A good friend recently passed away, and her impact on my life is more than maybe she ever knew. Growing up I felt about as average as average could be. I was good but not great, athletic but not enough to make the team, smart but not at the top of my class. (I am top row, second from right. Kushi is immediately to my right. Taken in 1998) One of the bad habits I had developed in my teenage years... Read more
Guess how many players in this year’s Superbowl were 5-star recruits out of high school? As spring (theoretically) begins to thaw the rage among football fans is college recruiting of high school players. To give a frame of reference to the quality of players, high school players are now given a ranking based on their skill level, with 5 stars being the highest. Although this could seem cruel, it’s a reflection of a society that loves to rank everything. We rank... Read more
If you’ve missed any of the past few weeks of sermons, here are the first three weeks in our series the Comparison Trap. https://vimeo.com/118648008 https://vimeo.com/119234904 https://vimeo.com/119853324 Read more
Need a story that will give you hope? This past Sunday Mt Vernon had the privilege of baptizing Nikki. Watch her story below as a testimony of what God can do in a life. Read more
Social media is an incredible tool for people to stay connected like never before. But never confuse social media with truth. Social media isn’t pure truth. It’s the truth we want everyone else to see. Case in point: last week I posted a video on Facebook of our baby girl Elle taking her first steps. It’s a classic parent moment that we wanted to share with the world. We’re up to 154 likes and 21 comments. https://vimeo.com/119947359 Cute, huh? But... Read more
Sunday in our message on the Comparison Trap we looked at the most common way Jesus described God to humanity: our Heavenly Father. God wants to interact with us as a loving, perfect, heavenly father. Galatians 4:4 says that because of the Holy Spirit inside of us, we can even refer to God as our “Daddy,” our “Abba Father.” If we can ever truly embrace this relationship with God as our perfect Heavenly Father, our Daddy, it will help us get out... Read more
This past Sunday I had a pretty good idea of what it would feel like to baptize in a river during winter. The water heater for our baptistry didn’t work properly, which I discovered fifteen seconds before I baptized Nikki. It was cold. And I mean cold. My legs started feeling okay after a minute, but that was simply because they had gone numb and I had lost all feeling. And I was staying above water! I felt horrible for Nikki, who was... Read more
On this Presidents Day we celebrate all of our past presidents, most notably the birthdays of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. If you’ll allow a brief history lesson, there’s an incredible truth we can learn from Abraham Lincoln. We know the man. We know the legend. Lincoln is considered by many to be the greatest president we ever had, who carried us through our darkest period as a nation. He boldly signed the Emancipation Proclamation and righted a terrible wrong. He... Read more
Andy doesn’t strive for the spotlight. He doesn’t like to get on stage, never one to list his accomplishments. He’d most likely classify himself as an introvert. You might lose him in a crowd because he’s not one to bring attention to himself. But I’d like to give some love and attention to Andy today because he did something great last week. Last Friday I get a quick text from Andy (who’s in my church) saying that he met a young... Read more
Okay, so he didn’t really steal from me. He probably stole the idea from the same people I stole from. Back in 2006 I was sitting in a room with other youth pastors brainstorming when one stood up and shared how his church hosted a special needs prom every year. They called it Joy Prom. In that instant, about a dozen other youth pastors (including me) vowed to start one in our own city. As I continued to minister over... Read more
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