I have been a pastor for 20 years and am closing in on 100 weddings that I’ve officiated. And there a couple of trends I have seen in the past several years that I think are worthy of note.

Most weddings are now outdoors. I don’t have a STRONG opinion about this, but just an opinion. A church building is meant to evoke thoughts about the presence of God. I will be the first to admit that He is NOT any more present in a church than He is in a vineyard, or on a farm, or at an outdoor wedding venue . . .

The Christian who believes the Bible is true, knows that this world is NOT the way it was supposed to be. We know we are frail. We know disease is real. We know we are dying. I start in this place, regarding the topic of holistic health, simply to set the field of play for this discussion.

I went through a yo-yo phase. I could walk the dog, I could rock the baby, and do the elevator. All of these are fairly entry level tricks, but I thought I was cool . . . If yo-yos could be called ‘cool’.

[11] so that we would not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs.   I just finished a podcast series on the Satanic Panic of the 80’s and 90’s. I enjoyed listening in, because it was a trip down memory lane. The decades of the 80’s and 90’s were formative…

I was raised by wolves.  Just kidding.  But I was not raised in a context anchored to any tradition.  My spiritual formation took place in a non-denominational Bible church.  I was raised by a single mom who remarried after my dad died.  Even after my mother remarried, I had little to no stability in my…

My wife and I made it quite a while without a large animal pet.  There were Amelia and Zaccheaus, the zebra finches we had early in our marriage.  We had a brief foray into hamsters when our kids were young.  We had a freshwater aquarium for a few years.  But Linda and I both shared…

I sit here and write this blog in between conversations.  So far this morning I have had three conversations with people who attend ReCAST church.  (After I wrote the previous sentence I had a great conversation with a young couple who just came through to grab a coffee and stopped to chat).   I am…

I have recently been made aware of a particular woman with a large following who has made a list of unapproved theologians and pastors and authors.  Of course, she is the common thread.  Her list includes Daily Grace Co.  Her list includes John Piper.  Her list includes Tim Keller.  Her list includes the Bible Project.…

While I was rereading ‘The Pastor’ by Eugene Peterson last week, I was struck again by the nature of my full time role as a pastor.  I have a strange job.  I am employed in the service of a people in order to shine as a consistent spotlight on the invisible God.  He is there.…

Several years ago, I was more in touch with contemporary culture.  I would blog nearly every week on Thursdays and I used my blog as an opportunity to exegete our culture, much like I use my sermons on Sunday to exegete a passage of the Bible. But something shifted, and I am not sure if…

God has created a world in which we experience time as past, present, and future. I cannot conceive of any other type of world, but I’m sure God can. For some reason, God seems interested in the progress of His creation. We learn from the past. We live in the present. And we anticipate the…

I don’t know how long you’ve been kicking around on this planet, but I’ve been here for over half a century. And that doesn’t make me any kind of expert. I could live here for centuries and still find surprises that would challenge my perceptions. But one thing that doesn’t take very long at all…