I had this surprising conversation with my six-year-old daughter the other day.  She is quite a talker with fascinating ideas about almost everything.  For some reason the topic of the moment was how to make the world a better place and how to get people to make good and right

This is a continuation from the post about the word “sabbath” and sabbatical and is an extraction from an email we sent out earlier in the year. A pastors need for sabbatical is something that few people truly understand, which is why a second Hebrew word comes in really handy

A few months ago I wrote a piece called “Race Is A Meaningless Distinction” where I continued my theme that people aren’t color-coded by talking about what little you could know about two people of a different race (a white person and a black person in this example) based on

This past Sunday, I preached the first lesson in a Relationship series on Assertiveness. The part of the Bible the teaching came from was Matthew 18:15-20 where Jesus is teaching his followers how to get along with each other and navigate relationships through difficult moments. Right in the middle of

I have been involved in the lives of at-risk teens (white ones, brown ones, and in recent years, black ones) for a long time and over the years I have learned that there are certain things that they need to hear and certain things they don’t need to hear.  There

My wife and I are both pastors and get the opportunity on a pretty regular basis to marry people. When we are approached by someone we don’t know about officiating their wedding, this gives us a wonderful opportunity to get to talk to someone new about our faith and our

Many people these days are pretty negative about marriage.  For many, the concept of two people saving themselves for each other and then making a lifetime commitment to love and be faithful to each other for the rest of their lives (once referred to as the virtue and spiritual practice

I could also phrase this question another way, “Is God disappointed in you?” I think it is a question that’s swims around in many people’s souls, especially those who have had difficult or painful relationships with their parents.  There are few questions that I believe hold people at a distance

At almost seven and four, you are both far too young for this conversation now, but I was thinking about it and wanted to write a note to your future selves. At some point in your lives you will hear or pick up the message that “men are primarily visual

[This past Sunday morning we took an unusual break in our service to talk about the recent presidential election.  Here are my notes.] I want to take an unusual pause in our service this morning to have a pastoral chat about politics.  Carrie was kind enough to make room in