Leader || Preacher || Teacher
My family and I recently went on our first camping trip in Colorado. Really, it was our first ever family campout. My kids loved it! One of the main reasons they loved it was because we went with friends. Honestly, if we had not been invited to go with them we probably wouldn’t have done it. But since we did we experienced something beautiful and created a lasting memory, one our family may never forget.
Continue reading “Camping: The Holy Spirit in Community”
When Vietnamese game developer, Dong Nguyen released the smartphone game Flappy Bird he had no idea how immensely successful the game would become. He also hadn’t predicted that less than a year later, with Flappy Bird still enjoying immense popularity, he would take the game down.
Demons cringe at his presence and know who he is. They submit to his authority and release those they hold captive at the sound of his name. They become obedient to his will and cannot escape his reach. Some think this is because demons and Jesus are “family.” In Mark’s gospel, Jesus has authority over demons because he is releasing people to join his family, the family of God.
“I hate my job. It’s not a calling, it is something that I do and I cannot wait until the day I can retire.” This came from one of the parents during a high school small group discussion many years ago. It gave me pause. I was trying to teach the teens to view their work as a calling. I realized that for this parent work was a dreadful duty. Continue reading “You are Made to Make || Work for the Glory of God”
There is a story included in both Matthew and Luke of Jesus healing a Roman Centurion’s servant. Healing someone is amazing but that is not the most amazing part of the story. Well, according to Jesus it isn’t.
Walter Brueggemann makes a case for God’s people to recapture the prophetic imagination of God’s prophets. He calls us to recapture it because we are encapsulated by our surrounding, dominant, and pervasive culture. Starting with Moses he demonstrates to the reader how God’s people are to be a part of an alternative community. Moses was not simply interested in social justice but he was preaching a message that ushered in God’s re-creation. The Israelites had been enslaved so long that they did not know an alternative to their way of life as slaves.
“Ministry… is not so much asking Christ to join us in our ministry as we offer him to others; ministry is participating with Christ in his ongoing ministry as he offers himself to others through us.” – Stephen Seamands
In this week’s blog I reflect on the first two chapters of Stephen Seamands’ book, Ministry in the Image of God: The Trinitarian Shape of Christian Service.
Continue reading “We Cannot Serve God Alone: Ministry in the Image of God”
As a young Lead Minister I discovered that finding my voice in my church context was a work in progress. How do I remain true to who I am and be what the church needs me to be? Now that I serve as Senior Minister in a different church, how do I find my pastoral voice in this community?
In this week’s blog I summarize chapter two of William B. Kincaid’s book “Finding Voice: How Theological Field Education Shapes Pastoral Identity.” It encapsulates some of the steps I am taking to not only find my pastoral voice but also the church’s communal voice.
Ruth Haley Barton opens chapter seven of her book Sacred Rhythms with a quote by Ernest Larkin. He says, “Discernment in its fullness takes a practiced heart, fine-tuned to hear the word of God and the single-mindedness to follow that word in love. It is truly a gift from God, but not one dropped from the skies fully formed. It is a gift cultivated by a prayerful life and the search for self-knowledge.”
Continue reading “Where am I Going? And How to Know if God is Leading”
This weekend our church celebrated our first Others’ Day. A big hearty thanks to everyone who prayed for this day and to everyone at the Littleton Church. A big thanks to our local King Sooper’s stores for donating grocery bags. Also, a huge thanks to our neighbors for donating food! It really was a community event!
“Don’t just go to church, be the church. If simply going to church is your plan, you are missing out on the best that the church has to offer.”
– Craig Groeschel
Here are some highlights: Continue reading “A Church In & For Our Community”