Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.1 Thessalonians 5:11 Find out why I think encouraging others is the easiest best way we can affect positive change in our world. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ricP9DIM8hE Wanna join me for the Eastertide encouragement challenge? Opt in and download the Intentional Encourager 2.0. Be on the lookout for weekly emails beginning on Palm Sundays and a link to join the private Encourager ...
Read More
Hey friends, I spent last week with a bunch of people engaged in Christian camping ministry. If you know me, you know that I LOVE camp. We had one session where we broke up into small groups and talked about ways we experience God's abiding presence in our lives. I got some really good feedback on the exercise, so I thought I'd share it with you. Disclaimer: time in nature is ...
Read More
Make your holiday a happy one. Based on my experience and extensive research, here are the top 10 questions to avoid this Thanksgiving Day. So, who did you vote for? When are you two getting married?When are you gonna have a kid/another kid or when are you gonna stop having kids? (basically stay away from all talk of people's sex lives and reproductive choices)Do you have a job yet?How can you ...
Read More
God of love and God of all, We enter into this election with more anxiety than hope about the future of our country. We are battling for the soul of America, but we have very different ideas of how that soul should look, feel and behave. We fear for the safety and peace of our nation, as many have already threatened violence if the results are not the ones they want. We ...
Read More
That's my new question at the end of each week. Instead of asking "what did I accomplish" or "how much did I get done" or even "how much money did I make," I've started asking "was I the person God calls me to be?" The answer is always "not totally." And that's okay. I believe there's something in the Bible about how we all fall short (Romans 9:23). Don't beat yourself ...
Read More
Yeah, here we are again. November. When everyone trots out their gratitude practice, and the focus of everything from store fronts to social media feeds is on how grateful we all should be. But gratitude can be hard...because life is hard, and this season of forced gratitude doesn't help. Add a layer of guilt about not feeling grateful over the general malaise of already not feeling particularly thankful and you ...
Read More
My friend and colleague, Rev. Kelly Fitzgerald, and I have put together a FREE resource for families to use at home this Advent, and here's five reasons I'm excited about it. It's Not a To-Do List This is a not a devotion-a-day resource where you have to commit to gathering your family together in the same place at the same time every day while you read and reflect on scripture ...
Read More
It’s no accident that Reformation Day and Halloween fall on the same day. It was actually by design. The 31st of October was the night before All Saints Day and came to be known as All Hallows Eve—the origin of our Halloween. It was a time when people were particularly focused on remembering their loved ones who had died—and being worried about their loved one’s souls. Early on in the life of ...
Read More
So, yeah. It's embarrassing. Embarrassing is not really the word. Convicting. That's it. It's convicting. That Christians like me only pay attention to anti-semitism when someone like Kanye West puts it in the headlines. Like it's not always there. Like our Jewish neighbors don't deal with it all the time. I've done a little reflecting on why I don't pay more attention (not making excuses) and on how our Christian ritual ...
Read More
At the heart of the message of the Gospel is "be not afraid." However, we can believe in the Gospel and share the Gospel and do our best to live out the Gospel and still have times when we are afraid. It happens. But here's the thing about fear: we don't have to be afraid of it. Fear can be valuable. It's fear of being burned that keeps a small ...
Read More