On the Incarnation

A great discussion over at CRN.info has been going on about the nature of the atonement.   One poster there made this comment:

All views of the atonement must have the blood sacrifice at their core. If God could extend saving grace to men without the cross then what was His masochismic purpose in Christ’s sufferings and [...]

The Wideness of God’s Mercy Extends to CRN

There is an old saying that goes, “There is no such thing as bad press.”  I want to think that is true.  Today I learned that someone over at Christian Research Net saw fit to name me as an “Emergent Type” and publish a portion of my blog from a post titled “The Wideness of [...]

Lord, This Is All I Have To Offer…

The text I will be preaching from this Sunday is Matthew 14:13-21.  It is the all too familiar story of Jesus feeding the 5,000.   N.T. Wright, in his commentary, Matthew for Everyone, has some useful things to say about this passage which make it very relevant for us today.  
The passage begins with:  Now when Jesus [...]

My Nubian Princess

Amy has missed her calling.  She should have been an African-American hair dresser.  She spent the last hour doing Sophie’s hair and here she is.  Doesn’t she look beautiful?

Sheer Silence

On the second day of our retreat I sent the group of adults and youth out for one hour of silent meditation.  Most of them had never puposefully set out to be quiet for 5 minutes let alone an hour and I could tell from some of the looks I got that not everyone was [...]

Home Sweet Home

Back.  It would be near impossible to say that we did not have a wonderful time when just about any direction we looked for the past 3 days looked like this:

At one point I showed the NOOMA video, Breathe, which really hit home.  There is a segment where Bell relates the story of God speaking [...]

Enjoy the Silence…Retreat Time

This scene above is what I and 47 others from our church will be looking at for the next 2 days.  Sunday afternoon after church our youth along with several adult volunteers and heading to the Laurel Ridge Camp and Retreat Center in the mountains of western NC.   I am really looking forward to it [...]

All I Need

If you don’t know Shawn McDonald get to know him.  This song needs no commentary…

The Big Day

Several days ago I wrote about the thought process involved in deciding whether or not to baptize Sophie and Eli.  You can read about that HERE.    Well, the date has been set for September 28th, 2008, 11:00AM at Marrow’s Chapel UMC.   My good friend Cleve May will be conducting the baptism as well as singing [...]

A New Thing

Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old.  Behold, I will do a new thing…I will even make a a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.    
- The Prophet Isaiah, 43:18-19
Is there anything more frightening than the prospect of something unknown, something new, unfolding before us?    Or maybe not.  [...]

A Great AH HA!

I was listening to Brian McLaren talk about a lesson he did some 25 years ago for his youth group and liked it so much I decided to steal it.   Our youth group is going on our summer retreat this coming Sunday through Tuesday and I will be leading the devotionals – so this nugget [...]

You Don’t Have To Live This Way

Last night I finally got to watch Rob Bell’s The God’s Aren’t Angry.  Wow!  What a refreshing word to a world that has made religion into little more than appeasing the same gods of our ancient ancestors yet with different names. 
How true it is that many Christians feed off of fear and guilt as a [...]

The Leap

 
Driving home from the beach I was listening to some lectures and sermons on my Ipod (don’t we all?) and one by Donald Miller really spoke to me.  It is titled “The Gospel of Jesus: More Like Marriage, Less Like Formula” and can be downloaded for free at itunes. 
Donald shared that while teaching a class [...]

No Excuses

We are home from our vacation and I am not sure if I am more relaxed than when I left.   I think I need a vacation from my vacation     Really, we had a great time but it is nice to be back after being recharged a bit.
Something happened while we were away that [...]

Pope Benedict Urges Unity

Pope Benedict XVI is in Australia and announced to a packed audience of many faiths that we must unite together to combat religion’s role in violence around the world. 
While not unprecedented it is a great thing to see the head of the Roman Catholic Church call upon leaders of all faiths (even Protestants!) to work [...]

Rob Bell’s New Book: Jesus Wants To Save Christians

Thanks to another blogger, Daniel Decker, I stumbled on some info about Rob Bell’s upcoming book, Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile, due to be released October 2008.   This promises to be a great read, as both of his previous books have been but this one is especially interesting because he [...]

What Would Jesus Do?

We have all heard this if not asked it ourselves.  Some of us might even have a bracelet with the acronym WWJD engraved on it to serve as a constant reminder through the day…of something.   For many of us that reminder might be more along the lines of I am not divine rather than what [...]

Why Christians Suck

Tom Davis, author of books like Fields of the Fatherless, Red Letters: Living a Faith that Bleeds, and others, has an article featured on Beliefnet.com today titled, “Why Christians Suck” that you should read HERE. 
Tom is not one to mince words.  Bringing the vernacular of Jesus’ day to the present he opts for the adjective [...]

There’s A Wideness in God’s Mercy

 
 
Lately I have been discussing on this blog and elsewhere the expansiveness of God’s love and mercy and how I believe that at Calvary and on Easter Sunday something so phenomenal occurred that the first witnesses could not help but to call it Good News.    This is not good news for some but for all the [...]

Greetings from St. Simons Island, GA!

Here are a few pictures from the first day at the beach and the pool in our compound.   The first shot is from the van as we were pulling out of the driveway in NC.   As you can see, Eli looks thrilled.  He soon cheered up.  The kids did great the whole trip down – [...]