Associate Pastor of Preschool and Children

Holy Bread & Jesus: When its “Ok” to Skip Church

Christians feel uneasy when both ministry and people claim the same square on our calendar. We are getting ready to start the service when a young man interrupts the announcements and asks for prayer. We are driving to choir practice when are sister calls and asks us to come over because she is having a down day. We are walking into our Sunday school room when our mom calls and asks if we can run…

Deconstruction, Saul, & Why God Wins

Terms change but people do not.

Most Christians have encounter the term  “Deconstruction.” The word describes men and women who fall away from the faith once “delivered for all.” They are former church goers who openly deny salvation in Christ alone by faith alone.

Though stories of people walking away from the church are disheartening, they are not new. Since the world began spinning, men and…

John Smyth: The Danger of Haste

John Smyth won fame from himself when he established the first English Baptist Church in 1608. Yet, few Baptists know of Smyth’s contribution to the Baptist faith because he undermined his own legacy, rapidly changing his theological convictions.

As a young man, Smyth studied a Christ College in Cambridge and was ordain by the bishop of London in 1594. Though he had been exposed to Separatists…

Bible Haters Are Not Ignorant

Christians tend to write off their spiritual opponents as uneducated Neanderthals. But not all men and women oppose the gospel because their gospel experience mimics a cave-men’s interaction with fire. The idea that morality is directly linked to knowledge originated with philosophers like Plato who advocated for better education in his various dialogues. The Scriptures paint a different picture…

How to Get and Win Good Friends

The relationship between David and Jonathan inspires our modern psyches which yearn for real friendship. We resonate with the story of A crown prince impulsively and sincerely handing over his future throne to a no-name shepherd boy who killed the mighty warrior Goliath with a rock. We long to be knit to the soul of another human being and to experience the non-sexual friendship that Jonathan and…

Memo: April’s Cancer Update (6)

A touch of hope has returned to the sails of our souls this afternoon.

As April and I accessed the waves of pain and doubt that violently rocked her soul these past few weeks, we began to fear that her voyage to health would soon break against the rocks of failure. On Saturday, August 3, 2019, an MRI revealed that the storm that enveloped her body had grown in both size and location. Seeking to…

Memo: April’s Breast Cancer Update (5)

April and I spent the last several weeks looking for the source of her debilitating back-pain. While not constant, it can come on for days at a time. Even the smallest steps cause her to writhe in pain. We gingerly dug into her cancer through discussions with her medical team and the occasional test, but we were unable to unearth any answers. Last weekend, April’s doctor aided our search by doing…

Why You Got David and Goliath Wrong

We love the story of David and Goliath. But,we do not understand the story. We see the narrative as a great example of how we can save ourselves from the giants of adversity through good analysis, elbow-grease, and ingenuity. The famous columnist Malcolm Gladwellsaid the story of David and Goliath reveals that the underdog status empowers people to realize that “Giants are not what we think they…

Memo: April’s Breast Cancer Update (4)

We have reached cruising altitude for April’s treatment plan. And the wheels of decision-making have retracted into the hull of the plane with a solid thump. Though she is soaring safely through the clouds of pills and test, April and I still do not know where and when this particular leg of her hormone-based-treatment flight will end.

We wish we knew the particulars and details of all that was…

Causal Conversations: A Test of Faith

Words are an essential measuring stick of the Christian faith. The words we employ when talking with our next-door neighbor, when sharing with our family, and when commenting on social media reveal the true status of our hearts. In 1 Samuel 16:18, the soon-to-be King David was selected to serve as Saul’s therapeutic counselor because he was both a talented musician and a man of God. We know this…

Don’t Trust Your Intuition: The Art of Picking Biblical Leaders

Christians are really bad at picking spiritual leaders. The inability of Christian’s to find the right guys and gals to lead their church is nothing new.

When Samuel goes to Bethlehem to find a godly king to replace king Saul, Samuel chooses the wrong guy. He is prepared to cover Eliab in oil, thinking, “Surely the Lord’s anointed is before him (1 Sam 16:7).” If Samuel is left to his own…

King Saul: The Progressive, Liberal Faith of the OT

The core of liberal Christianity is not the brain child of twentieth and twenty-first century theologians. People who wore tunics and rode in chariots were writing off the Bible as being too harsh, too outdated, and too confining long before ascot adorned professors arrived on the scene. In fact, Adam and Eve wrestled with this very question of the whether or not God really said what he meant.…

Salvation: Correcting Misconceptions About God

“Salvation, if we may so put it, is entirely the idea of God; it emanates from and has its source and origin in God the Father. Now this is a staggering thought! So often you and I feel we have to placate God because of sin, sin in us, sin in our mind and whole outlook and thought, sin in the world. We tend to think of God as being opposed and antagonistic to us, and therefore we are always…

Christians Should Be Confident People

Christians should be confident about life.

Such confidence is not derived from ignorance nor from an over appreciation of one’s ability. The faithful Christian is not the person who thinks himself or herself adequate to every task whether that be run-blocking for the New England Patriots or trading commodities in Tokyo. The Scriptures clearly state that God has given people specific talents to…

Memo: April’s Breast Cancer Update (3)

Our feet have touched the cool soft dirt of hope. This past Wednesday, June 19, April began her hormone therapy.

The preparation for this first day of battle has been vastly extensive, slowly hurried, and ever changing. We have talked with clinics in Virginia, Houston, New York, and Memphis. On multiple occasions, we prepared to head north or south with fully packed suitcases. Then the phone…

Memo: April’s Breast Caner Update (2)

The storm has arrived. The small, misty drops the top the early storm-breakers have reached our souls. The monstrous, well-formed waves of April’s cancer that threaten to capsize our life have not yet come into view. But there is no doubting the arrival of this storm.

Over the last few weeks, April’s occasionally back pain has grown in intensity and has begun lasting for longer periods of times.…

Do You Have An OT Pastor?

Christians often tend to view the Old Testament like their embarrassing, kind-of-crazy uncle. He’s family; and, he can produce a funny story on command. But, we can’t help but think that our family gatherings wouldn’t suffer too terribly if his tobacco spit and his confederate flag, and rusted out pick-up truck didn’t show up at the next family party.

Similarly, we are thankful for the story of…