Reading Shelf: Six Bible Translations for Meditation & Study

Last updated on: November 18, 2025 at 10:23 am By Jeff McLain

In keeping with this blog’s call to lead a quiet life of stillness and faithfulness, I am launching a new mini-series: “Your Reading Shelf: Six Bibles for Making Sense of the Scriptures.” Bible Translations can be confusing. This series, Reading Shelf, explores 6 translations to bring clarity to your reading and study. I also hope you will be inspired to curate a personal collection of Bibles that allows you to read and internalize the scriptures with simplicity and confidence. There... Read more

You Are What You Invest: Quiet Work of a Healthy Marriage

Last updated on: November 14, 2025 at 5:48 pm By Jeff McLain

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“Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.” “Garbage in, garbage out.” “You are what you eat.” These well-known sayings all point to the same truth: what we consume in our diet determines the health we experience. Our bodies reflect our investment—or the lack of it. Our marriages work the same way. What you put into your marriage, you will get out. Your marriage emerges from what you invest. What we pour into our marriages... Read more

When God Seems Silent: Naming Values for the Season

Last updated on: November 11, 2025 at 8:31 pm By Jeff McLain

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“You will hear a voice behind you saying, ‘This is the way. Follow it, whether it turns to the right or to the left.’” (Isaiah 30:21, GW). This has always been one of my favorite verses. I’ve long desired to sense God’s Spirit leading me in the way that Isaiah describes. There have been seasons where I have clearly felt God’s direction, and other times when heaven has seemed silent. When you can’t hear God’s new direction, be faithful to... Read more

Threads of Stillness: Learning to Let Scripture Read Us

Last updated on: November 10, 2025 at 1:55 pm By Jeff McLain

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Today, on a spiritual direction day, I’m walking, reading, studying, and praying—listening for direction in this next season. I want to be better than I am, to really live into this call to lead a quiet life that I believe God has placed on my heart. To lead a quiet life—or in Greek, hēsychazō—is to hold one’s peace, to cease from striving and meddlesomeness, to be still. This stillness forms in us a holy resistance to the hurry, noise, and... Read more

Sojourn: Post-Everything (Part Six)

Last updated on: November 2, 2025 at 11:00 pm By Jeff McLain

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This post continues my Sojourn Series. You might enjoy reading the first five chapters before this one, as I reflect on my spiritual journey through Vineyard belonging, Anabaptist convictions, and a renewed missional imagination. This chapter picks up where Becoming Vineyard Again left off and explores the “post-everything” season I now find myself living in. A few months ago, I was walking out of a large-scale evangelical event. I was walking with a friend who had a similar journey. As... Read more

Sojourn: Becoming Missional (Part Five)

Last updated on: October 21, 2025 at 7:10 pm By Jeff McLain

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This is Part Five of the Sojourn Series. You might enjoy reading the earlier chapters before this one. In this story, I share about discovering what it means to live out the Gospel missionally—in neighborhoods, coffee shops, and even among those who have lost everything. Looking back, I think I was always missional, even before I knew the word. Even during my spiritual sojourn—gathering with friends around sacred books from other faiths—I felt an ache to make the world better... Read more

Sojourn: Becoming Vineyard & Anabaptist Again (Part Four)

Last updated on: October 20, 2025 at 12:48 am By Jeff McLain

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This is Part Four of the Sojourn Series. You might enjoy reading the earlier chapters before this one. In this story, I share how I found my way back to the Vineyard—carrying with me the convictions I discovered in the Anabaptist movement and learning, at last, what it means to lead a quiet life. When I look back, 2020 feels like both a lifetime ago and just yesterday. It was the year the world stopped, the year we all faced... Read more

Sojourn: Becoming Anabaptist (Part Three)

Last updated on: October 15, 2025 at 12:13 am By Jeff McLain

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This is Part Three of the Sojourn Series. You might enjoy reading the first two chapters before this post. In this story, I speak about my journey into the Anabaptist Movement. In 2009, I was not looking to leave the Vineyard Movement. I felt at home, called, and invested. This was my people. I had come to deeply love Christ’s church, Christ’s cause, and Christ’s calling. I believed the local church was worth my time, my talents, and whatever teaching... Read more

Sojourn: Becoming Vineyard (Part Two)

Last updated on: October 10, 2025 at 11:48 pm By Jeff McLain

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This is Part Two of the Sojourn Series. You might enjoy reading the first Part before this one. In this story, I speak about my journey into the Vineyard Movement. By the time 2003 came around, I was hooked on making the road my home. A few weeks on the road with organizations and bands set me alive in ways I didn’t know were possible. By 2004, I would quit my job at the theater and spend eleven months on... Read more

Sojourn: Becoming a Spiritual Pilgrim (Part One)

Last updated on: October 9, 2025 at 1:46 am By Jeff McLain

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Recently, while watching some old video of me twenty years ago on tour with a friend’s band, I felt like I was watching someone else. The younger version of me was wild-eyed, searching, and restless, a person propelled by something I didn’t yet have words for. He was immature, skinny, and different. While watching that footage, I realized just how far I’ve come on this pilgrimage. There is still much road ahead, but I’m in a very different place than... Read more

What structure did humans try to build to reach the heavens, leading God to scatter them?