Ethiopian Dinner

We've made some new friends who adopted a little girl from Ethiopia about a year ago. They have been very kind and have connected us with others who have been or who are in the same process. Tonight they invited about 5 families over and we made Ethiopian food. It was a …

Breakfast

I'm sure you are like me and have the opportunity to watch countless videos each week thanks to youtube and others. I'm pretty selective and rarely do because time is valuable, but I saw one last night from a friend who hardly ever posts videos. I clicked on the video …

The Force

I've been studying John 1 over the past month. It begins with, "In the beginning was the Word..." That phrase is packed full of meaning. People for generations had philosophized about the meaning of "Word," well before John was written (Socrates & Plato included).
It …

Thoughts on the Oscars

I was thrilled that Slumdog Millionaire was the big winner. It was refreshing to see people who win who didn't come with a gazillion Hollywood dollars behind them. It was also good to see a movie win that told a great story. No amount of glitz or special effects can …

The Best Sound in the World

Last night we had a family outing. The night started at On The Border, where we are mastering the art of eating cheap. Beth & I split a large combo meal, the boys split a meal, and we all eat lots of the free tortillas and chips. Ends up being $3-$4 a person for some …

Back in the Game

Virb 2.oh has been released & I like how it's looking. I'll be playing around with it some to see if it's going to be what I'm going to stick with. Version 1.0 wasn't initially set-up for blogging, and thus had some shortcoming. Feel free to give me your input about the …

Important Info

Wanted to let you all know that Virb will soon be Virb 2.0 This means that this site will be down starting Saturday afternoon & it won't be back-up until mid-week (at least that is their guess). It will end up being better, sleeker & more functional so I'm excited …

Chicago

I'm headed to Chicago for several reasons:
1. Participate in the Urban Conversation. It's a discussion that began last year on how the church can best meet urban needs.
2. Set-up work for our Missions trip to Chicago in a month.
3. Preaching at First Christian Church …

Churchy: Holy Priesthood

Dave & I preached yesterday about the "Holy Priesthood" and "The Roles of Ministers." You can hear it here. It was a bit of a two-fold sermon, but the two ideas do belong in the same conversation. I promised a list of Scriptures that could further your study. Here they …

Churchy: The Staff

We spent about five hours today putting our heads and hearts together to prepare for the next few months of ministry at HP. It was a productive and good time. I can't imagine trying to do that with a group of people who don't get along. Fortunately, I don't live in that …

Churchy: The Status Quo

Mark Batterson blogged, "A couple decades ago a pair of psychologists named Samuelson & Zeckhauser discovered a phenomenon they dubbed the Status Quo Bias. Simply put: most of us keep doing what we've been doing without giving it much thought."
This isn't always bad, …

Churchy: "Serve" Scriptures

I'll be preaching on the idea of "service" in about 10 hours. The Bible is full of great passages about this topic. Here are a few of my favorites:

Deut 10:12-13
12 And now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in …

Encouraging Those Who Teach Us

Galatians 6:6 says, "Anyone who receives instruction in the word must share all good things with his instructor." Recently someone whom I'm just getting to know told me how God used a sermon (specifically 3 words from that sermon) to bring healing. I needed this. I'd …

Churchy: Correction

You may have caught a verbal slip of mine on Sunday. I strayed from my notes in order to add a bit of perspective and mentioned that the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2) took place over a month after Jesus' ascension. I later realized that I wasn't thinking straight. It was 40 …

Dreams & Goals

Goal-setting has not been a strong part of my leadership. I need to improve. But dreaming and taking steps towards them is something that I'm getting better at. I read a great blog that I think holds great insight into both of these things. It points-out that our …

Churchy: What does "traditional" mean?

I have no idea what "traditional church" means. I think I get what people are trying to say, it's just very limited. For most people, their idea of "traditional" is how we programmed church stuff when they were growing up (30, 40, 50 years ago). But it's all subjective. …

White Space Day

I spent the day with Kenneth & Lane, two close friends & partners in ministry. We got the idea about 4 months ago & finally followed-through. The good things that happened for me personally are... 1. Personal accountability. 2. They helped me flesh-out some ministry …

Dinner for the basketball guys

We have a group of 30-50 guys who show up late on Sunday nights to play ball in our church gym every week. It's something I do to connect with these guys, and basketball provides a common ground. Most of them are in their young 20's or late teens and grew up in an urban …

The Perfect Match (A Short Film)

I did a little project last week that was fun for me, and stretched me. I had decided to enter a short film in a local film festival that raises money for the Child Abuse Network, and last Wed-Thurs was our window. I took a vacation day and spent about 16 hours on it. …

Churchy: "Church in the Magical Forest."

"Church in the Magical Forest"
written by Brian Jennings

Once upon a time
in a magical forest
Along came a priest
with a beautiful chorus

He wasn't fancy or eloquent
but had a simple call
You are not alone
in this world after all

He told all the …