This summer we (both Melanie and I) will be heading to Guatemala City with ten other people from our church. From June 20-26 we will be serving some of the poorest people in the world in Central America’s largest slum called La Limonada. We need to raise approximately $600 total for this trip and we would be honored if you helped make this trip a reality through a financial gift. As you may know, our middle son Mason Carlos is adopted from Guatemala. When we visited his birth country to bring him home two years ago, we left part of our hearts there. We have been longing to go back and serve there since we left two years ago. We are excited about this trip...Read More →
Archive for April, 2010
-
April 27, 2010
Hola! Send Us to Guatemala!
-
April 26, 2010
ViralHope & What is the Good News to Suburbia?
I am honored to have been able to contribute to a really exciting book project called ViralHope: Good News from the Urbs to the Suburbs. This is exciting for a few reasons, it is the first time I’ve been published so that’s pretty fun. But more importantly, its a a fantastic book and that goes well beyond my small contribution. Fifty pastors and practitioners each wrote short essays on the “good news” of the gospel. The assignment was to write something that would be publishable in the writers local newspaper. The entries are short and make for some very deep, light reading. The book was edited by JR Woodward and published by Ecclesia Press, the new publishing arm of our church network, The Ecclesia Network....Read More →
-
April 25, 2010
C.S. Lewis on the Natural Self
The Christian way is different: harder, and easier. Christ says “Give me All. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don’t want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked—the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In...Read More →
-
April 14, 2010
My Clan
Four good reasons why I haven’t been blogging as much lately: I am sure I’ll resume sooner or later. Subscribe to the feed to find out when.
-
April 11, 2010
My Paraphrase of Romans 12:1-2
I preached on Romans 12:1-2 today and at the end of my sermon, offered my own paraphrase. I don’t claim it to be near as wonderful as Eugene Peterson’s from the message but I wanted to offer this as a summary of my sermon. For what it’s worth: “As we understand God’s whole, all-encompassing mercy for what it really is, we should naturally be offering our lives for the sake of His cause, His Kingdom and His agenda for the world, even when it looks like a waste of time, money and resources to outsiders. As we do so, we must come together and work together as a community to be constantly and painstakingly aware of our culture’s default way of life and especially of...Read More →
