Outrage made us sick; it cannot make us well Think about your job. I'll bet you accomplish a lot there. But are you outraged? Or do you just know what you need to do and you do it? Think about other areas of your life— family, friends, volunteer work, hobbies: there's not one where outrage is held to be a necessary… Continue reading » | |
“A great nation”… thoughts on inaugurals past and present What our great nation once said, what Jesus said, and what we said today as we strive to be great again. Continue reading » | |
3 ways I’d fix the Church if I could To fix the Church, we need real transparency, freedom, and grace. If all we have are "second chances", then the notion of "Christian grace" is meaningless. Continue reading » | |
What you can do about the Oakland warehouse fire Reading about life before the Oakland warehouse fire, what struck me? it was the kind of place that Jesus would have been drawn to like a magnet. Continue reading » | |
Going full Martha: some Thanksgiving advice Later today, we are going over to my cousin's house for Thanksgiving. We're bringing some food. See, we are inconvenient guests— my wife is gluten-free, and my daughter and I are both vegetarian— so it's easy to feel like we need to go the absolute limit to keep our hosts from feeling… Continue reading » | |
“Nothing to shout about”, or, my four-month break If I want to be relevant, I should choose my side and start shouting. But how we treat those who disagree matters more even than which side wins. Continue reading » | |
Where does it end? It is a sad day for those of us who value civility, decorum, peace. Regardless of the outcome, it was always going to be. Continue reading » | |
The love and offensiveness in freedom If we do not want to be told how to live and what to think, we must be willing to grant others that same freedom. Continue reading » | |
A humble alternative to anger and fear Loud voices shout that the only possible response is anger and fear. But that is a lie. Other responses exist. Ones that have power for good instead of evil. Continue reading » | |
50 dead. Let’s keep being America. When I got the new, I could already hear the spittle-stained shouting to see who could respond in hate the most. I only wish the quiet voices of peace could be louder. Continue reading » | |
Why I am a Christian hypocrite (Part 2) Sometimes, what I profess is exactly opposite what I do: the textbook definition of a Christian hypocrite. What's happening when I seem I'm "just for show". Continue reading » | |
Why I am a Christian Hypocrite I am a Christian hypocrite. If I don't live up to scripture or don't practice what I preach, does my faith still have any value? Continue reading » | |
Nine years old today, if only Remembering the sweet baby boy we lost, who would be nine years old today Continue reading » | |
All I want in a church is… We broke up with our church in January. There are two "must haves" I wish all churches had: room for the Holy Spirit, and grace for one another. Continue reading » | |
Of deep dark secrets and April Fools’ Day My family loves the innocent fun of April Fools' Day, but I can't help stopping to reflect, just a little, about the deeper questions of truth and untruth. Continue reading » | |
Spring renewal, or, starting again when it’s too late I finally learned: yes, I missed my chance, but life is renewal. There is no "back in my day". If you are still alive, then today is your day. Continue reading » | |
Pro-gun mom shot. Where is our compassion? A pro-gun mom accidentally shot by her 4-year-old gets scathing condemnation from all sides. But agree or disagree, where is our simple Christlike humanity? Continue reading » | |
Guest post: The extravagance in a penny’s worth of time Mo Morrison of "Shake The Tree" asks: if a poverty-stricken widow could offer everything, can't we offer a few moments of our precious time? Continue reading » | |
How to save your marriage in one easy step For all of the sound and fury coming from the church these days over the state of marriage, what it's really about is, how to sacrificially love your spouse Continue reading » | |
Correcting what the World thinks “the Bible advocates” Go to Google, type "Bible advocates", and see the popular suggested searches that appear: "violence"… "killing non believers"… "slavery". You can't even get "love" to appear. So today, I am fixing that. Some of that is treated in the Bible, but none of it is what the Bible is about. Continue reading » | |
Is it time to give up on our outdated Bible? The number one complaint about the Bible is, it's outdated. If God has so much to say to our times, why make it so hard to understand? Continue reading » | |
Why this white Christian male can never support Donald Trump In fiery rhetoric, some see the strong medicine our country needs. But Christlike ends cannot be achieved by such un-Christlike means. Continue reading » | |
God in the food, or, forgetting to save your life Food represents a gigantic fraction of Biblical teaching, yet I've never heard a sermon on it. What can we learn from the original "diet book"? Continue reading » | |
Women’s voices, or, how to avoid spiritual malnutrition Thankful for women's voices in the blogosphere when I can't get them at church. Continue reading » | |
Best Christian Stuff of 2015 Writers need inspiration, often from the inspired voices around us. Here, I recognize some that inspired me this year. Here's hoping they will inspire you too! Continue reading » | |
How a New Year’s resolution can rescue your soul A New Year's resolution is hope, transformation, renewal— same as the Gospel message: whatever rut you are stuck in, there is way to freedom. Continue reading » | |
Christmas blessing from a homeless man In our annual Christmas outreach to the homeless, a lesson that it truly is in giving that we receive. Continue reading » | |
Overwhelmed & broke: 3 survival tips for this season of joy As we enjoy the regular old beauty and joy and kindness of Christmas, some thoughts to keep from going crazy or going broke. Continue reading » | |
15 Christmas wishes for saving the world (especially #5) How can you live out "peace on Earth" amid misunderstanding, prejudice, and hate? Christmas wishes for 15 ways we each can do just that. Continue reading » | |
Guns, flowers, refugees… and why I am not afraid The dustbins of history are littered with those who chose safety over standing up to evil. If we turn away the refugees, we number ourselves among them. Continue reading » | |
Nice, smart… Christian? My story of 21st century faith. How can smart people be Christians? One Stanford-educated believer shares the story of his own faith journey, and why it matters now more than ever. Continue reading » | |
For God’s sake: let a woman preach In our wranglings whether to let a woman preach, are we taking a strong counter-cultural stand for scriptural truth? Or are we just fighting against God? Continue reading » | |
Hangin’ with Sadness, or, the theology of Mr. Bing Bong Every vacation we've ever taken has been “after loss”. What we learned on one recent trip from Pixar's "Mr. Bing Bong". Continue reading » | |
Doesn’t God have to do what you say when you pray? The bible says, "Ask anything in my name and I will do it." But God sometimes doesn't do what we say. So then, why pray? In fact, why believe at all? Continue reading » | |
But isn’t it all God’s fault…? How there can there be evil in the first place if God is all-powerful, made the world, and is good? Isn't it all God's fault? (Final part of our series, "Where is God when bad things happen?") Continue reading » | |
How to make peace with God after loss Making sense of anything was hard after loss of our baby, like a feeling of betrayal. As one who finally made peace with God: there is a way through it all. (Part 2 of our series, "Where is God when bad things happen?") Continue reading » | |
Mass shooting, evil, and the end of the story A mass shooting is once again in the headlines... reflecting on the time last year when it became personal. (Part 1 of our series, "Where is God when bad things happen?") Continue reading » | |
The Church is after your money! Sort of. The perception that The Church is "all about the money" is clearly present in our society. Is it true? I would say "yes", but not in the way people think. Continue reading » | |
This 9/11: We should be a Christian nation and shouldn’t Reflecting on 9/11… I am a Christian: I believe in Christ's teachings. I am an American: I love my country. Do the two go together or don't they? Both. Continue reading » | |
Jesus and the “ho”, or, what to do with sinners Her story could just as easily have been set in Puritan America; she is only missing the scarlet letter. Continue reading » | |
My so-called prayer life I like prayer but am not particularly good at it. How can we pray better? How can we have more of the immediate, intimate prayer life we want? Continue reading » | |
All the delicious anger This week, I was invited to a smörgåsbord of anger, largely motivated from a good place, but scripture urges us against it, toward choosing peace instead. Continue reading » | |
Take a stand: be spineless for Jesus Many of us are so eager to take a stand for God. What that looks when we truly believe that "When I am weak, then I am strong." Continue reading » | |
Three things we must learn from 50,000 casualties in Belfast I have stood at the most bombed hotel in the world. What I realized? We must learn the lessons of peace, inspired by Jesus, now being practiced in Belfast. Continue reading » | |
How to be human in a world of smartphones-over-sabbath It was 1995, and he warned us. There was no smartphone then, not for 12 more years. Netscape, the first mass-market Internet browser, was barely ten months old. Facebook, Twitter... even MySpace were still a decade away. He frets over the now quaint-seeming fax and car phone. But he saw it coming. He knew. There… Continue reading » | |
God, condemnation, and the “unrepentant sinner” We all have sin. Scripture says so. Christians say so; even conservative Christians say so. Why, then, is there so much talk nowadays about how people are "in sin" and therefore condemned to God's judgment? Do we have to quit our "sin" in order to be Christians? Do we have… Continue reading » | |
How to find harmony with that neighbor you’ve always hated On Father's day, I weeded my neighbor's front yard; my wife gave him some zucchini from our garden. This is the neighbor with the giant monster truck, the two pit bulls, and the tendency toward loud raucous parties that go into the wee small hours. It is also the neighbor who… Continue reading » | |
Doing Jesus’ work through fabulous luxury Have you heard the saying, "Preach the gospel at all times; use words when necessary"? My pastor recently spoke about that. It used to be one of his favorites, he said, but not anymore; instead, he urged us to talk about Jesus, "no matter how uncomfortable it is." I was thinking… Continue reading » | |
Here’s a viral headline: “Christians nice, talk about love” This week, my daughter brought home a poem she had written as part of her third-grade class: Love is pink. It tastes like lemon pound cake. It sounds like singing birds, and it smells like vanilla. It feels like baby hair, it looks like a butterfly. Love makes me feel… Continue reading » | |
Compassion for “them”: relearning to love the people we were before we lost our baby What we learned, when we lost our baby, about parents' biological need to blame ourselves. How we re-learned to love "those people". Continue reading » | |
What is sin? It’s not that simple. It used to be easy to say what is sin. Then Jesus came along and messed it all up. Continue reading » | |
Smelly clothes and the cost of serving Christ Shane Claiborne knows about the cost of serving Christ. Twenty years ago, as a college student in Philadelphia, he learned that a group of homeless families, sheltering inside an abandoned Catholic cathedral, were 48 hours from eviction. Thinking of Matthew 25:40, he rallied to action, plastering his campus with fliers proclaiming, "Jesus is being kicked out… Continue reading » | |
Be loved. I double-dog dare you. Show of hands: if a sweet little girl mistook you for a famous movie actor, how many would be flattered? Probably most? At one point in my life, I would have assumed that. And how many would react with shame? How many would feel hot tears of hurt and anger… Continue reading » | |
Learning to enjoy the massive unfairness of God The gospel message has a problem. Always has had. Here it is: a lot of the very people who embrace it most whole-heartedly seem like they don't really like it. At its core, the Christian message— the "good news"— is intended for all of life's "outsiders": you are welcome too! So how… Continue reading » | |
Spinning pain into beauty for National Poetry Month My nine-year-old daughter surprised me this week. April is National Poetry Month, culminating on the 30th with "Poem in Your Pocket Day". (To observe, you choose a poem and carry it around in your pocket.) She had been looking forward to the day all week. I assumed she would choose one of… Continue reading » | |
What to do when your anger makes you angry I get it when I'm angry about the big stuff. Once a friend conned me out of $3500; I was angry. Once a project at work was single-handedly held up for nearly a year by a regulator who kept changing the rules on us; I was angry. It makes sense.… Continue reading » | |
Surviving years alone with God and “Into The Woods” Growing up, some kids wanted to be firefighters or doctors or zookeepers; all I wanted was to have my own family. As a 14-year-old freshman, I made my plan: date in high school, date seriously in college, marry right after graduation, five years just us, first child at 28. But there… Continue reading » | |
3 Ways Jesus is like nonfat milk Milk is a starting place. Milk polarizes. Milk explains why Jesus had to die. Continue reading » | |
3 Spiritual lessons learned flying the dreaded Spirit Airlines In Pride and Prejudice, when Mr. Darcy asks Lizzy Bennet to dance, she curses herself: "Why could I not think of an excuse? I promised myself I would never dance with him... hateful man!" So, you can imagine how I felt when I recently found I had no choice but to… Continue reading » | |
Religious freedom: if scripture is a weapon, then whom are we killing? Picture this: I’m getting up to preach, and I’ve brought my Glock 9. Right up into the church where everyone can see. And then I’ll explain: I’ve got a deadly weapon here. But look! I checked that the magazine is empty. I checked: there’s no cartridge in the chamber. The… Continue reading » | |
Serving beside those we hate A conversation between my friend and her daughter, posted on Facebook this week: Daughter: "Why is there a ripped up Chick-fil-A coupon on the table?" Mom: "Because your brother doesn't agree with their politics." Daughter: "Oh. That makes sense." A quote from Rachel Held Evans, on the occasion of last… Continue reading » | |
What Internet trolls have in common with Jesus I've been reading a lot lately about Internet trolls. Whether righteously piling on to destroy someone's life for 10 seconds of Twitter thoughtlessness (à la Justine Sacco) or going after a 17-year-old softball player because you don't like her dad (à la Gabby Schilling), the inhuman viciousness of it all is a little hard… Continue reading » | |
The 3 best options for God fixing our world (hint: none of them will work) If God were going to "come down and reveal himself", what are his options? Continue reading » |