Might Need a Backseat Driver (umm... Never!) 

Last week I was driving my Freshman son to school and we came up to what is known to be a Looooonnnng stoplight. While he insisted that we would be late, I decided that, instead of waiting for 3 minutes to go straight, I would safely and legally turn right, turn left and turn right again and save my son 2.5 minutes and keep him on time for class. He was quite frustrated with me at first and I asked him point blank "Do you TRUST me?". And from the back seat of the car, his blunt answer was - NO!

While it was…

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