Done…but not finished.
These are words my friend Blaine offered yesterday about graduation. They couldn’t feel more true.
Yesterday, I walked. It’s official. I have a long black robe and the fancy cap made famous by the gentleman on the Yahtzee box. I have a diploma (or at least a piece of paper promising me that I’ll […]

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One of my favorite times of the day is when I get to climb on the bed with my two older kids for storytime. (Sometimes Max joins us too, but his newfound urge to grab whatever is in front of him can get a bit distracting.)
I have discovered that there are some completely uninspired […]

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Three tweets from this week:

sun, i love you, i really do. but you are making my grass grow way too fast. can we work something else out? Monday 9:52am
rain, i love the way you sound out there, i really do. but you are making my grass grow way too fast. can we work something else […]

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There is an adage that celebrities always die in threes. It doesn’t apply to hard drives.
A week and a half ago, my buddy JJ called me asking me if I knew how he might recover files off his MacBook hard drive that had just crashed. I didn’t. Last I heard, he was buried in a […]

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In addition to the bits I posted here last week, I have posted some more indepth reflection on our time in Austin on the Hodos Project blog.
A few have wondered aloud why I am maintaining a separate blog for the Hodos Project. The Hodos Project blog is streamlined and focuses on updates for those praying […]

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Some thoughts from our final day in Austin:

We had lunch with John Berryhill from the Emerging Church Network. I met John in Austin a few years ago as he was helping to develop smaller faith communities throughout the city. I love his heart for cultivating churches that are meaningful for
those who aren’t followers of Jesus. […]

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Some thoughts and reflections from day 2 in Austin:

Spent a precious few hours this morning with David Gentiles and Rick Diamond from the Journey Imperfect Faith Community. We really apprecited hearing what their community is all about and getting their perspectives on Austin. Thank you JJ for connecting me with David.
For lunch, we connected with […]

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We ran ourselves ragged in Austin today. Some of the highlights:

Chris Marlow was gracious enough to set up some time to connect with several other church planters: Jonathan Dodson, Jeff Mangum, Jeremy Self, Jacob Vanhorn, and Charles Whitmire. Thanks for your time…I hope there will be more opportunities to sit with each of you.
Max was […]

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Apparently, Rachel Ray can make this black bean salsa in 10 minutes.
It took me 60. I doubled the recipe, but that doesn’t make me feel any less incompetent.
I even used her knife.
Update: Crap…I just realized that I forgot the garlic.

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I’ve started a new blog to share the more specific details of our church planting journey with friends and supporters. The blog is called The Hodos Project.

Hodos Project is a code name of sorts for this early stage of our family’s transition to Austin to form a new faith community. Hodos is the Greek word […]

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This morning, I begin my last week as a pastor at

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Last year, for Macey’s fifth birthday, one of the presents we gave her was some money to give to a microfinance loan through Kiva.org. That money was repaid in full to us a few weeks ago, so this morning, we sat down and selected a new recipient of those funds.
Macey was first interested in South […]

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When I first started this here blog, I tended to include a lot more in the way of random posts about links I’d found, quotes from readings, quick little thoughts, etc. As other tools have made their debuts on the internet, I’ve started using some of them for some of these same purposes. So, with […]

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Besides the obvious anxiety about being peed on during a diaper change, having a baby boy in our home the last month and a half brings a whole new set of emotions that are unique from what our girls have brought. Often, while tenderly holding this helpless little man, I have pondered the mystery of […]

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