Last night was the latest in our country's history of local violence and rioting. It is heartbreaking and it is devastating a town that was already filled with pain and heartache.Before I go further my cards need to be on the table. I am a white guy. I grew up in an area where there really weren't any minorities. My brother and the best man from my wedding are police officers. One of them serving...
Socrates said, "An unexamined life is not worth living." This is my feeble attempt at examining my life.
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
Monday, November 24, 2014
Be Real. No Don't.
"Be real.""Be authentic.""Share your heart."These are all pieces of advice people give to emerging Christian leaders. What they don't tell you, is that you should only do these things if being real and authentic are happy things. We don't want to hear about the hard stuff. That just doesn't fit with the myth of the "happy Christian life".Have you noticed that there are very few laments in popular...
Sunday, November 23, 2014
Sunday Scriptures: Grace Overflows
In Ephesians Chapter 1, St Paul writes;Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before...
Saturday, November 22, 2014
You Must Change
I'm a pastor in an evangelical denomination. That means that my denomination has stated that it wants to be about reaching people who are from God and helping them to enter into a relationship with him.I love that.I'm a pastor in a missional denomination. That means that my denomination has stated that it wants to intentionally move towards being where people who are from God live.I love that.To live...
Friday, November 21, 2014
Be That Guy, Your Pastor Needs You
More and more studies are coming out about pastors and the realities of their calling. In my denomination there have been two pastoral suicides in the last 12 months. As you can imagine, this has raised some concerns in my wife's heart. We have conversations about my 'feelings' and such.Being a pastor is really hard. There's no two ways about it. Your life is given to others. You enter in with people's...
Thursday, November 20, 2014
Don't Whine. Do.
Yesterday I found myself feeling whiny.As a parent there are few things that drive me as crazy as whining. When the children begin to whine my mind begins to go away. It slips out unnoticed and it is difficult to find again.I began to ask myself why was I feeling this way?There were things that I didn't think I had power to influence. Things felt like they were out of my control. They are.However,...
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Millenials, Boomers, and Leadership
// ![CDATA[(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));// ]]>Post by Daniel M Ro...
You Can't Handle It Alone
Yesterday I wrote about the reality that God does indeed give us more than we can handle. It is when he does that we learn faith. The thing is, there's more to it.Paul writes this in his first letter to the church at Corinth,The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker...
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
You Can't Handle It
Christians want life to be easy. Many of us were sold a bill of goods when we "placed our faith in Christ". We were given a picture of the happy Christian life, a life of minimal pain and suffering.But, it turns out that the Christian lives in the same world as the non-Christian and life is still hard. We face pain, suffering, and hardships. Life is just as hard for the Christian as it is...
Monday, November 17, 2014
The Need To Act
When I try to start new things I find it hard. It seems like new things are an interruption in my schedule. They don't seem to fit. New things are awkward.The simple reality is that when a new thing enters my world I need to act.I want to go to the gym regularly. By regularly, I mean, every day. My schedule is flexible, I have no excuse not to go to the gym every day. The only way to get to the gym...
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
Projection
Projection is something that all of us do. Projection is something that all of us have experienced. It's when someone has something going on in their life and they feel powerless to deal with it. So they find an area where they feel they have some level of power and express anger or frustration.When projection happens it almost always feels out of left field.People project about all kinds of things....
Friday, November 7, 2014
Then We
Yesterday was a fun day, we celebrated Amy's birthday. The celebration was an all day affair. My wife prefers quality time over gifts. So, we hung out as a family all day. As we were driving home my son said recounted all that we had done and concluded with, "That's a lot of 'then we's'".There is something special about the "then we".The "then we" is community in a phrase. It says so much with two...
Thursday, November 6, 2014
Gratitude From Humility
I was thinking about gratitude recently. It's something that we try really hard to teach our kids about. We want them to feel grateful for the many good things and even the hard things in their lives. It's an attitude that Amy and I try to model for them.Have you ever wondered where gratitude comes from?Are we grateful because we have good things? Are we grateful because we know that others are not...
Wednesday, November 5, 2014
Mystery Is Legit
Last night I sat at the pub with a few friends and people were discussing evolution (of all stripes) and intelligent design. It was a fascinating conversation.The thing that struck me is that nearly everyone, regardless of perspective, had an answer. The one thing that almost nobody wanted to settle for was mystery.Mystery.This is something that makes many of us uncomfortable. We want an answer...
Tuesday, November 4, 2014
The Past Matters
One of the most important things that we can learn in life is that our past matters. It matters because God cares about us and is at work writing a story through our lives.This has been driven home, again, over the last week or so. As my friend and I have talked with one another he has said, "I am overwhelmed by how God has protected me and my family. I am so blessed to have not had to experience...
Saturday, November 1, 2014
I'm A Mess. So Are They!
Over the last year I have been keenly aware of what happens when I post something to Facebook. Now, I'm not talking about statistics of likes, clicks, and comments. I've been paying special attention to my emotional response and the emotional responses of others (based on their comments of course, really, it's the best I could do).The result of this?I stopped posting my opinions on things related...