“Nobody Was Born Racist” and other Things I Wish Were True

This blog is the continuation of a previous post On Aug 16, 2017, a few days after the alt-right rally in Charlottesville, VA this tweet became the most liked tweet in Twitter’s short history. It’s a quote lifted out of Nelson Mandela’s autobiography Long Walk to Freedom that continues, “people must learn to hate, and …

(Not So) Merry Christmas From the Pope

Today, Pope Francis addressed the Vatican in his annual Christmas address for the bishops, cardinals and other staffers who live and work in Vatican City.  Rather than offer up a pithy "Merry Christmas" and how-do-you-do, Pope Francis offered up what we in the preaching biz call an "epic verbal smackdown." Not an angry rant or …

What Do You Do With A Reluctant Prophet?

Sermon Series: Jonah: The Reluctant Prophet / What To Do When We Don't Agree The book of Jonah is a prophetic masterpiece that is often neglected by churches in their teaching. It is a vivid picture of how a faith community that becomes self-obsessed and in-grown fails to embody the life God has called us …

Two Kinds of Racism

What does a Canadian white male do with what is happening in Ferguson, MO? The violence and the bitter distrust is heart breaking and I don't know what I can do about it. I would like to think that I could hold this at arms length and shake my head condescendingly since this kind of …

Beyond Betrayal

"Hosea and Gomer" by Cody Miller. Hosea 3:1-5 1 The Lord said to me, “Go, love your wife again, though she is loved by another man and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.” 2 So I bought her for fifteen …

What is a Christian Song?

“This is a Christian song?” We were having a father – son conversation in the car on our way somewhere when I had some words of praise for my son's – right at this particular moment – favourite band. The song is called “Demons” by Imagine Dragons but don't let the title fool you. The …

Book Review: Caring Beyond the Margins

It would be an understatement to say that the conversation between the Christian community and LGBT community has gone poorly over the past few years. Grace and understanding are both in short supply, which is why a book like Caring Beyond the Margins is so important. Guy Hammond, founder and executive director of Strength in …

Re: Why Churches of Christ are Shrinking

I recently figured out how to get people to read my blog!  Two blog posts recently addressed the flagging fortunes of my tribe and got massive amounts of feedback – Good, bad and ugly.  So all I have to do is talk about the Churches of Christ disappearing and the readers will come!  🙂  I …

Humility is Everything

I was encouraged this week to read that Harold Camping publicly apologized for his, "End of the world" predictions he made last year. (At the time I wrote about it here.) Using the Family Radio Network that his church owns, he famously guaranteed that Jesus would return on May 21st, 2011. The Media had a …

Wisdom about Marriage

Here are three wise men (wise guys?) who have a collective 116 years of experience between them talking about marriage. Piper, Carson, and Keller on Sustaining the Covenant of Marital Love from The Gospel Coalition on Vimeo. Here is the article that Keller mentions: The Power of Promising by Lewis Smedes.