Thousand Acre Church

The notes for presentation on the interactions of Abram and Pharaoh eneded up being more extensive than I anticipated when I initially posted an “event” on Facebook.  Nonetheless, here you go.  Your feedback would be valuable to me.  Click here to download the MS Word file.

My friend Jeremy is a pastor in Lansing at a church named Blacksoil. He just kicked off a study on the book of Romans that you might find interesting. If you like good Bible study, then you’ve probably heard people teach Romans before. You probably haven’t heard it taught like THIS though.  If he keeps posting the audio, I’ll keep posting it here.

Click here to DOWNLOAD

Before recently, I had this “Go Tell It on the Mountain” spirit about the Christmas message.  You know, I thought, “Jesus came to into the world to save us from our sins.” should be ringing from the corners and shouted from rooftops.  This is the first Christmas season that makes sense to me, and I’m not feeling the “Announcement” vibe.

This year I’m picturing a pregnant teenage girl huddled safely in her cousin Elizabeth’s home.  She’s confident in the faithfulness of the God of her people and his promise to send a fair and just King.  She has faith that after millennia of being used and exploited by oppresive regimes and rulers, Israel, God’s people, will see the age of peace and prosperity inaugurated.  This was the hope of all of Israel.  Though some in Israel believed that the coming King would rule through oppressive power on Israel’s behalf, I picture this teenage girl whispering this song about the God of her people: [Read more →]

I was reading Facebook status updates today when I came across an update from a very smart friend who has been a pastor in the Boston area for several years.  He’s frustrated by the response from some of his friends to recent posts which mentioned hot political topics.  His response is to refocus and deflect discussions on political topics during the extent of the Advent season.  He said, “Why focus on the kingdom of this world, when for 17 days we can all focus together on the Kingdom of God.”  I started to post a response to his update and realized that it might serve me better to process my thoughts on the blog. [Read more →]

I don’t blog much anymore.  I’m having trouble reconciling the use of a self-created platform for self-indulgent reflections that often cross the line between self-expression and egoism.  That said, I want to get something off my chest.  I’ll benefit from barfing this all up, so I can move on.  Nobody will read this anyway, right?

[Read more →]