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The last couple of weeks have been a huge reminder to me that there is still more goodness in this world than bad.
That is the great irony of the Incarnation. We temporarily gather to celebrate something we have no intention of becoming ourselves.
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.
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.
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. 
So what exactly is the good news?
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.
Joy is an ever-present reality to which we open wide our souls to receive, but it is also a remembering and a longing.
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.
Throughout the Ages, God has absorbed the insults of his accusers and endured the mischaracterizations of his followers.
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.
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.
It is a very, very bizarre phenomenon. Despite clear and overwhelming evidence that Jesus wants his followers to be peacemakers, to love our enemies, and to not repay evil with evil, the vast majority of Christians in the United States are pro-capital punishment and pro-war.
An absolutely essential parable to the Church for this political season...
Living constantly in the burden and pain of our suffering can either become an end destination or a passageway for each of us.
There is a kingdom movement outside of the church walls being embodied and coming to life in a hungry people.
You know the old saying, “It takes one to know one.” Well, the reason I can identify this problem so easily is because I was part of the problem.
The truth is that we can very easily miss the fact that "life to the fullest" has been here all along... right in front of us... in everything we do... in every moment.
For even in the face of death, our own blood will cry out and give testimony.
I do not need any legislation to pronounce the freedom I already have, and will continue to have, despite my changing circumstance or situation.
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.
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.
In the barrios, the Church my daughter and I were a part of that day was the light of Christ breaking into darkness.
Will we ever find joy? Will love ever prevail instead of hate and violence? Will the longings of hope ever be realized into something?
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.
"This my body, given for you" is not simply a statement reminding us of what Jesus did, but a declaration of what his Body (the Church) will continue to do.
If we are God's ambassadors then we can't give up on even the most hard headed, hard hearted, stubborn mule of a person.
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 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.
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.
We have erroneously viewed the Kingdom of Heaven as a disembodied future existence and destination for Christians.
Each of you have had a part in Caroline’s life, molding her and shaping her into the person she is.
The truth of God that cuts through every liberal and conservative position is God's profound love of all life.
Can you imagine America loving our enemies rather than engaging in conflict with them? Me either.
"You will be the servant and I will be the master," my oldest daughter declared to my youngest daughter as they played together the day before Christmas.
Our time would be better spent discussing how to demonstrate a greater love to the Muslims or how we can better serve them with our actions.
The Christian ought not have allegiance to or affinity toward any ideological, political, or governmental system of the world.
The Kingdom of God is the full-on reign of God in the hearts and minds of those who believe in the way, life, and teachings of Jesus.
Every single time we take the humble and submissive way of Christ, it may look like defeat for you as an individual.
The message and embodiment of the Kingdom of God…in and through Jesus Christ…offered people an alternative of freedom and liberation and an escape from the crushing and oppressive forces at work in the world. The message of the Kingdom of God was that life does not have to be this way.
If our understanding of worship has been so twisted and misunderstood in the church, is it possible that our understanding of praise could be just as twisted and misunderstood? Is it possible that we have reduced our praise to a Sunday sing-a-long? Is it possible that our praise has centered on what we get out of it rather than what God is doing through it?
the really tough thing is that most of us really do not like to change our view or perspective.
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.
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 […]