Category: Christian Living

  • Called to Plumbing

    Called to Plumbing

    Ministry people [usually accidentally] make it seem like theirs is the only vocation with a calling, not so. One of the things I love about where we go to church is that it’s full of men and women who might get featured on Mike Rowe’s Dirty Jobs. Builders Military, ex-military Metal shop peeps HVAC experts…

  • Speak Up

    Speak Up

    A few weeks ago I snuck in a quick midweek kayak fishing session. As I was coming in and taking gear off my yak near the Bahia Hotel there was a family setting up a little sailboat. The boat belonged to their teenage daughter, maybe 16-17, she had clearly never sailed before… or if she had,…

  • Fishing

    Fishing

    If we’re connected on social media you already know that I’ve got a bit of a fishing thing going on. It’s not quite an obsession, but I’m trying to figure out how to salt water fish. Last year I bought kayaks, equipping them for both recreation and fishing. I’ve acquired all sorts of fishing gear. I’ve…

  • The Most Difficult Place for The Gospel in America

    The Most Difficult Place for The Gospel in America

    The Bible Belt. The None Zone. Those liberal tree huggers in California. It’s hard to reach people in the Northeast. Or was it the Pacific Northwest? Over the past couple of years I’ve grown increasingly weary of hearing about how one area is especially hard or easy to be a minister of the Gospel. One…

  • Sacrificing Today for Tomorrow

    Sacrificing Today for Tomorrow

    There’s this really funny scene in Bill Bryson’s book A Walk in the Woods. Early in their trip up the Appalachian Trail, about two days in to a six month journey, the main character gets separated from his hiking partner. He goes back to a meadow to see his friend, furious, chucking things from his backpack into…

  • Patience

    Patience

    First Presbyterian Church I didn’t start attending church until about 5th grade. I don’t know exactly what triggered it, but my dad got married to a woman who went to the local Presbyterian church, so when I was there on weekends we started going. I liked the idea of going to church. But I loathed…

  • I Dare You to Chill

    I Dare You to Chill

    I’m “off” for basically the next two weeks. It’s not technically vacation in my mind. I’ll poke around with some end of the year stuff. (wrapping up accounting, inventory, sending a book to the printer, and probably some light email marketing.) If the first half of December was “light work” than the rest of December is…

  • Is Jesus for those who aren’t ever coming to church?

    Is Jesus for those who aren’t ever coming to church?

    “Who is Jesus for?” This is what has been on my mind lately. A lot. It is a question that is haunting because of it’s implications. And the more I express it to my friends the more I realize that I’m not alone in this question. And I’m finding it’s a dangerous question to ask.…

  • People of Transition

    People of Transition

    “Why do you like youth ministry so much? Clearly, you could do other roles in the church?”  I think it’s a conversation so many of us in youth ministry have had repeatedly. In this case, it was a casual conversation with another pastor on our staff while we attended a conference. “I love this time…

  • Get a Life! How much is too much church?

    Get a Life! How much is too much church?

    Several weeks back, Jason Raitz posted this on his Facebook wall: So, I’m curious and need your help. Quite a few people have asked me this question in the past 2 weeks. ‘Is attending church consistently really all that important’? What do you think? I’ve been writing a blog post on this for awhile now,…