Category: God
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Being With God
God is the ground of being, being-itself; who concerns us ultimately. Thus, God is our ultimate concern. — Paul Tillich I’ll be honest with you and say that on a weekly if not daily basis, I find myself wondering what good I am doing as a pastor. It’s not that I don’t appreciate what I do or the people with…
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Where Love Abides
How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? – 1 John 3:17 This is a post that of myself I don’t want to write. In fact, I don’t even know what I am about to say. What I know is that I…
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Transforming Purpose
Years ago a friend told me that he was sad because he didn’t know his life’s purpose. For some reason, I had never thought about that concept before. And so, because I didn’t know how to take what he was saying seriously, I insensitively reacted with laughter. This upset him, which only made me laugh…
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How Am I Supposed To Feel? (After Another Shooting)
Last night when I put my daughter to bed, she told my wife and me that she didn’t want us to worry about her being shot at school. We don’t either. When she said this, I felt my heart breaking and it took almost everything out of me to keep my mind from descending into…
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Escaping the Prison Industrial Mindset
Tonight I realized that I feel safer in cars that look like I can afford them. That is a sad awareness that I need to work on more deeply. How I realized this was that I had to rent a car. I had a coupon that enabled me to get a compact for the same…
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Courting Scandal
Some Sundays ago, I preached a message to the congregation I serve that I intended to be hopeful. In it, I talked about the “scandal of change”. My main point was that scandal is part and parcel of any change endeavor. The text that I was preaching from was the Annunciation from Luke 1 where…
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Our Word’s Matter
A number of year’s ago, I had a book proposal rejected by a publisher. The book was based on the opening verses of Hebrews 11. 11 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. 2 For by it the elders obtained a good testimony. 3 By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so…
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DMX and the Ballad of the Brokenhearted
Have you ever looked into the eyes of someone who has been truly brokenhearted? Perhaps you have and they were your very own eyes? If you have, then you’ll likely agree with me that despite what romantic entertainment will have you believe, there are relatively few people who have been completely brokenhearted. To give you…
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When God Shows Up
How do you explain the inexplicable? How do you see the Unseen? How do you teach about the Unknown? These are questions that go through my head on a weekly basis serving as a minister. I guess the short answer to all of those questions is faith. But what exactly is faith? In Hebrews 11,…
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Christ Is A Demonstrable Verb
Lately I don’t feel that comfortable in my skin. And that is a good thing. In some ways, I feel like what I imagine a butterfly or moth must experience when they are making their way out of their cocoon or chrysalis. I’m trying to spread my wings, but I am coming up against some…
The Roofless Church 