Glorious Mud

Last Sunday (March 26, 2017), I preached a message at Trailhead Church in Edwardsville, IL , called Sanctified Diversity, looking at Paul's rebuke of Peter for not "keeping in step with the truth of the gospel." The clear implication of this passage is that it's not enough to only know the truth as a follower of Jesus. You must also lean in and learn to live out its implications in the difficult spaces of life.  There are few areas that our culture needs us to lean in with gospel grace, humility, and empathy more than in the area of racial and cultural diversity. It's just not optional. We can be orthodox in our words and heretics with our lives, undermining the integrity of the message of the gospel because we are not walking in its power. To be true to the gospel, we need to do more than just believe its truths. We need to walk out their applications in our lives.  My sermon was called Sanctified Diversity . You can follow that link to listen to it on Tr...

This last week, Trailhead Church in Edwardville had our first Fight Club big group meeting.  We talked about why it is vital that we fight with each other for the right things.  So, I am going to post the notes from that meeting here in case you were not able to join us.  Read this and fight with us.  (Special thanks to Darrin Patrick for writing his great book Church Planter and to John Bryson for posting his fight club material online!) The Crisis of Manhood Welcome – and good morning Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. (1 Corinthians 16:13) Trailhead’s vision is to create a culture that encourages manhood, not to start another men’s program.  We don't need  – one more thing to do. We need a men’s culture – where men are expected to be men – where we have high standards for ourselves and for each other. This is going to be a huge challenge because we are facing a crisis of manhood in our culture. ...

I know I haven't posted in a while... but I have been a little busy starting a church.  I have one word to describe the last month and a half of labor: Joy.  Seriously.  I can't tell you how thick and rich and deep the experience of God's grace has been in it.  I will post more about that soon. But for now - Lauren posted some thoughts on her blog about being a pastor's wife that I want to share with you.  You can find it here:  Ground of my Own . If you know me - you know that I am not your typical pastor (if there is such a thing, I guess).  I have just kind of tripped through life and God has always directed my stumbling steps to take me where he wants me.  Five years ago, I would have laughed at you if you had said I was going to be a pastor.  Well, Lauren never imagined that she would end up as a pastor's wife.  The experience has been just as rich and encouraging for her as it has been for me - but she comes from a background...

I posted this on one of my older blogs and it generated some new conversation lately, so I thought I would repost it here (with a little editing). The article isn't brand new, but the link is still active and so is the conversation. The USA Today ran an article about how our nation's youth see Christianity as anti-gay, judgmental, and hypocritical. Here is an excerpt: "The vast majority of non-Christians — 91% — said Christianity had an anti-gay image, followed by 87% who said it was judgmental and 85% who said it was hypocritical. Such views were held by smaller percentages of the active churchgoers, but the faith still did not fare well: 80% agreed with the anti-gay label, 52% said Christianity is judgmental, and 47% declared it hypocritical. Kinnaman said one of the biggest surprises for researchers was the extent to which respondents — one in four non-Christians — said that modern-day Christianity was no longer like Jesus." The full article can be viewed...

I have been reading through Ezekiel this month. And just for the record - this is one crazy book. Man, Ezekiel had one rough gig. I am tempted to complain when I run a 12 hour day of meetings. You know, rough stuff - St. Louis Bread Co. can get seriously old. Ezekiel, on the other hand, had to act out all these crazy judgments from God before they happened. He was God's living parable. He had to sit in a public square and build miniature cities out of bricks and then destroy them. He had to lay on his side in public for 390 days and then roll over and lay on the other side for 40 more days. He had to cook his food over human feces - well, until God recanted and allowed him to cook it over cow poop. And that is just the start. Ezekiel had it rough. But he was God's man. He loved God and he loved God's people and he was willing to suffer so that God's grace could come and bring repentance and restoration to people near to God in religious behavior but far from God i...

I recently read an article in the New Yorker called "How David Beats Goliath" by Malcolm Gladwell. I found it fascinating and highly recommend it - you can find it here . The Article The article uses the experiences of the shepherd boy David, a middle school girls' basketball coach named Vivek Ranadivé, Laurence of Arabia, Rick Patino, and others to show that the "Davids" of the world - the underdogs - can actually have a distinct advantage in competition of conflict if they focus more on effort than skill - more time looking for unconventional approaches than by playing the game as it is normally played. The premise of the article is that underdogs actually win most of the time when they approach the conflict on their own terms, unconstrained by conventional expectations. Many times, as in the case of the middle school girls' basketball that used a vigorous full court press the entire game, the strategies are not illegal or immoral - they are simply unco...

I recently read through Gary Thomas' Sacred Pathways and discovered that I experience God in ways I wouldn't have imagined. None of them fit me perfectly, but from what I can tell, I experience God as a sensate primarily. But I also approach him as an activist, and surprisingly, a traditionalist. That last one is a shocker because I have always been distrustful of the "High Church" and all their rote mumbo jumbo. I am a low church guy with roots in the house church and Plymouth Brethren movements. Neither of these movements put much credence into tradition (well, at least tradition outside of their own cultural patterns). In fact, it was normal for us to completely ignore the Christian calendar - even preaching on 1 Corinthians 5 on Christmas because, well, that is where we were in the text. So, this year, really for the first time, I have tried to attune myself to the traditional Christian seasons. I know this is on the far margin of what it means to be a tradi...

I am showing The Passion of the Christ (yes, the whole thing) this Friday night at our Good Friday service. If you were to come, you would enter a dark room lit by candles. You would enter in silence and sit meditatively - expectantly. The night will start with a brief explanation of the series of events of the passion week, so everyone knows how Good Friday fits in to the broader progression. You would then be led through worship music and scripture meditation to consider the cross. You would then hear a brief message on the purpose and value of substitutionary atonement followed by communion, silence, and then a showing of the movie. I know - old news - the movie has been around for over 5 years now. I know churches have been showing clips of it every Easter since. So, here is my confession. I didn't watch the movie when it came out - or when it was recut and re-released the next year...or when it came to DVD. In fact, I didn't watch it until this week. Why? Lot'...

I was listening to a report on NPR about Army recruitment. They are having difficulty keeping recruitment up. I know. No Duh. The reasons they cited, though, were not the ones I expected. I figured that the 100% chance of going to war might put a dent in their efforts. But the reason the Army recruiter cited was (are you ready for this) obesity. Too many of the young men coming and inquiring about becoming part of The One were too fat to be able to handle the physical rigors of the army life. Now I know some of these guys are the victims of bad genes - but not all of them. In fact, not most of them. One of the guys interviewed said he knew he was overweight when he applied. He was 5'10" and 280 pounds. The army has somewhat lenient rules concerning obesity, but he was still over the limit by 70 pounds. Why was he overweight? In his own words: beer and the X-Box. He said that he worked all day in a sedentary job, then came home and consumed two six-packs and played vi...

OK, just when I thought this thing could not get any weirder - it does. I read this morning that Ted and Gayle Haggard are planning an appearance on Divorce Court to discuss how their marriage has survived the recent craziness (for an undisclosed amount of money). They say their marriage is better than ever and that they want to communicate to America that divorce is not the answer. And this even as it is coming to light that he had a long term sexual affair with a young man who served in his church in addition to his meth-enhanced trysts with a male escort in Colorado. Since this strange story broke in 2006, I haven't been paying much attention. I was surprised to read that this appearance is being coordinated with a full-on Haggard publicity blitz, as he is also appearing on Oprah and Larry King Live, in order to promote his new documentary that follows his time "in exile." This is just crazy. Time in exile? It's only been three years since the original alleg...

I always find it interesting what angle the media chooses when doing a piece on a pastor or ministry. Driscoll handled himself well. Check it out: ABC News: Pastor Dude's Mega-Church Draws Crowds Posted using ShareThis