Dirty Hands

If we’re not careful our churches, and our faith, can become mostly cerebral. With a prevailing emphasis on didacticism and privacy-in-the-pew, our faith can become more like Greek thought than Semitic practice.  Oh, and by the way, I harvested 758 tomatoes from a...

More Christian than Jesus

The analogy I tend to use is ‘overdone’, like a charred turkey ceremoniously taken out of the oven on Thanksgiving day. We are notoriously adept at developing the Christian religion in ways that have nothing to do with what God intended. Perhaps that gives us the...

The Toy Aisle

What I do not miss is going home after the midnight Christmas Eve candlelight service only to assemble a bicycle or go-cart. What I do miss are the exclamations of delight only a freshly unwrapped toy can bring. Sometimes I am an oaf. Last month a friend was talking...

“Do you know…”

This was an exercise in communication. Expressing the scope of the gospel in modern language without Bible-words is difficult but necessary…for preachers and other folks too. Do you know that there is nothing you can do to make God love you any more than he does right...

Softened

The balanced life is elusive. I suppose it is a lifelong effort. When you figure it out let me know. For over 30 years if you came to our church when it was raining you got wet. For the last several years if you played on our playground you got splinters. But recently...

Baptist Monasticism

That I had followed Christ without appreciating the service and sacrifice of monks and nuns was a disadvantage. I am grateful for the example and hospitality of these amazing people.  Last year at this time I was living at Mount Michael Abby in Elkhorn, Nebraska. The...