Training For Something Greater
Part One: A Different Kind of Friendship Paul is in prison and his friends in Philippi send Epaphroditus, along with some money, to help Paul in his time of need. Epaphroditus also brings Paul news about how the church in Philippi is doing. Based on what Paul says in Philippians, we can get a pretty [...]
“I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until [...]
Once upon a time there was a mother hen who had a brood of chicks. They lived in a large barnyard surrounded by a field. Her chicks were cute, cuddly, and LOUD. Their constant peeping could always be heard, no matter where you were in the barnyard. Their mother thought of them as her “precious [...]
The following is an excerpt from Train For Something Greater: A CrossFitter’s Guide to Spiritual Fitness. ***** Take a Break A couple of years ago, we had an athlete in our gym who was drinking the CrossFit Kool-Aid with both hands. You could see it in his eyes. He was obsessed, maybe even addicted. CrossFit [...]
I do not like the man sitting across from me in Starbucks. At first, I thought he was a typical older gentlemen having a cup of coffee, while his wife shops at a nearby store. Then he started reading a magazine that told me everything I needed to know about him. It is a religious [...]
In Evil and the Justice of God, N. T. Wright names three issues that characterize what he calls “The New Problem of Evil.” 1. We ignore evil except when it hits us in the face. 2. We are surprised by evil when it does. 3. As a result, we react in immature and dangerous ways. [...]
The following is an excerpt from my ebook Train for Something Greater: A CrossFitter’s Guide to Spiritual Fitness available in Kindle format via Amazon. The Ugly Side of CrossFit One of the knocks against CrossFit is that many CrossFitters come across as arrogant to outsiders. Where are they getting this impression? I have no idea. [...]
Here’s another lesson I learned about preaching from my brief stint as a guest speaker in multiple churches: Surrender control of the outcomes. One of the freedoms I enjoyed most as an interim preacher was that my sermons were usually not generated by a specific situation at the church where I was speaking. I found [...]
I spent the past two months preaching through selected stories from Acts. Sometimes I don’t know what a sermon is about until I’ve preached it. Same goes with a sermon series. I wish I could say I’m able to think so far ahead that I know why I’m preaching a particular series, but sometimes I’m [...]
(For those on the email list for this blog, sorry for the repost. My database was reset yesterday and I lost this post. So I had to load it again.) My favorite scene from the movie “Castaway” furnishes a great metaphor for Advent reflection. It’s the pivotal scene after Tom Hanks’s character has acclimated to [...]
Telling Stories, Asking Questions, Learning Lessons
