Graduation is in the air, and David Brooks' excellent article about the wrong-headed speeches he's heard this graduation season is a great jumping-off point for a very important conversation. Brooks makes the important observation that today's generation is entering a world of unemployment and an unprecedented convergence of challenges on several fronts. But, as Brooks notes, "College students are raised in an environment that demands one set of navigational skills, and they are then cast … [Read more...]
The rest of the story—and a way to share it
May 26, 2011 By 4 Comments
Yes. Of course. Westboro Baptist church is planning a protest for President Obama's visit to Joplin, Mo., to inflict a little hate and misery, in Jesus' name. That the rapture didn't happen this past Saturday was in the news as much as if it had happened. And people are still debating whether Rob Bell is saved. This is the stuff that generates tweets, blogs, Facebook fodder, debates, ill-will, and the general opinion that people of faith are more interested in their own internal … [Read more...]
Hope has primary colors…
May 2, 2011 By 2 Comments
...and those colors aren't personal peace and prosperity ("give me my stuff and leave me alone"), individualism, and "heaven when I die." Or perhaps I should say, those aren't God's primary colors. I love how God has taken all the complexity of religion, and boiled it down to the essence, down to three imperatives, three colors: Do justice - like my friends at International Justice Mission who are working to end human slavery, or my friend Walter who's saving women out of slavery in Ghana, or … [Read more...]
Crazy Confidence in a Shaky World
March 21, 2011 By 1 Comment
It's available for all of us. It's not contingent (thank God) on circumstances. It's able to move us, faster than a glacier, but slower than jet, towards a quietness and confidence that enables us to be people of hope. Every. Single. Day. I'm talking about the new covenant, which is the topic of our present sermon series at the church where I teach. Who'd have thought that, in the midst of career crises, housing crises, financial crises, global security crises on three continents, and … [Read more...]
Climbing Kilimanjaro step by step – Lessons for America from Africa
January 13, 2011 By 2 Comments
In about 11 hours our team from Seattle will board a flight that will take us (eventually, by the 5th airport) to Seattle, and we'll be home, our exploratory trip of this region completed. We came here in order to meet some people who are doing marvelous development work and to visit the sites of wells our church has funded, some of them completed already, and one just getting started on the day we arrived in Uganda. We encountered so much in the previous 8 days that it seems like a lifetime … [Read more...]
Climbing Kilimanjaro step by step – Lessons for America from Africa
January 13, 2011 By 2 Comments
In about 11 hours our team from Seattle will board a flight that will take us (eventually, by the 5th airport) to Seattle, and we'll be home, our exploratory trip of this region completed. We came here in order to meet some people who are doing marvelous development work and to visit the sites of wells our church has funded, some of them completed already, and one just getting started on the day we arrived in Uganda. We encountered so much in the previous 8 days that it seems like a lifetime … [Read more...]
First Resolution: five options for five minutes of prayer
December 28, 2010 By 15 Comments
Life, it seems, is coming at us faster than ever. Longer hours at work, more stress, commutes, repairs, exercise, relationships, and endless social connections that encourage us to remain linked in, with updated status reports and timeless tweets - add it all up and life can feel like a video game. It's coming at you and you're reacting. Reacting, though, is much different than living. When I'm reacting, I end up preaching because I'm expected to say something, rather than because I've … [Read more...]
Good News…Great Joy…All People
December 24, 2010 By 1 Comment
Over the past two years, the church I pastor in Seattle has invested well over 300 thousand dollars in providing clean water for villages in Africa. We do this through the excellent work of "Living Water International" because they don't just provide water, they provide it "in Jesus name." I hope you'll pause now and celebrate with me, as you look at this brief video that offers thanks to Spilling Hope (look, especially, at the 2nd half, with specific messages to Bethany Community Church), … [Read more...]
Christmas Vacation: filling hospitality with joy instead of tension
December 22, 2010 By 3 Comments
Looking for a better way of being together than "Christmas Vacation"? read on: "Dwelling" is a great word. It can mean the space in which we occupy our lives: "My dwelling was built in 1928, and leans a little bit downhill" (true statement). Or, it can mean something we do: "we'll all be dwelling together this Christmas, 8 of us, a full house!" (also true). There's also a third way to use the word, and it's tucked away in a prayer of Paul's where he asks that "Christ would dwell in (our) … [Read more...]
What to do with your extra Tunics
December 9, 2010 By 6 Comments
Blogging has allowed me to meet people from all over the world, and I'm happy to introduce one of them to you in todays guest post. Joshua Becker is a blogger who is deeply involved in his church on the east coast, and writes a marvelous blog called, "Becoming Minimalist", filled with challenging and encouraging thoughts about living simply. I hope you'll check it out. Here's his advent contribution to Fibonacci Faith. Thanks Joshua! John the Baptist had an incredibly unique ministry. … [Read more...]
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