I have tagged a number of blog posts in the last few weeks that my heart was in tune with. Each of these somehow captures pieces of what I am hoping for in a new church community:

The Consuming Christian and the Consuming Church (Todd Hiestand) - Todd is a good friend, and my initial connection […]

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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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I suppose it’s not a secret that I’ve been reading Surprised by Hope by NT Wright based on my last few posts. After finishing it, I can say that it was what I hoped it would be.
It almost feels crass to say it so, but Surprised by Hope is NT Wright’s theology of end times. […]

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And salvation only does what it’s meant to do when those who have been saved, are being saved, and will one day fully be saved realize that they are saved not as souls but as wholes and not for themselves alone but for what God now longs to do through them. — NT Wright, Surprised […]

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So far from sitting on clouds playing harps, as people often imagine, the redeemed people of God in the new world will be agents of his love going out in new ways, to accomplish new creative tasks, to celebrate and extend the glory of his love. — NT Wright, Surprised by Hope

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“Dang. NT Wright beat me to it.”
That’s what keeps going through my head as I’ve been reading Surprised by Hope.
When I think of how I want to use my voice, one of the main themes that comes up is dualism. Simply put, dualism is the idea that this physical world is a mess and the […]

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Anne Rice is living out my dream. I’ll cede it to her — she is more qualified. Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana is the second book in her historical fiction series about Jesus. In it, she combines historical Jesus research and fiction writing, and therefore two of my dreams/passions.
I think I enjoyed […]

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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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I can’t seem to stop thinking about mustard.
A few weeks ago in class, we looked at these words of Jesus from Mark 4:30-31:
Jesus said, “How can I describe the Kingdom of God? What story should I use to illustrate it? It is like a mustard seed planted in the ground. It is the smallest of […]

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I agree with about 75% of what Brian McLaren has to say in Everything Must Change. I think that about 75% of me doesn’t want to. While the title is ambitious, it appropriately reflects the point that McLaren is trying to make — and he makes it well.
In Everything Must Change, McLaren sets out to […]

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Belong. Believe. Become.
I think it was first in

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Some books read like a light snack…maybe a small package of pretzels on an airplane. Snacks aren’t bad, but sometimes you need a hearty feast. Transforming Mission satisfies the belly and fills the mind with memories and Ideas to revisit.
This book is a classic on mission, and rightfully so. David Bosch traces the […]

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This week, I finished reading The Forgotten Ways, by Alan Hirsch. With the forming of a new faith community in our near future, this will likely be one of the most important books I’ve read, and it will be one I revisit often in the next few months.
Hirsch makes a call to the church to […]

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Maybe I’m a little late to the game, but I finished reading the His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman:

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