It's been over three years since I was last on staff at a church and I ended my season in full-time ministry as a Lead Pastor. While I wouldn't want to go back, I sometimes miss it, so I thought I would share a few of the things I miss the most.
1. Bringing people along on a journey: I loved how ea...
Last year I dipped my toe into the podcasting waters, and it reinforced how much I like this medium. Then I started thinking about how fun it would be to start a podcast where I explore Christianity through the beauty of wine. And today I get to introduce you to Cabernet and Pray.
I'll use this ...
I finished my "Them vs. Us" series this past weekend with a message titled "Everybody Waves Back." I unpacked the story of Cain and Abel and pondered our responsibility to other people. When God asks Cain about the status of his brother Abel, I love how the Message paraphrase captures Cain's resp...
Last weekend I had the chance to preach on one of my favorite books in all of the Bible in week four of my "Them Vs. Us" series. The book of Jonah is so unbelievably relatable and borderline comedic in how the story plays out. Basically, Jonah has issues and baggage and I can relate.
Jonah gets ...
I preached the third part of my "Them vs. Us" series this past weekend. I titled it "Natural Enemies" after this brilliant quote from the theologian Donald Carson:
“Ideally… the church itself is not made up of natural ‘friends.’ It is made up of natural enemies. What binds us together is not c
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Some passages we come across in the Bible seem pretty obvious. But that doesn't make them any less troubling. Take for example a passage like Deuteronomy 23:6 "As long as you live, you must never promote the welfare and prosperity of the Ammonites or Moabites.” Wow, God really didn't like these p...
This past weekend I began a five-week sermon series at a church in Phoenix. I'm super excited to do this as I haven't had the chance to write a new series in a few years. The series is called "Them vs. Us" and is about how quickly we draw lines between ourselves and others. Yet as we see repeated...
We are halfway through 2023. I'm writing this in one of my last days in Oregon as I prepare to enter back into the tortures of the Arizona summer.
Below you can see the 56 books I've read so far this year with my rating for them (5 being the best) and a brief review. The author or publisher has giv...
One of the books I've read a few times is called Essentialism by Greg McKeown. I appreciate how he helps you narrow down your life or work into the things that matter most. When it comes to how to implement these ideas, McKeown offers the following list:
"To discern what is truly essential we nee
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One of the people I follow online is Dr. James DiNicolantonio. His name may be a lot to pronounce, but I really appreciate how he talks about holistically having a healthier lifestyle. He's worth the follow.
He posts lots of different ways to improve your life, and recently he posted the following...
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