Glorious Mud

I have been reading Darrin's new book, Church Planter, and have really been enjoying it... like a well-timed kick in the butt.  But that is pretty much how Darrin rolls.  He says the hard word in a way that makes it less daunting and challenging in a good way... like a good coach. So - anyway - reading this morning and was hit with this quote from Allender (from Leading with a Limp).  It was what I needed to hear. "Leaders choose daily, but the real weight on their shoulders lies in the need to decide.  And there are no easy decisions.  To decide requires a death, a dying to a thousand options, the putting aside of a legion of possibilities in order to choose just one.  De-cide.  Homo-cide.  Sui-cide.  The root word for decide means "to cut off."  All decisions cut us off; separate us from early infinite options as we select just one single path.  And every decision we make earns us the favor of some and the disfavor of others....

My little girl, Victoria, is starting her senior year of high school.  It really seems like just yesterday she was running around the house pretending to be Snow White in her little princess dress.  She was, is, and always will be my little girl.  But - the reality is that she isn't so little any more.  She is a senior. That means we are talking about cars, jobs, and, of course, college.  She is looking far afield (she is determined to go somewhere away from home to get the full college experience - even though I keep pushing SIUE!).  She scored very well on her ACT and is in the process of writing application essays.  As the former English teacher in the house, I get the privilege of editing my kid's work. That is how I came to read this essay - she wrote it to apply to a college in Nashville (at least that is only four hours away from home).  I was floored, humbled, and thrilled at the same time.  As my daughter's "pastor-daddy," I am ...

I preached on Philemon last week.  It is Paul's shortest letter - and his only letter that is addressed to a single person instead of a church.  It is a valuable glimpse into how the early church navigated the challenge of applying the gospel to the mess of community.  What happens when an escaped slave becomes a follower of Christ and then returns to his Christ-following slave master?  It gets messy. Community was a mess for them and it is a mess for us.  In Colossae, in the church that met at Philemon's house, you had men and women, laborers and wealthy land owners, slaves and slave-masters sitting side by side worshiping the same God.  And, amazingly, they didn't kill each other.  They didn't implode into infighting and bitterness or explode into a hundred different affinity groups. They united together around the person and work of Jesus.  And if they could do it, so can we. Most of Paul's letters are a combination of lesson and lab. ...

I like Bereans - and actually like to think that I am a Berean. In Acts 17, Paul visits a backwater town called Berea to preach the gospel.  The people of this region stuck out (and were actually called "more noble" than their neighbors) because they were a questioning bunch.  They listened to Paul teach and instead of just accepting or rejecting his message, they would only trust his teaching after they studied the scriptures for themselves to see if what he was saying jived with God's Word.  These guys challenged authority.  They were godly nonconformists.  They asked tough questions and had a healthy skeptical trust that led them to continually center themselves on God's word instead of man's traditions.  These are the people in our churches who say, "Hey Steve.  I enjoyed that sermon.  I am going to have to do some digging to see if I agree with it." I love Bereans.  May their tribe increase. There is another tribe in our churc...

I had the privilege of preaching at the Journey: Metro East this weekend.  We are working our way through a series called Foundations, a series that is looking at the story arc of the Bible (a diachronic view of scripture).  It started with the nature and importance of God revealing himself (in nature, the Bible, and in Christ) and then moved on to creation, the fall, redemption, and then on to restoration. So we are in week three, so I got to preach on the Fall.  It is a hard but good passage - one that is passed over too lightly too often.  It is one of those passages that is taught by Aunt Mabel in a back room at the church on a flannel graph - but generally only loosely referenced by the pulpit.   This is a shame because as we understand more fully where we came from, we will have a better understanding of where we are, and where we are going.  Specifically, I think understanding what our first parents did - and what the consequences were - helps us ...

I had a conversation with a friend last night about the use of "the five love languages."  If you are not familiar with the love language model, it is actually a very helpful model of how to understand the way those we love give and receive love - and how that differs from us.  It comes from a book by Dr. Gary Chapman called The Five Love Languages and I highly recommend it if you haven't read it. I can vouch that the model helped me love my wife better.  I am a words of affirmation and touch guy.  So I value Lauren's praise and her touch.  Lauren on the other hand is a works of service person.  She shows love by doing small acts of kindness or helpfulness - and she feels loved when I reciprocate. The tension here is obvious. In our early days so of marriage, I would walk up to Lauren and say oh-so-smoothly, "Hey, baby, you look good in that outfit" while laying my hands on her in an affirming way.  I sure liked it when Lauren did that to me - s...

This headline came across Twitter today from The Onion: Child Slavery Gives Area Activist Something To Do With Her Evenings It made me laugh and grimace at the same time.  I guess that is the point of The Onion's sarcastic pseudo-journalism.  It makes us laugh at ourselves and wince at the same time. So - let's put this on the table.  Some people (myself included) have at times used other people's suffering as a way to add meaning to our boring lives.  Activism can be a wonderful distraction from our meaningless and painfully boring lives.  Who hasn't felt the siren call - You can be important!  You can make a difference!  You can win friends and influence people! Of course it doesn't have to be child slavery - though that is obviously a hot topic these days.  It could be anything we think is important, something that can bring positive social change: abortion, christian education, urban renewal, urban education, renewable energy, AIDS or de...