Taxes

So last night Leslie and I spent time hanging out with a small group of people from our church that we had hung out with a few times before. We all knew each other individually, but we were drawn together corporately last year to go to a conference with a very specific purpose.

The Conference was called “Generous Giving” and as you can probably guess from the title, it was about helping people learn how to view their resources from a different perspective.And the way they did that wasn’t by flowcharts or financial piecharts…but with stories. READ MORE

Writing to Change the World

I’m going to let you in on a secret that all preachers know. It’s pretty well kept, and not much talked about. Here it is:

It’s not really about what we say. Sure, we work hard, we try and shape our words to shape other people’s worlds. But I’d bet that almost every preacher has had a time where after a sermon someone comes up to them and tells them about something they heard them say that dramatically impacted their life, something profound and inspiring.

And they never said it. READ MORE

Conflict

Donald Miller from Southland Christian Church on Vimeo.

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A few days ago I was talking with one of my preacher friends who was really struggling with what to preach this coming week. We had just been talking about different church culture, and my friend took this opportunity to explain something to me that I will never forget. READ MORE

Communitas

I’ve written on this blog before about Robert Putnam’s work in his book “Bowling Alone.”  He makes the observation that has been cited by hundreds of different authors and speakers that while bowling as a whole is on the rise, bowling league participation is drastically reduced. That is more people are bowling, but they are bowling alone.

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A Theology of Glory

So I’ve spent the better part of this week writing a sermon that wrestles with suffering. Actually I’ve spent longer than that wrestling with it. Sometimes a teaching is birthed out of a need to have something to say, and sometimes it comes out of having to say something. This week is one of the latter. READ MORE

Creating Parables

A couple of weeks ago I spent some time with a visionary guy who cares deeply about following Jesus, and being innovative. And he’s good at it. I’m talking, major music video producer, good at it. He’s produced just about everyone of Carrie Underwood’s videos, and interesting side note, he actually produced the Taylor Swift award winning video that Kayne West made such a fuss about at the awards ceremony. READ MORE