Two thoughts have collided for me today…

Today's newspaper contained some great news. Nearly $9million of federal stimulus money is flowing to Portland in the form of a grant to open a health care clinic in the middle of downtown for the poor. And the best part (at least in my mind)? It's taking an old, abandoned Burger King and transforming it into a one-stop medical center helping Portland's poor, homeless and mentally ill. 

I love the idea of using a place that once dispensed artery-clogging Whoppers and french fries, sugar drinks and all manner of other greasy, deep fried anti-nutrition (don't get me wrong- I LOVE all of that stuff- too much, in fact), and turning it into a place that does exactly the opposite- dispenses health, medicine… help. 

No doubt, when you look at the building, you'll still be able to tell it was a Burger King because of its very distinctive design. And yet- a whole different kind of impact with its presence. 

And all that made me think of Christmas. 

How?

I'm remembering when I first became aware of the "pagan" origins of Christian celebrations like Christmas and Easter. Discovering that early Christians had co-opted existing pagan celebrations was a bit of a shock. No Virginia, Santa Claus, much less Christmas celebrations isn't in the Bible.

But… those who look at that fact and decide that the responsible thing is to eschew celebrating Christmas altogether or just humbug about it (especially all the non-Jesusy parts) all season long really miss the point. 

Certainly- nearly all cultures and even religions have holidays around this time of year, mostly started to somehow celebrate the turn from shorter and shorter days to longer and longer ones. The move from darkness to light. 

And when the early Christians looked at that, it seems they had a really good idea…

There's no reason to think that Jesus was born on December 25th. We all know that. He was most likely born in the Spring sometime, because the shepherds were out in the fields keeping watch over their flocks- a Spring activity. But even though there's no reason to believe He was born then, there are great reasons to celebrate then. 

Whenever we bring the Gospel into a culture, we have a responsibility to contextualize it- to use the language, the symbols and the existing social structure (where it doesn't overtly contradict the Gospel) to explain the great Good News that God Himself has come to rescue and renew all of creation through the work of Jesus Christ on our behalf. 

So what to do when your culture has celebration hard-wired in? Fight that? Talk about humbug. 

But… A celebration where we focus on the coming of light into the world after a time of darkness? Hmmm… Sounds familiar. 

Sounds perfect, in fact.

Custom made for re-interpretation in light of the narrative of the Gospel and Jesus. Custom made to explain the coming of the Son of Righteousness into our darkness. 

Those early followers of Jesus who gave us things like Christmas, far from retreating from their culture simply repurposed some of the best parts of it. Like the solstice celebrations. And like I said- I love the irony of taking something meant to point to one thing and making it point to a better thing. 

"'The Christians stole it,' said Marie Elena Castle of Minneapolis, the 82-year-old founder of Atheists for Human Rights and an atheist activist for two decades."

Exactly. 

We took something that pointed at the sun and pointed it in a different direction. Towards the One who made the seasons, the sun and the moon, the one who came to give them real reason to celebrate. Jesus. 

So if you don't want to celebrate, that's fine. Your choice! But you're not just taking yourself out of a very Christian tradition, but a very human one as well.  

And don't tell me celebrating Advent isn't a great way to tell the Gospel story in a hundred different ways- to our kids in our Advent readings, to our neighbors in our hospitality and gift-giving (at a time when they are more open to that than any other time in the year), and especially to ourselves- maybe the ones who need most to hear "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people…Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; He is Christ the Lord."  

But telling people that they experience the saving grace of God irrespective of personal faith and trust in God’s Savior, in God’s provision for forgiveness is a cruel and terrible thing to do.

This book was breaking my heart… now it’s just making me angry.
Oh Spencer, Pt 2 »

missional church outline…
missional church outline… ¬ª

So, on paper I didn’t get a thing done today. Not my contacting. Not sermon. Not much on our forum… but a good day nonetheless.
A people day.
people day… ¬ª

I’ve been thinking in taxonomies lately… maybe I’ll be writing about a few of them.
But this one is in my head this morning- both as something that is currently guiding me and something that needs to guide me more and more- as my kids get older and as my church community grows, who gets my time
taxonomy- people who want you and people who need you… ¬ª

And so, even in the midst of a bit of disequilibrium, there’s nothing I’d rather be doing as my life’s work than helping people spiritually, teaching, counseling… helping these people, loving and teaching these people.
the sea… ¬ª

Mark Driscoll took a couple pokes today on his blog at those who disagree that the video venue is a healthy direction for the church. Thought we could talk a bit about that…
Driscoll and Video Venues.. Again… ¬ª

Darrin Patrick of A29 posted a response to my last thoughts on Video Venues (I think this happened before- I need to look it up…) Good thoughts and a perspective worthy of being taken into account. Thanks Darrin!
And by the way, I think the approach of “we recognize that this isn’t ideal but until we can come up with a better solution…” is vastly preferable to the approach of “You got a problem with this? You must not want people to come to Jesus!”
Darrin Responds… ¬ª

My concerns about video venues are copious. I have extreme issues with people who are being eldered and taught by people they do not regularly come into contact with, whose lives they cannot see, know and inform as well as be informed by. This is bad in the case of a mega church, where most do not know who their elders are, much less “know” them. I think it’s even worse in the case of video venues, where elders from the mother ship are given oversight of communities in outlying areas of their city (or even 100 or more miles away), church communities they are not functionally a part of.
Video Venues… The Celebrity Church must die… ¬ª

Days like yesterday make me want to crawl into a fetal position… At least that’s how I felt yesterday afternoon.
If you’ve read my blog very much, you know I’m an occasional sufferer of PMS (Pastor’s Monday Syndrome). Actually, it’s gotten much, much better over the last year, and really has shifted more to Sunday afternoon syndrome, but still… It happens.
the blue screen of death in Bob’s head… ¬ª

some things that I’m trying to remember…
some things… ¬ª

Having been a complementarian and having argued the position a lot over the years, let me give a word of advice to young complementarians as to which argument to drop out of your repetoire. It’s this one: “[Our church] like Jesus did, only appoints men to the highest position of spiritual leadership.”
a word for young complementarians…

True (theological) liberals don’t really want anything to do with the emerging church. We talk too much about the person of Jesus and His deity/lordship.

And true (theological) conservatives don’t really want anything to do with the emerging church. We talk too much about the lifestyle of Jesus and his humanity/love and concern for the outcast.
questions on the emerging church…

When the schismatics toss the word heretic around like beads at the theological Mardi Gras to anyone dumb enough to show them their Statements of Belief, it ceases to have meaning. For them, a heretic is anyone whose theology I disagree with and particularly anyone whose theology makes me uncomfortable. Needless to say, this is not a biblical definition of the word, nor a helpful use of the word.
Because when everyone is a heretic, no one’s a heretic, if you know what I mean.
Two ways to ruin a word…

There are people that my associate pastor and I have talked to whom we’ve walked away from shaking our heads wondering, “What in the world…??? That guy needs to think about doing something else!”
I think that, and then I think… I hope they set the world on fire for Jesus and make me absolutely eat those words. I hope they are foolish enough to try. I hope God uses them in spite of my cynicism, in spite of my skepticism.
church planting by wind and fire…

Spencer, you’re killing me here…
(Warning- this started off as a short, breezy commentary on a couple things from Spencer’s book. A few hours later, my fingers are tired from typing and I’m cussing. Read on at your own risk and don’t say I didn’t warn you. I didn’t intend to open up a can of Driscoll, but…)
Oh, Spencer…

Three of these things belong together
Three of these things are kind of the same
Can you guess which one of these doesn’t belong here?
Now it’s time to play our game (time to play our game).
Sesame Street Theology…

My fear is that the road that is being walked down with these video venue churches will relegate the vast majority of teachers among our churches to teaching the odd Sunday School class here and there, and we’ll reserve the prime time for those ready for prime time… the big names with the big churches.
The Empty Pulpit…

“As we drove away last night (literally through and over exploding fireworks) I shared with Chris such a huge feeling of love for our church community. I feel loved and taken care of. I feel so much love for these people and I feel like I am helping to take care of them.”
Karli on community

I found myself preaching uphill yesterday…
preaching uphill…

More wisdom for we bloggers…
“Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn’t mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.”
- Edward R. Murrow

“I’ve been sitting here for an hour and a half, trying to organize my thoughts, trying to find some words. The fact is, I just have too many thoughts and feelings swirling around right now… I’m driven to distraction.
So, with that in mind, I’ll beg your forgiveness and just give some general thoughts as to what I hope for evergreen, our church community, in this our third year of existence.”
what I wish…

“When someone new comes into the community, they hear the general call to everybody to be a participant. But as we look out and see that some are choosing to remain in other categories, we ask why, we see them individually and address their actual situation if possible.

And yeah- that’s a lot more work.”
hurt people who hurt people »

More wisdom for we bloggers…
“Whenever I dwell for any length of time on my own shortcomings, they gradually begin to seem mild, harmless, rather engaging little things, not at all like the staring defects in other people’s characters.”
- Margaret Halsey

Best of evergreen worship music, all in one convenient post!
Best of evergreen worship music… ¬ª

“The idea that we should teach dialectically (with dialogue) is rooted in the very teaching style of Jesus, exemplified throughout the book of Acts, is nowhere forbidden in the NT commands/descriptions regarding preaching and is just plain solid pedagogy.

To say somehow that the two choices are either 1. “long-winded old school Bible preach[ing]” or 2. artsy collective ignorance is just plain dumb- a false antithesis that deserves to be called out.”
Helpful and not so…

“We prayed last night.
We gathered as a community (actually, just some of us… it’s summer, I guess!) and prayed for about an hour and a half.
We met in the unchanging chapel at a small baptist church here in town where I used to be youth pastor…”
prayed…

“Why gather? If the “small group” of christians contains everything the body of Christ needs to reproduce and transform society, why get together in large groups on a weekly basis?

How do you answer that question?”

Why Gather
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I’ve been reflecting this last week a bit on some of the dangers of preaching…

If there’s a ditch on both sides of every road (and there is) the twin dangers on either side of the preacher each and every week are preaching for the nod and preaching for your critics.
Do you know what I mean by “preaching for the nod?” It’s what we do when we want to hard wire a bit of ego-stroke for ourselves into a sunday morning.

The Dangers of Preaching…

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yeah… two years plus and counting. That’s about how long it takes for us all to figure out that there simply isn’t any way for a church community that inhabits the sphere of reality to match up to the one that inhabits our hopes and dreams.

Two years plus and we begin to see that yes, we all hurt each other. We all disappoint one another. In fact, it’s tough to spend any time at all in close proximity to someone, and not be disappointed at some point. Two years is more than enough to learn that…

Two Years Plus and Counting

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So I find myself today praying for wisdom: Wisdom to love people well and generously and wisdom to set good, healthy boundaries. Wisdom to forgive and let love cover over a multitude of sins and wisdom to hold people to account for their own good and the good of everyone involved. Just wisdom…

Bouncing

So, a bit of processing on this week.

I have a daughter.

Whoa.

How did that happen? (No smart remarks, please…!)

Our Jane Elizabeth was born at 11:18am on Tuesday, May 2nd. She doesn’t look it, but she was 8lbs, 1 ounce.

What a Week
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If theologicial debates make your eyes roll into the back of your head or are otherwise distasteful to you, please, please skip this post. Also, there’s probably some heresy somewhere in this post, so if you’re sensitive to that kind of thing…

Stretching the old Calvin muscles…

That’s what I’ve been doing for a bit yesterday/last night/this morning… The Calvin muscles, for the unitiated, are located somewhere in the forearm area and are generally used pugilistically… that is, to hit people.

Our good buddy Jason actually had a comment posted over at Slice (will wonders never cease?) and this led to a whole article on Old Truth about this Emerging Church punk (this was amended to “Postmodern Catholic” after an unpublished comment from me) who was getting uppity and actually questioning whether knowledge must preceed salvation. It must say the Slicers and Old Truthers).

Well, one of my favorite things in life is to use what I know of someone’s position/theology/beliefs/whatever to argue against what they are currently arguing for.

So when good Calvinists start arguing that some level of knowledge about Jesus is necessary for salvation (a generally reasonable claim) I see my opportunity…

Could Calvinism Actually Lead to A More Inclusive View of Salvation?

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Life…

is really getting in the way of blogging!

New baby Jane is now 2 weeks old, we’ve really only had 2 bad nights with her and life is… settling down a bit? I’m tired. Amy’s tired. But the sun is out, and when I stop to think about life, any complaints seem pretty silly, really.

Some thoughts though…

I don’t know how to hold enough emotional energy in reserve so as to provide for any contingency.

I don’t know if that makes sense, so let me ‘splain.

In college, I briefly dated/hung out with the daughter of a pretty well-known preacher. It was cool to hang at his house. Felt like a big deal at the time.

But one of the things I remember vividly from that time was being in his living rom when he came home one night, looking dog-tired and beat, and watching as he grunted to his family and slumped on the couch, tie askew, grabbed the remote and started flipping around.

His son came in and tried to engage him (he wanted to show his dad some sports cards), only to be met with a fairly half-hearted response.

I remember thinking- I never want to be that guy.

Life

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Awhile ago I asked Rich to write a song centered on a frequent theme in the Psalms… “Where are You God?”

Here’s the result- great song… One of my favorites. I hope to get a better recording one of these days- I love Seth’s percussion and Dan’s background guitar/mandolin- you can’t hear quite enough of them in this one…

Psalm 42

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Up at 5 this morning, just sitting in my chair in front of an open window, listening to the rain. The house is very quiet right now (momentarily!). Jack has been sleeping in later, which is wonderful, and our new daughter Jane really settles in for the night sometime between 4 and 6, so…

I love Oregon- the green trees, even the summer rains. The winter rain can be madness inducing, but after days of sun and hot weather, it’s nice to have some rain come and wash all the dust away. It’s especially nice when it stays warm enough that you can leave the windows open and just listen…

So yesterday was odd…

The Monday After an Odd Sunday

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You know, it’s been interesting to go back through posts and articles and try to pull out some things for a best of bob blog series. So much that was written a year, two years ago feels very different now, and seemingly contradictory to more recent stuff.

I guess we change.

But with a lot of this (like the “I Can’t Pray For You”) article, while I may not agree with it any longer or think I’d say what I said in the same way, I think there’s value in going back, re-examining, looking again, talking it through.

So- please take “Best of bob.blog” with a grain of salt. Especially when I repost things from many, many months ago or even a couple of years ago. The place I was at that lead me to church planting (disillusionment, hurt, etc) is no longer where I am today, because of church planting and the grace of God.

I’m not going to run from what I wrote, however…
Anyway, in the spirit of all that, and of the last few posts, here’s one I wrote that made it around a bit on Allelon, Next Wave, the Ooze, etc…

I Repent

I hesitate to write these words in such a public space…

I Repent

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“If you are a coward by nature, don’t worry. We can still use you. You can get down behind the biblical text. You can peek out from behind the text saying, ‘I don’t know if I would say this, but I do think the text does.’”- Walter Brueggemann (as quoted by Will Willimon)

This has been a go-to concept for me. The longer I have been doing this preaching thing, the more I see in the text that is at odds with modern sensibilities- things so outsized and seemingly indefensible.. commands to kill, commonly accepted actions declared as heinous sin (seafood anyone?), descriptions of awful, awful actions held up as praiseworthy (Psalm 137)… So many texts I‚Äôd just rather not preach…

The Cowardly Preacher

“I said last year that the next ten years of my life would be learning how to be a pastor and that the ten years after that would be spent learning how NOT to be one. So, I’m still learning how to be a pastor.

I think right now, it’s focusing more on what not to say though… when to pastorally hold my tongue.

I’m learning my anger is rarely productive and my love almost always is.”
Check in, April 2006

“I’m thinking of the people this morning, my little church family. I will marry some of them, bury some of them, pray with most of them, do my best to love all of them. I’ll try to teach them and be taught by them, correct them and be corrected by them.
Hopefully, together, we’ll continue to strain our ears, hear what the Spirit of God is saying to us… and act on it.”
Two years on…

“Now, Jesus is praising the widow, but this story is not (regardless of how this may have been presented to you previously) a lesson on tithing‚Ķ We always read this as though Jesus is giving the disciples a lesson on giving- but it‚Äôs not and the placement between his condemnation of the Pharisees and then what He says in the rest of this chapter confirms that. I think Jesus said what He said here through clenched teeth, His heart breaking over what He saw. Like nearly everything in this section, this is an indictment on the religion he saw all around Him- religion that put perception over reality, and law over people and worse‚Ķ cheated widows out of their property and then pretended to be pious. He‚Äôs not saying- ‚ÄúLook how cool she is for sacrificing the little she has‚Äù- He‚Äôs saying ‚ÄúLook how corrupt this religion, this society has become- all that this beautiful, giving widowed woman has to give is 2 pennies. And the reason why is because of the very people who should be caring for her, the very system that should make sure her needs are met!‚Äù Can you see that?”
sermon excerpt Friday…

“We did our first Maundy Thursday gathering this year. I loved it. Loved it even more than Good Friday this year. We gathered in a home, did some readings of Jesus washing the disciples feet, focused our time on servanthood…
We had a communion time, but rather than a somber time, we made it more of a celebration. Probably a bit more like that last passover/first communion. Yeah, a weird undercurrent of knowing something bad was coming, but still… Passover! God freeing us from slavery (in our case, to sin and self).
So, rather than break off little tiny pieces of bread or have an oyster cracker, we took big chunks of bread hot from the oven, poured ourselves glasses of grape juice or wine and talked to each other as we ate. And before we did that, we washed one another’s hands. It was wonderful.

Good Friday, however… Will someone please remind me that last year after Good Friday I said I wanted to do something different and this year after Good Friday I’m saying “Next year… let’s do something different!”???

I don’t know, maybe it accomplished what it was meant to. It’s 3am… I can’t sleep… all riled up inside. Too many images of Christ (and not the good ones) in my head, too much darkness…”
oh, “Good” Friday…

“Remember, Little Pastor- Easter is not a marketing opportunity. The resurrection of the Son of God is not an opportunity to pimp our programs or build our flock, even under the guise of “concern for lost”. And it’s not about me. (Please wait a minute while I repeat that a few times to myself… ) Heaven forbid we should ever do community in such a way that our main avenue for people coming to Christ is hearing the Gospel preached from the mouth of one person, rather than hearing the Gospel preached from the mouths (and lives) of the whole community. If, in your community, more people are becoming Christians on Sunday than during the rest of the week, I think you may have a problem.”
The Dangers of Easter…

“God offers this forgiveness, this new life, this chance to turn around and start over to the Dutch, to the Germans, even to the French. And He offers it to Native Americans, Italian Americans, African Americans, and undocumented Americans- Why? Because Americans need Jesus.
And more than just Americans… North Americans need Jesus. South Americans need Jesus. Canadians really need Jesus. Asians need Jesus, and Indians need Jesus and Russians and Slavs, and Turks need Jesus. And while it’s a dicey thing to say these days, I’ll say it- Buddhists and Hindus and Muslims need Jesus. And just as much and sometimes more than them, Episcopalians and Lutherans and Baptists need Jesus. Man oh man, do the Baptists need Jesus.

And hear this: Even people who meet in weird little pub churches need Jesus.”
Sermon excerpt Friday…

The Hank Hill goes to church video I put out there on YouTube got a lot of play…
For those who might have missed it: Video for this Sunday

“”In questions of this sort there are two things to be observed. First, that the truth of the Scriptures be inviolably maintained. Secondly, since Scripture doth admit of diverse interpretations, that no one cling to any particular exposition with such pertinacity that, if what he supposed to be the teaching of Scripture should afterward turn out to be clearly false, he should nevertheless still presume to put it forward, lest thereby the sacred Scriptures should be exposed to the derision of unbelievers and the way of salvation should be closed to them.”- Saint Thomas Aquinas
Aquinas on Scripture… and a generous orthodoxy

Worship Audio from the evergreen community…
Love Like You

“When I spend time, time when I’m “on the clock”, to create something for my community, I have been compensated. My time has been paid for. I create, and I give to my community the gift of what God has allowed me to create. However, when I turn around and market that, I, or my community, is making money off of what should be an act of worship.

That’s where it starts to get dicey.”
The Creative Commons Church

“I believe in the promise of the Holy Spirit to help us… but if even St Peter admitted that much of what St Paul wrote was “difficult to understand”, shouldn’t we do the same?”
Who can understand it?

“Say you had some reasonable solomon-like assurance that God would answer affirmatively ONE prayer that you prayed as a pastor/for your church community…
What would you pray?”
One Prayer… my answer.

“Why would this affect me like this?

I don’t know.

It just does.

Damn that dark, sticky place deep down in the corner of my soul…”
the dark, sticky place deep down in the corner of my soul

“I want to differentiate between planting a service and actually planting a community. Planting a service is easy. You just need a bunch of dough, a few people willing to work themselves to death and voila’… and yes, that’s all about the location.
Planting a community, however, is a bit more ephemeral… a bit harder to quantify into easy-to-follow steps. It’s a partnership between the Spirit and desperate people trying hard to listen to that Spirit. It usually results in a Sunday morning (or other time) gathering, and often people are told about it/invited to it… but that’s not the heart of a true community is it?”
10 Keys to Sane Church Planting

“In light of that, from the very beginning we decided to give away 10% of our offerings to the poor, to people who were not us. We started supporting another church in town called the Bridge that does a lot for homeless teens. We started giving to Blanket Coverage that feeds/clothes people downtown. And now, we’ve started seeing our own evergreen stuff for the poor springing up. We’ve also been able to help out some folks inside our community who were struggling financially.

This (instead of endless sermon series on giving) would be how we would teach on the subject. I hoped (and I think it’s worked out pretty well) that people would intuit that what we did as a community, they should be doing as individuals. We also decided that as giving increased, we would raise the actual percentage we gave away.”
Sane Planting pt 2- The Dough.

“Our relationship with the pub space is an interesting thing. We love it for instantly breakng down some barriers with some of the people we would like to see become a part of our community and (much more importantly) become followers of Jesus through belonging to our community. We love it for raising barriers with people (you know the kind…) that we’d just end up disappointing anyway. They tend to not want to go to a church that has a nice pale ale on nitro tap… and people that might, just might have some of that over lunch after.

By the same token we fear it… we fear becoming defined by, dependent on, distracted by those things. While we recognize the benefit of the pub space for us… it’s not us. It’s not our identity… our center. That place belongs to Jesus.”
“Pub” Church… ugh Church…

“Advertising you do has a less than 1% effectiveness rate. Send out 1000 mailers and maybe 5-7 people might check out your community because of it. Considering the fact that less than 10% of your visitors are going to come back and be a part of your community, and when you consider the percentage of that small number that is likely to be either unchurched or formerly churched, well… It’s seems as though you might be better off doing something besides the mailer thing. It’s too expensive for the returns on the investment.”
Evergreen and Advertising…

“Many of us who inhabit the sphere of ‚ÄúAmerican Christianity‚Äù live in a world that doesn‚Äôt know when, how or even why to grieve. For us, Christianity is about victory, it‚Äôs about feeling better about ourselves. It‚Äôs upbeat, inspiring, short and peppy. I even know one pastor of a large church who has asked his worship leaders not to do any songs written in a minor key. Too much of a downer.”
Don’t Forget to Grieve…

Worship Audio from evergreen: Forgiveness

I don’t care what you come up with…

bad commercials, William Hung, those movies they make you watch in Driver’s Ed…
No, not even 62 year old Mick Jagger wearing a baby-t and lowcut jeans…

Nothing could possibly compare to the horror, the sheer mindblowing “I can’t believe I am actually seeing this!” of:
The scariest video ever…

“Same with reading God’s Word, with “going to church”, with discussing Scripture with other people… Every once in awhile, something amazing jumps out at us and changes us. But mostly, it’s the every day discipline of coming to God’s Word, it’s the every week submission of putting ourselves under God’s Word… that’s what keeps us alive.”
preaching… It’s kind of like…

“From the desire to be esteemed,

Deliver us, Jesus.

From the desire of being loved by all…

From the desire to be honored …

From the desire to be praised …

Deliver us, Jesus.”
Prayer for Humility

“It’s true… If you look hard enough, you can find some people making universalistic statements. And to be honest, I’m concerned with these as well. I think at some point, we’ll need to take Andrew Jones’ admonition that ‘If there are one or two new emerging churches who have lost the plot, or never saw it clearly to begin with, and are now giving the other hundreds of emerging churches a bad name, they should be lovingly confronted with the better way of Jesus.’”
Some criticism of the emerging church…

St Labadorious

“I was raised with and even planted our church community, Evergreen, with a complementarian view of women in ministry. Though if I were honest, I’d have to say I was prepared to do whatever I could to get around that. Originally, I saw a male “elder” board for our community that handled the ‚Äúshepherding‚Äù and a co-ed “leadership team” that really handled the details of administration and ministry.

But a funny thing happened. I changed. I went back to Scripture, re-examined not only what it said, but what it said against the backdrop of the culture at the time it was said, and I came out different than when I started.

The process started for me…”
Women in leadership…

“I have always managed to live by the creedo “It will work out.” I know that will come back and bite me on the arse someday, but it really has pretty much been the way life has gone for me. It always works out…”
divine humor

“Those who say every follower of Jesus should be practicing the spiritual disciplines (things like fasting, prayer, meditation, giving, etc) as a matter of course are wrong. They are not a requirement. The are not a sign of spiritual maturity. In fact, in a real way, practicing the disciplines is a sign of spiritual immaturity.”
Practicing the Disciplines is a sign of Spiritual IMmaturity…

“I think in our context, it’s much easier to talk about forgiving, and forgiving prodigiously, than it is to talk about the confrontation God the Holy Spirit often uses to bring conviction, repentance and then forgiveness.

Lord, increase my faith…”
pastor and prophet 2