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 som … [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), w … [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. As was … [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. As was … [Read more...]
“Occupied” – a key to joy filled living
December 4, 2010 by 1 Comment
"When an evil spirit leaves a person, it goes into the desert, seeking rest but finding none. Then it says, 'I will return to the person I came from.' So it returns and finds its former home empty, swept, and clean. Then the spirit finds seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they all enter the person and live there. And so that person is worse off than before. That will be the experience of this evil generation." Matthew 12:43-45If we're going to live our lives well, we're going to … [Read more...]
REAL freedom
December 1, 2010 by 1 Comment
One of the joys that comes from teaching in an international Bible school is that one disocvers how, in spite of our boundaries, ethnic differences, and distinctions in health care policies, the human heart is unchanging. It's issues cross the barriers of culture, race, politic, economy, space, and time. Students are here from all over Europe, Canada, and America, along with some from Asia and at least one student from Africa and all of them are made for the same thing: freedom!Thee gospel c … [Read more...]
The Perfect Storm: Finding Liberty in Simplicity
November 16, 2010 by 31 Comments
I went running this morning in my shoeless shoes, pondering the fresh health I'm enjoying in my running because I've been liberated from the belief that the foot needs something other than itself to run well. It's not the point of this post, but if you're interested, you can read about it here.The morning offered a bed of leaves through which to run because last night there was a wind storm, the kind that makes a howling sound in our attic bedroom, the kind that strips trees of leaves, … [Read more...]
