Butter, Play-Doh & Jesus
Imagine sitting outside with butter in one hand and an open container of Play-Doh in the other. We are like one of them. Which describes you?
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When A Friend Dies
I got a call this morning and I’m still not quite sure how to process it. A longtime member of our congregation died today. And I know that’s part of this. I know that’s the job, I know I’ve done this more times than I can count, but today just hit different, and I’ve been…
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You’re Not Afraid of the Dark. You’re Afraid of What the Light Will Show.
What happens when the light shows up in the places you’ve been hiding things You have a junk drawer. Don’t try to deny it. It’s the one in the kitchen. The one you close quickly when someone asks where the spoons are. It has a bottle opener, a lighter, some keys you can’t throw away…
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The Chaplaincy Trap
The Outward Turn · Part One If your church ceased to exist tomorrow, would anyone outside your congregation know it was gone? Sit with that question for a moment before you answer it. Not the people on your roster. Not the families who would miss Sunday morning. Not the pastor whose livelihood depends on the…
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You Keep Going Back to the Wrong Well
Why the thing you’re drinking from isn’t satisfying the thirst you actually have We have a spring on the back of our property. It’s not dramatic. Just a wet spot on a hill that never dries out. Even in July when everything else is cracked and brown. Even in the winters when the temperature drops…
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You Already Speak the Language. You Just Don’t Know It Yet.
Why your passion is a doorway and not a distraction I have a friend whose entire world was sports. Not casually interested in sports. Completely fluent in sports. He could give you the batting average of any Reds player from 2014. He could tell you the rushing yards from every Buckeyes game he’d ever watched….
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The Institution Is Not the Church
A hard reckoning about numbers, urban deserts, and what it means when a denomination forgets the difference between preserving a structure and advancing a kingdom. Last week I wrote about the sale of Concordia Ann Arbor and I asked a hard question about what it reveals when a denomination puts a price tag on a…
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The Table That Was Closed Is Open
Why the hunger you can’t name might be the most important thing about you There is a hunger that doesn’t have a name. You know the one. It’s not the hunger you feel at noon when you skipped breakfast. It’s deeper than that. It’s that low-grade ache, that sense that something is missing. It’s the…
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You Were Never Meant to Carry It All
There’s a strange tension that nobody really prepares you for when the thing you’re leading grows past what you can personally hold. For a pastor, it’s the congregation. For a manager, it’s the team. For a parent, it might just be the family table getting louder and more complicated. But the tension is the same:…
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You’re Not Actually Hungry for What You Think You’re Hungry For
Why the thing you’re chasing to fill the void probably isn’t the thing Somewhere out there right now, someone is ordering an embarrassingly expensive pizza delivery. We’ve all been there. Hungry, slightly irrational, willing to spend money or time or energy we don’t really have just to scratch the itch. The hunger takes over and…
