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It is time to offer a different narrative than constant outrage and antagonism.
We live in a time in which there are hyper-obsessions with how we describe ourselves and then how we label others.
The last couple of weeks have been a huge reminder to me that there is still more goodness in this world than bad.
God was there, as God is here now, appealing to all people to resist the ideological forces that are working to strip others of their humanity.
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.
If we were really serious about picking up our crosses daily and becoming servants of all, racial reconciliation would be one of the most essential tasks of the white Christian.
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 idea of burning in Hell for eternity is utterly inconsistent with a God that we are told looks exactly like Jesus.
We are not being saved from something, but saved into something.
The most misunderstood word in all of Christianity.
Hiding behind the phrase “biblically correct,” is actually a convenient way for those who wear a “Christian” label to completely ignore Jesus.
The love of God is radically offensive to those who do not understand it.
So what exactly is the good news?
God has unconditionally and preemptively forgiven all people, all people, all people, for all time.
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.
I resided in a relatively joyless existence for the majority of my adult life
'Love your enemies' ought to be sufficient.
The issue of arming our churches is now more relevant than ever.
God, I am done with you.
"Thoughts and prayers" are devoid of meaning, of value, of consequence, of participation, of action, of change.
Maybe my struggle has been with the way in which our culture has always portrayed prayer.
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.
Words and experience can only take us so far and that destination is painfully and woefully short of God's love-essence.
Throughout the Ages, God has absorbed the insults of his accusers and endured the mischaracterizations of his followers.
For the words we use can be powerful weapons that wound, kill, and destroy, or instruments of blessing, healing, and life.
I'm not sure how to describe the feelings that go beyond heartbroken and devastated. Honest to God, I don't.
In my experience, the only place where the superficial veneer is stripped away, where pretense is obliterated, where cosmetic application fails, and where vulnerability is unmasked and triumphantly exposed... is in the presence of a loving, non-judgmental, other-centered group of trusted friends.
The truth is that the church ought to be the community in which people can ask the toughest questions and wrestle through the most difficult topics because it has the grace enough to push the edges and love enough to handle the tension.
Our heads told us that this was the right decision, but nothing told our hearts to prepare for being wrecked.
I can't overstate how important it is for each of us to have people in our lives that we allow to speak truth to us.
It doesn't matter which side of the political spectrum you are on- This country is not your hope. This political system is not your hope. This government is not your hope.
There is an ever-present reality into which we can enter, a realm into which we are continually invited, where love wholly embraces, mends broken-hearts, births a new way of living, gives eyes to see people and the world differently, and changes each one of us in such a profound way that thanksgiving becomes the very essence of our being, and the perpetual outflow of our spirit.
An absolutely essential parable to the Church for this political season...
That is the great casualty of this life- we have become disconnected from this great embrace and allowed ourselves to be separated from the source of perfect freedom and perfect love. And it is this disconnection that, no matter the paths we have traveled or how it happened in each of our lives, has steadily closed us off from the life we were always meant to live, the life we were always meant to experience.
Living constantly in the burden and pain of our suffering can either become an end destination or a passageway for each of us.
How ought Christians view politics and the government in light of the Old Testament?
There is a kingdom movement outside of the church walls being embodied and coming to life in a hungry people.
Right now our conversations are not conversations.
I know who I am. I know what I signed up for. I know whose life I have chosen to pattern my life after. I know that patterning my life after Jesus comes with a cost.
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.
Fear has absolutely no room in the life of a person consumed by the complete and perfect love of God.
The homeowner took a stand against every single person who violated the covenants.
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.
In a single moment of indescribable beauty, the opposing forces embraced, heaven and earth collided, and it captured our hearts with the possibilities of how things really could be, not just one day in the distant future... but today.
There is no question that we live in an incredibly unique time in history in which there is a strange mass collision of shallowness, superficiality, competing narratives that try to explain our existence, and depersonalization wrought by technology, all accompanied by a growing disdain for spirituality, in general, and religion, in specific, from a hyper-rationalistic culture.
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.
In the barrios, the Church my daughter and I were a part of that day was the light of Christ breaking into darkness.
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.
If we aren’t living like Christ in the present, when times are relatively good, then we will never live like Christ when things get difficult.
One Sunday we showed up at our rented church building. Someone had spray painted a Nazi swastika on the front of the building.
I know who I am today and I know what role I play in this life because of my mother.
Father we repent and ask for forgiveness, for we know that Jesus did not spend his time isolating and targeting special “sin groups” or trying to defend his positions through arguing and debating.
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.
If the Church is to be the embodiment of new creation, a sign post of God’s present reign in our lives, who will nurture and guide us along the way?
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 awe of the cosmic Christ has been replaced by a very casual “Jesus is my bro” attitude.
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.
The great blessing of faith I received from my father was greater than the very foundations of the earth.
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.
You are telling me that a disembodied, spiritual heaven is not the end? I am not sure that is something I can believe.
God is not giving up on the creation that was called “good” from the very beginning.
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.
Not only can I not kill my enemy or have someone do it on my behalf or with my support, I can not even hate my enemy, or avenge the wrong he has done to me.
Can you imagine America loving our enemies rather than engaging in conflict with them? Me either.
My cynicism and skepticism kept me from believing that God would, or could, actually speak in a way that a person today would really hear God.
The sacrificial way of Jesus has been co-opted by the self-serving, consumer driven interests of cultural America.
When a loved-one in your life passes unexpectedly, everything else in the world seems to completely stop and to have very little significance.
In solitude and silence we metaphorically come out from behind the bushes and trees and finally stand naked before God…exposed.
In our global neighborhood and in the middle of the street in which we live lies a poor brother who has been in need of help for quite sometime. And now needs our help more than ever.
The way of Jesus does not have to be defended; it must be demonstrated. It never moves out in judgment; it moves out in love. It never extends in condemnation to the world; it extends in grace and mercy. The ways of arguing, defending, judging, and condemning always build up walls and embitter those in the world who are on the receiving end.
The truth of the matter is that there is nothing wrong with recognizing the fact that there are times when God does not answer prayer the way that I would like. And sometimes that means the unanswered prayer will make my life hard…sometimes unbearable…but it doesn’t mean that God is not there suffering with me or that God has turned against me and does not love me.
We weren’t hired to work the vineyard. We were hired because we know how to work the vineyard.
I asked over 100 of my friends, “What is the Good News and why does it matter?” Of the nearly 30 responses I received, all but one essentially said the same thing, “The Good News is that Jesus died for our sins and those who believe in him will be forgiven.” Is that it?
The Christian is confronted by the paradox of the Holy Scriptures when told to consider it pure joy when faced with all kinds of trials.
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?
there is profound wisdom in pursuing a life in which one sacrifices everything. only there will one end up with nothing and everything. that is where life is found.