When things get dark.
One of my favorite books, you know, one of those ones you keep reading again and again, is “God Was In This Place & I Did Not Know It” by Rabbi Lawrence Kushner. It’s a collection of various rabbis understandings and thoughts on the passage in Genesis 28:16 where Jacob wakes up from a dream and exclaims … well, he yells the title to Rabbi Lawrence’s book. It has been a constant reminder to me to be aware of God’s presence with me at all times. It always amazes me how blind we are to the miraculous that hides just behind the ordinary, and just beneath the mundane minutiae of our daily lives. It’s one of the things about my character that I am most frustrated with. This past week was another reminder for me. Read more…
'Till Death Do We Part
I’ve been married for 13 years to an absolutely amazing woman. I definitely got the better end of the deal there, but I have a bad habit: I take her for granted. Now, while it’s certainly not okay that I do it, I’m pretty sure I’m in good company. In fact, most guys I know take their wives for granted everyday. It’s something we’re all prone to do, and it doesn’t just stop with our relationships. Read more…
"Casting their nets..."
Sometimes I chuckle when I’m reading a passage of scripture. I mean, there are some pretty funny parts in it. For example, when Matthew is telling us about Jesus going into the desert to fast for forty days he says this, “After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.” I always laugh at that. Did Matthew really think he needed to add, “he was hungry”? Did he honestly think we wouldn’t catch that? Read more…
The power of story.
Yesterday, I started writing about some of the conclusions, or ideas that came from a brainstorming session we had in our church community about children’s ministry in a missional context. Much of this comes from my fear that my children will grow up thinking that church is a place you go on the weekends, and not a force for the Kingdom of God in this world everyday. Our desire is to see our children’s ministry develop new disciples of Jesus, rather than just nice, kind Christian kids who can regurgitate all the right answers. As we talked about how to be more effective in reaching this goal we started talking about the practical issues of Sunday mornings and what it might look like. We talked about the role of music, and the role of scripture, and I will likely blog about them in the near future, but we also started talking about the role of story. That’s what I want to tackle today.
Story engages the whole person in that place where reason, emotion and context meet. Read more…
What if our view of the bible is getting in the way of what the bible was supposed to be and do? I tackle this question in my latest vlog.
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