You may hate me after you read this. If you do, you won’t be alone. My hate mail file has suddenly gotten rather thick, after a recent post. For decades, I have endured the disdain of church members who felt their church was drifting out of their control under my… Continue reading
I had a pastor friend whose church (Grace Church) merged with another church (New Life Church.) They called the new, joint congregation, Grace Life. I like that! What does a grace life look like? If I took this grace thing seriously, I would be at peace with myself. I would… Continue reading
Jesus really messed things up! God becoming a baby, being born to an unmarried teenager, loving all of the wrong people…prostitutes, greedy cheaters, traitors, rough, angry blue collar types, beggars, deformed people, individuals with disgusting diseases, terrorists, and soldiers of the occupying super power. He deliberately reached out to people that his… Continue reading
Grace is the most counter-intuitive, mysterious thing in the world. It doesn’t make any sense at all. Christians seem to be particularly confused and conflicted about grace. Yet, they sing about it, preach about it, and would fight other Christians who disagreed with them about it. They say grace refers to… Continue reading
I was in a funk, terribly bored by the Internet, television, and movies; despising the regular patterns of my life. The more I dreamed of something that would bring a glimmer of life to my soul, the more unattainable it seemed. Fear was holding me tightly, even though I hardly… Continue reading
Figuring out what really pisses you off and agitates you can be very insightful because our motivations and passions flow from our deepest irritants and frustrations. Here are a few of my least favorite things. (I can hear Julie Andrews in my head.) Church programs that ignore the individuals they supposedly… Continue reading
I love Jesus’ response to the women caught as she was having sex with a man that she shouldn’t have been having sex with. Scooped up from the bedroom and thrown into the middle of a mob of self-righteous men, she cowered, quivering, ready for the first rock to hit her in… Continue reading
I have hit an awesome chapter in Richard Rohr’s Falling Upward and I am trying to unpackage it. Every time God forgives us, God is saying that God’s own rules do not matter as much as the relationships that God wants to create with us. (pp. 56-57) I always thought of forgiveness as… Continue reading
Many years ago, I heard a radio preacher say, the goal of the Christian life is to sin less. When I was young (and more optimistic) it made sense to me. After all, we are to become more like God and he is holy. So, we should, at least, be… Continue reading
Do we learn best from our failures or our successes? I learn a lot from my failures. I should, because I rehearse them over and over. I learn what an incredible screw up I am. I throw some gasoline upon my ever smoldering sense of shame. I paralyze myself from moving forward… Continue reading
