the Essays & Reflections
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Changing for the God who doesn’t
As I look to learn more of God in scripture I come to discover that his character is unchanging. That there is no more room for Him to be loving, compassionate, patient, and graceful. It is in the very core of God this unchanging and undying reality that many find comfort and rest. Yet for his steadfast
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Church as a Base Camp
Church is not the goal. To journey and be transformed is. As a pastor my heart beats so that others may have their own intimate and exciting experiences with Jesus and the Holy Spirit. For the church to facilitate this, we need to see ourselves as the base camp of life. Where we prepare others
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Dissecting my Construction
People thrive within the boundaries they construct to understand the chaos and confusion that is the life around them. As Christians we are no different, but with the thrust to interpret divine reality our constructed realities easily become self-serving, vicious, and abusive. One of our most critical jobs is to dissect how and why we’ve constructed our world with the hope that
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Faithfulness is Everything…ness
In a visual world it is second nature to count, collect, and compare what is seen. It seems natural to desire more and from a young age we do. We believe that 72 crayons are better than 12, even if we only use 6. We compare important things too: ministries, callings, follower, and bank accounts. Yet
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Our Calling should Inspire Us and not Define Us
There’s excitement as people discover, discern, and accept their life calling. Yet if life were a single day this would equate to little more than putting on a single sock. You have not yet reached the door, and have the majority of the real work ahead. With this perspective we can accept our calling as a critical step
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Honest Realizations: Being Meaningful to Someone
The ministry/missionary world is immersed and exists within a single verse from the Apostle Paul – 1 Corinthians 9:20-23 (full passage below). It’s the passage where he talks about becoming all things to all people so that he might save some of them. This weekend that passage was weighing on me as I dreamt of
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Becoming a Bi-Vocational Pastor
The natural question one is asked as they graduate from Seminary is: What is next for you/Where is God calling you? With only 82 days between me and my Masters of Divinity this question is looming in the bushes (or shrubbery if you will). For my wife and I we will be bi-vocational pastors. Choosing Bi-Vocational This does
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The Resurrection is a sneak peak, so #WhatRapture
In my opinion many Christians who affirm the Rapture fail to take into account the simple reality that Jesus was already transformed before he was ever taken up into the sky. The leaving the disciples and ascending into the sky seemed to be a requirement for; the interim period we are now in (between the resurrection and the consummation of history) and
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My Dad Sharing about his Faith and ALS
Back on November 7th (2010) my dad got the opportunity to share with his faith community at Eden Prairie Presbyterian Church where he was at with his ALS diagnosis and his faith. At this point he had just begun to use his wheel chair. This 13 minute conversation took place 266 days before he past away from complications
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The truth is that there is Truth…
”The truth is that there is Truth, but not for us, only for God. This is the appropriation or recontextualizing of the hermeneutics of finitude I propose.” Merold Westphal I really need to get into his work once my schedule lightens up more.