Noel Heikkinen posted this quote on his blog today from Relevant Magazine’s website. You can read the full article here, but this has stirred thoughts about stuff I’ve been thinking about over the past several years and something Don Overton has been preaching about recently.  We must look at Church and church as a place [...]

To love at all is to be vulnerable.  Love anything, and your heat will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken.  If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal.  Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all [...]

Rob Bell writes in “Sex God”:
Love is handing your heart to someone and taking the risk that they will hand it back because they don’t want it.  That’s why it’s such a crushing ache on the inside. We gave away a part of ourselves and it wasn’t wanted.
Love is a giving away of power.  When [...]

I’ve been thinking about a lot of “What If” questions lately.  Today sitting in church I was listening to the pastor talk about how this particular church was trying to be different than others.  I got to thinking about this and asked myself the question… “What if the church stopped trying to be the church, [...]

Was I worth the pain?
You had nothing left to gain
I know I’m the only one to blame
I’m broken on the floor
Staring at the door
Waiting on a Savior to walk in
For the life of me, why’d You bear my chains?
For the life of me why’d You walk to Calvary?
For the life of me I can’t explain
The [...]

I’ve Bren reading through Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller….I know finally, right? I’m reading his chapter of belief. These few sentences stood out to me, I wanted to share them.
“Even our beliefs have become trend statments. We don’t even believe things because we believe them anymore. We only believe things because they are cool [...]

It’s 12:30 at night. I’m laying in bed just thinking about life. Not sure why I’m wide awake, but I am. Perhaps it’s the frappacino I had tonight at starbucks. Anyway. I guess what is on my mind is how God has brought me to where I am over the past 6 months or so. [...]

Love what Brenning Manning writes today in “Faltering Steps”.
I find comfort (perhaps perverse pleasure) in knowing that the rock(Peter) on which Jesus would build the Church sank like a stone.
Despite who I am, He still uses me.

When I get honest, I admit I am a bundle of paradoxes.  I believe and I doubt, I hope and I get discouraged, I love and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty.  I am trusting and suspicious.  I am honest and I still play games. Aristotle [...]

Since the day that Jesus first appeared on the scene, we have developed vast theological systems, organized worldwide churches, filled libraries with brilliant christological scholarship, engaged in earthshaking controversies, and embarked on crusades, reforms and renewals.  Yet there are still precious few of us with sufficient folly to make the mad exchange of everything for [...]

The past couple of weeks I’ve been reading a book by Mike Erre called Death by Church.  The book purposes a case for what the church should be, how it relates to the world and furthers the kingdom.  Erre makes a bold and truthful statement of the Christian’s concept of salvation.  I think this rings [...]

Happy New Years to you. I pray that Gods blessing and provision for what you need is made known to you this new year and that you will draw closer to Him.
Tonight after I got home I was talking with a family member about resolutions that we had made for this new year. I shared [...]

In the gospel of Luke, the most familiar account of the Christmas story—the one most commonly read in churches and homes—is firmly rooted in history.  The narrative begins, “In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken” (Luke 2:1).  Luke’s mention of Augustus isn’t incidental or minor.  It sets the [...]

Periods of spiritual decline occur in history because the gravity of indwelling sin keeps pulling believers first into formal religion and then into open apostasy.
- Dynamics of Spiritual Life
Richard F. Lovelace.
Sorry I haven’t written much lately.  Haven’t had much to write about, and been really busy with work and other activities.  Been reading through the [...]

Sorry for not posting much original thought stuff lately.  Trying to adjust to working and life after work and honestly haven’t had much time to do writing or just thinking about stuff.  Life has been going pretty well I would say.  But I ran across this cartoon tonight, and it struck me that I sometimes [...]