I’ve been really impacted by John Wesley here of late. One of the classes I’m taking this semester is called “The Life & Thought of John Wesley.” I’ve been working out of two main books, Responsible Grace by Randy Maddox, and Wesley and the People Called Methodists by Richard Heitzenrater – both of whom teach at Duke. Heitzenrater is really an historian, he became famous for “breaking the codes” of John Wesley’s personal diaries. I think the story goes that... Read more

most writing isn’t really about our thoughts, it’s about how cool we think we are. maybe we think a certain way, probably flawed to begin with, certainly ill informed then we write about it – but the idea isn’t to convince someone we’re right, it’s not even to get it off our chest – for the most part it’s so that others will read our thoughts, hear our songs and think we’re somehow worth a damn. my thoughts aren’t even... Read more

i’ve been up to my eyeballs in craziness for the past month. the church is moving to a new location on jan. 16th, red guitar has been playing out a lot and we’re in the middle of making another record, satellite soul is making a new record which is taking far too long, seminary classes are cranking up again, gift buying, xmas parties, leaving town…wow i haven’t taken it in much at all for the last month. here’s been the... Read more

I have to speak at church this week. We are in the middle of a series about the Kingdom of God and I drew the topic: You must become like a little child. When I’ve heard sermons on these texts, they usually talked about how we should imitate certain things about children…you know stuff like the wonder of a child, the carefree nature, even their ability to bounce back from a fall or difficult situations…anyway. I’m learning how that is... Read more

So Anthony weighs in, he’s a reluctant Bushie! It’s nice to hear your thoughts, I think you are probably right about both of the candidates. It’s sort of weird for me, I’m not sure how to think these days because my political ideology and theology are both on the table. I believe there is a war going on in the Muslim faith between the moderates who wish to practice their faith ardently and peacefully, and the extremists who wish to... Read more

You should look at this link posted by N8: http://www.sojo.net/action/alerts/confessing_christ.pdf Interesting advertisement – it’s complete spin, though. Falwell is patently not mainstream, even for conservative Christians. One of the things that really cranks me about both sides of any issue with the ‘us’ v. ‘them’ mentality is that we always exploit the worst in each other. We say we’re against the war in Iraq so we trot out Falwell to make all Christians feel like if they support the war,... Read more

Ok, i knew someone would just have to show up with the KU trash talk, thanks Mark…i can always count on you buddy. Let’s just get it out of the way – post your comments and lay it on thick. You’ve got one shot at it so you better get the smack out of your system now, then it’s back to 11 straight years of losing by 35! Read more

Hey Everyone! For those of you in Kansas City, you’ve probably heard about the new downtown arena. They are deciding today what architecture firm they will go with to design and build this thing. I’m hoping for the group led by Brad Schrock, he goes to our parent church – Heartland Community. Go check out the website they’ve set up at: http://www.yourkcarena.com/projects.htm There are supposed to be renderings of the design online sometime today, they aren’t up yet but they... Read more

I read some Thomas Oden the other day and he totally read my mail. He was trying to describe a group of Evangelical Christians and I thought his insight was worth sharing. All of this is a very loose paraphrase, so don’t hold Oden responsible for my bull-crap! For the most part I’m joking in my descriptions so don’t get mad at me. I actually identify with one group, which one will be obvious. But I have great love for... Read more

hey everyone! thanks for stopping by. Feel free to poke around, read and post at will. Quick update for the Satellite Soul fans who are joining us…we’re working on a record – slowly, and playing a few dates here and there. The record is going to be interesting, we’re treating some new subject material in a little different way for us. Let’s just say CCM won’t be giving us a nice review. If they do i’ll shoot myself. We’re a... Read more