On Being White: It’s a Privilege

Last updated on: December 7, 2016 at 4:21 pm By Jonathan Storment

Last year, I went on a Bus Ride with 10 black preachers and 10 white preachers to visit all the civil rights sites in Alabama. It was an incredible bonding experience that changed my life in more ways than one. Every night, we’d eat dinner and share stories. One of those nights, I told a funny story that I often tell in those kind of get-to-know-you moments about how, while I was in college, Leslie and I had a cop pull us... Read more

Forgotten Country: Voting for Trump

Last updated on: December 6, 2016 at 1:14 am By Jonathan Storment

I didn’t vote for Donald Trump. I feel like I need to say that from the start. I, like many of you reading this, was both shocked and concerned by his popularity and election to the highest office of this country. But one of the most disturbing things about this election was finding out how many of my family and friends voted for him. None of them did so enthusiastically, but they joined the rest of rural white America and voted... Read more

On Being White: Learning To Listen

Last updated on: November 30, 2016 at 11:08 pm By Jonathan Storment

I learned a lot about being white from my black friends. After all, this is the color of skin that I’ve been wrapped in my entire life. I’ve only known this experience, and the culture that I grew up in talking about racial differences was always exasperated by the simmering anger and guilt that was under the surface. So we avoided each other, or at least we avoided talking about our differences. But about 20 years ago, when I first... Read more

Red and Blue America: Divided We Fall

Last updated on: November 28, 2016 at 10:47 pm By Jonathan Storment

I want to take a break for a while from the Gospel According to Stranger Things to address some of the things that I see happening in our world, specifically the country that I live in. Because of the sensitive and divided nature of the time we’re in and the things I want to say, I’ve thought a lot about how to do this. And I think it’d be best if I started addressing two different issues, through two different blog... Read more

How To Get Along With Your Relatives at Thanksgiving

Last updated on: November 21, 2016 at 11:30 am By Jonathan Storment

For those of us who believe that politics are not ultimate have to insist, well, that politics are not ultimate. Don’t let people tell you that the only reality is who has power and who doesn’t. – Michael Wear Because of the Thanksgiving Holiday, today’s post will be the only one for this week. But I think it’s a good one. Especially for those of us who are going home for the Holiday after the most divisive political election in modern history.... Read more

The Gospel According to Stranger Things: Set in the 80’s

Last updated on: November 14, 2016 at 4:08 pm By Jonathan Storment

So I’m doing a series about the wonderful new show on Netflix that for a few weeks in the summer took over all my friends social media feeds. The show is Stranger Things and it’s kind of hard to describe. It’s part Goonies, part E.T. and part Close Encounters of the 3rd kind, but one thing is sure. Stranger Things is all 1980’s. If you haven’t seen the show, stop whatever your doing and check it out, but this isn’t... Read more

The Church, Politics, and A Christian Response to Islam

Last updated on: November 14, 2016 at 3:11 pm By Jonathan Storment

Last week I wrote a bit about how one part of our vision at Highland (the church I serve) is to be peacemakers in the Muslim world, by planting churches and partnering with existing ministries in the Muslim-majority parts of the world. We’ve known from the beginning that in order to do that we were going to need to take some time to equip ourselves to learn more about Islam and what Muslims believed. So two weeks ago, we invited an Imam... Read more

Making Peace In the Muslim Majority World

Last updated on: November 9, 2016 at 5:24 pm By Jonathan Storment

A few months ago, I wrote a short series talking about what we’re doing at Highland (the church I serve) to encourage all of our people to think globally about what it means to be a follower of Jesus in a globalized world. And one of our 5 major initiatives in the next 5 years is to be peacemakers in the Muslim-majority world. We plan to plant and work with existing churches in the 10/40 window (the Muslim-Majority World) who are... Read more

An Election Week Prayer

Last updated on: November 6, 2016 at 5:56 pm By Jonathan Storment

Henry Kissinger used to walk into the Oval Office and begin the meeting of the Presidential Cabinent by telling the people gathered, “Today, we will make decisions that will impact the course of human history!” And they believed him. They felt the weight of the world on their shoulders. And then Watergate happened. It was the scandal that rocked the nation, and a few of the gentlemen who were in that room, the ones who were making decisions that would... Read more