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I'm reaching out with something a bit special — an invitation to join me on a reflective journey called Deep Calls to Deep.
My first novel, What Can’t Be Hidden, will launch on September 7 and you can be a part of the team.
The last couple of weeks have been a huge reminder to me that there is still more goodness in this world than bad.
It is always the transformation of the smallest part that leads to the transformation of the whole. 
We groan and cry out in this painful life experience together. 
The cold, hard fact is that there are prayers that God does not answer.
During this time, will we begin to walk together to discover opportunities to learn and be transformed or will we be consumed by despair and antipathy?
Who can stand before this cosmically-sized love without being completely transformed?
Either way, you will ultimately face then refiner’s fire.
The problem is that Hell is never once mentioned in the Bible.
When you are confronted with the reality of an undeserved kindness, it can be transformative.
The word wrath isn’t an unloading of God’s fury and rage on the unrepentant.
Should we pray for the president?
The judgment of God is simply giving a person what they have freely chosen.
We have only ever been alienated from God in our minds.
I was told that I needed to be saved from my sins so that I wouldn’t go to Hell when I die.
The most misunderstood word in all of Christianity.
These small moments are gifts, if we will receive them and let them teach us.
There is a crushing agony to experiencing so much stillness and peace and serenity, but then walking back into so much antipathy, hatred, and division. 
There are many people who struggle to understand a God who unconditionally and preemptively forgives everyone.
The forgiveness of God is unconditional and preemptive.
Where O Light are you in this darkness?
You may not trust these words now, but there is hope in your pain and suffering.
God, I am done with you.
"Thoughts and prayers" are devoid of meaning, of value, of consequence, of participation, of action, of change.
We live in an age in which stimulation and consumption are all too normal in our lives.
All you have to do is walk outside and take a deep breath and accept the invitation.
The Good News of the Kingdom of God is not one of the many things.  It is the thing.
There has always been an overwhelming temptation for people of faith to fixate on and obsess over how we worship God, rather than focusing on how our worship ought to change us.
The church of the future is around a table- breaking bread and taking the cup together. It is where we move from a personal, individualized faith to a place of shared, relational, and communal faith as a family.
If death is the end toward which all life is moving... then why does anything in our lives matter at all? Why ascribe any purpose to it whatsoever? It is all death in the end anyway.
Sometimes we need the desert to find our hearts and souls... and to remember who we are and what our purpose is. And no matter the endless circles and varied pathways we take in this desert life, the point at which they all converge is at the cross. For it is when we come to the cross that we choose to no longer go our own way.
We will not take part in continuing the endless cycle of death and destruction. Not with what we think. Not with what we say. Not with what we do.
We marry as a celebration, as a signpost, of how God takes two beautiful and unique individuals and brings them gloriously together as one.
We live in a culture that does not stop, that does not rest, that does not breathe, and does not understand our desperate need for sacred space.
There is a beautiful word, an elegant descriptor, that has been maligned, tarnished, lampooned, distorted, and completely misunderstood.
Spiritual transformation is a process. It is a daily walk of letting go and receiving, of dying and coming to life, of being refined into something new.
We must become people of the bottom; people who are below; people who are last; people who are in the back; people who are the least.
Our communities are in desperate need of people who love each other and seek out Truth in love and who can hear it without egos and attitudes.
There are so many positions, angles, self-interested ideologies, and half-truths surrounding us that we are not sure what truth is anymore.
I can courageously face another day, another week, another year because I have a family ready to receive me and shower me with love and acceptance.
The central purpose, the grand narrative, the over-arching achievement of God is to bring heaven and earth back together as one.
We have erroneously viewed the Kingdom of Heaven as a disembodied future existence and destination for Christians.
What if the Biblical narrative paints a very different picture of our future hope than the one many Christians have come to believe?
Each of you have had a part in Caroline’s life, molding her and shaping her into the person she is.
Have you ever felt utterly alone and wished that there was someone else who would just recognize you, say a word to you, or make you feel welcomed?
The truth is that I was afraid that they might perceive me as a salesman or as having some sort of an agenda, even though neither of those are true of me.
If we don't have an overarching understanding of the larger narrative (or 30,000 foot view) of what God is doing in history then we will always continue to operate at the 30 foot view and disagree as to how to view who Jesus was, what he was trying to do, and how we are to be as his followers.
Could it be that we appear so good and perfect in our churches that there is no place for the sinner, much less a confession to another brother or sister?
Jesus did not come to create a special group of "saved" people, rather a Kingdom of priests that offer themselves as living sacrifices used by God to restore a broken and fractured world.
response to a cnn.com article: Americans switching faiths/dropping out  one of the things i have been thinking about lately is how we treat Church as the ends…rather than the means.  when we let our faith, our relationship with God, and even our emotions rise and fall based on “the event” on sunday…we have already taught people that […]