Posts

Showing posts from January, 2015

The Hook brings you back! But Jesus breaks the hook through His hands on the cross!

Some of you may know the song I am referring to in the title of this writing. It is the theme of our struggle recently. Several months ago, while I was watching Jimmy Fallon on YouTube.com, I came across a section of Fallon's late night fun; the lip sync contest. As many of you know, I love to throw down some sic lip sync. I mess around getting ready each day in lip sync, I mess with my family in lip sync, I even entered a talent show with lip sync (that was a little discouraging, I rocked that air song). On that entertaining night, Jimmy Fallon had Emma Stone (The Amazing Spider Man) on his show and challenged her to a lip sync contest. Emma Stone kick his tale and one of the songs she sang was "Hook" from Blue's Traveler. It has been in my head ever since. I don't think I am interpreting the song how it was meant, but it has become something that has represented a struggle in my and my family's life these past 2+ months. We are struggling with leavin

A Dangerous Prayer! I triple dog dare you

Yesterday was like most days in the past weeks. Me dragging myself into my office, waiting for God to sell my house and get us to PA permanently. Tired of sleeping on a twin bunk while my wife is having to cuddle with Nathan. All of us in the same room every night we are in PA. I have to admit, yesterday I was just coasting as a follower of Christ. I had a small quiet time with me telling God a bunch of stuff. I struggled to get my motivation to study for the sermon Sunday. I was just coasting. Then God messed me up. As I was studying for this Sunday's message, I decided to watch a message from Paul Gotthardt on sharing Jesus. (here it is for you to watch) <iframe src="//player.vimeo.com/video/77462525" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe> It exposed a problem I had while planning these sermon series. I was heading back down the path of calling people to

ALL IN! What the life of a pastor should look like in the church.

Over the past few Sundays I have been preaching a sermon series called "We are the Church". So far we have dealt with how people are important to God, how everyone is necessary for the kingdom work God has invited us to, what a community of love looks like and how to loving each other is a result of being intimate with God. It has been a lot of information but it has been necessary as we head into a season of looking at who we are as a church. One of the truths I spoke on is how we many times say we are going to church; making the church a building or gathering place. I often make this mistake with my kids when we are driving to our gathering times on Sundays. However, I believe this might be adding to an underlying problem that I have suffered with for many years. The problem: we believe that when we have left our gathering times, we have disconnected with the church!. If the church is treated as a building or gathering time, then are we still the church when we are not to