I’ve been reading Hebrews a bit this week, prepping for my talk at the INN tonight, and I’m just getting pretty excited about what it says. In a very new way, forgiveness and redemption, is hitting me. I’m excited about the ideas that the Holy Spirit is leading me towards as I study it and [...]
This weekend at the retreat I had an interesting conversation with our speaking guest, Mark Nelson, and a couple of students about the concept of "deconstruction" and trimming the excess fat off Christianity to reach into the essentials of our faith. We found ourselves on this topic as we pieced through some of Mark’s weekend [...]
I’m up for speaking again tonight at the last Summer INN of the quarter. We’ve been going through the book of Acts this summer, reading along through a new book called "The Dust Off Their Feet," a retelling of Acts and commentary. It’s been a good read, with some fresh perspectives on what can be [...]
With melodies and cadences, the song of life develops and develops. At times it begins to come to a close, a sort of resolution of sounds, of experiences. At other times, the tension deepens into a field of sound that is not resolved, but pulls in different directions, driving the song forward. Musical tension can [...]
As I mentioned a couple days ago, I’ve begun going through "An Emergent Manifesto of Hope", a compilation of writings by leaders in the emerging church. This book has been a refreshing and thought-provoking read thus far. I’m planning to discuss it with a couple of INN small group leaders that I meet with regularly, [...]
Ahh, the academic break. What a wonderful thing. I don’t intend to gloat to my fellow working world friends out there, but after a year in the "real" world, it is much better to be back on the academic schedule. Winter break was quite nice. And now, it’s really good to be back. I’m just [...]
Whether it’s the prolonged exposure to the 4 walls of my apartment, the dreary weather, the disconnection from church and work over break, or my recent studies in atheism, I’ve been experiencing a bit of doubt over the past couple weeks. Funny to think it was Christmas only two weeks ago, because I feel very [...]
I’m not sure I’ve mentioned it here before, but this quarter I’m involved in a small group with some good friends from church and our pastor. We’re going through Renovare’s six aspects of a balanced vision for faith. We’ve talked about the Contemplative (meditation, lectio devina), Holiness (pietistic), Charismatic (Holy Spirit-empowered), and Social Justice (umm…social [...]
This last month has seen a very difficult series of events unfold surrounding the allegations of former-pastor and president of the National Evangelical Association, Ted Haggard and his involvement with a male-prostitute and drug use. While I’m sure many of you have heard about this in the news, here are a couple good links to [...]
When I first became a Christian I purchased a cross necklace. It’s a simple necklace with black string and a metal cross. Really nothing special to look at, but I’ve worn it everyday for the past five years and actually, I can’t recall ever taking it off…until last night.
