One of the things I often wrestle with is my desire to fix and control things. I am someone who values being in the driver’s seat. Often times I like to push the limits of what I think I can do, or the situation that I am in. In a lot of situations that works out well: when I’m casting vision for the church, when I’m leading in the Army Reserve, or even when I am coaching my son’s baseball team....
This past weekend I preached my final sermon at Next Step. In preparation for it I was as focused as I’ve ever been. I even put off writing this blog so I could focus on the message. It was a hard message to write, I couldn’t find myself in it, I couldn’t get it down on paper....
Did you know that you have the same number of hours today that you had yesterday? No matter how you cut it the number of hours in a day is still the same, you only get 24.
In high school, one of our sports teams put that on the back of their warm-up shirts. I can still remember what it looked like and how often I debated in my head what that statement really meant. I would often wrestle with the thought of what a perfect practice would be, and how would someone know if it really was perfect....
I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be on the same team -- about how in my marriage one of the most important things I can do is to partner with my wife and make sure that we are both in this together. In the Bible, they talk about meeting together and spurring one another on towards good deeds.
This week I was humbled and overwhelmed with the incredible amount of birthday love. It was a great week spent with family and friends. I also spent some time reflecting on what a year it had been. In retrospect, this has been one of those defining years in my life, the type of year that I will never forget. Here are the top ten things I learned (or remembered), in no particular order:
This past Sunday all the campuses of Ginghamsburg Church came together for an all-campus worship event on the lawn. The evening before, a contingent of Christ-followers gathered at the Point to make a statement against the deadly drug heroin. It was an incredible weekend of community and worship.
Karen and I have been making a lot of decisions lately, not just the “What do you want for dinner?” type of decision, but more like the “Do you want to answer God’s call and move?” type of decision. These are big moments, and in those moments it is easy to become engulfed in the potential fear or in the potential excitement. I had to develop a process -- five easy steps for making good decisions:
Last week I had one of those weeks that people dream about. It was a week where everything was happening and all of it was positive. I even ended the week well rested and basking in God’s love. I really couldn’t have drawn it up any better than that, although I did almost wreck the whole thing...
It was a Saturday afternoon when my phone started to ring, and as I looked down at the buzzing device I noticed it was our lead pastor, Mike Slaughter. Mike doesn’t call me that often (especially on a Saturday), so I knew it was important. In that moment, Mike told me that our some...