When we worry, we fight the constraints of the way we and our world were created. We try to enter a place we can’t go. We try to control what we have not power over. — Amy Simpson I play a little game with myself called “Worst Case Scenario”. It requires me to apply equal measures of worry plus creativity to any given anxiety-producing situation in my life. It turns every stressor into an instant Y2K. My imagination goes into... Read more
I’ve heard via the always-reliable Interwebz that as many as 7,000 people have left Mars Hill Church in Seattle in recent months. The implosion in a church doesn’t have to be as painfully dramatic and public as the one in Seattle for a person to leave a broken congregation with a lovely parting gift: at least one piece of new baggage. What’s inside that baggage? Hurt, anger, sadness, disillusionment, grief, damaged trust, traumatized faith, and fractured relationships. And you know what?... Read more
I’m so pleased to announce that I’ve just signed with NavPress to write a book I pray will invite many to consider the gift of days the Lord has given each of us: the ordinary ones, and the red-letter ones. The working title of the project is Everyday Eternity: How The Jewish Feasts and Christian Calendar Connect Us With Something More. This book will tell the story of how those red-letter days are meant to shape each and every one... Read more
A couple of years ago, I joined a group of 4-8 women gathered on Monday mornings in an empty conference room in a suburban church to pray for their twenty-something adult children. The first morning we met, we introduced ourselves, briefly shared a bit about what each of our kids was doing post-college, and whether our offspring were still actively following the Jesus we’d each endeavored to share with them during their growing-up years. I jokingly dubbed us Moms In... Read more
I’ve written in this space (here, here and here) about the challenges some over age 40 have when it comes to maintaining meaningful connection with their local churches. I am always on the lookout for people and congregations doing some creative thinking about how to nurture spiritual maturity for those at midlife and beyond. Dr. Gail Bones has written a very helpful exploration on the subject of transition in Living Cross Wise: Hope and Help For Navigating Transition (Treasure House Publishers, 2013). This 12-chapter, 200-page... Read more
The recent round of protests in Colorado over a proposed change to the Advanced Placement American History curriculum has illustrated for me the challenge in our culture about what it means to remember well. The College Board, the organization that administers Advanced Placement tests that allow high school students to earn college credit for their studies, recently recalibrated the framework of the AP American history course. This decisionset off a recent, fiery round of protests in Jefferson County, Colorado, just... Read more
My friend B. had been a pastor for years before he stepped into the leadership of a parachurch ministry. During his work week, he worked and prayed with dozens of pastors and church leaders interested in transforming their congregations and communities. But on Sundays, he and his wife were invisible members of their own home church. “It’s not because I’m burned out from my work,” he explained. “If anything, the work has energized me. I’ve offered to serve the pastoral... Read more
After a lifetime of taking almost uniformly terrible pictures, modern technology in the form of camera on my phone plus the special effects magic of Instagram filters has allowed me to improve my game a bit: While there is almost nothing a person with a good command of Photoshop can’t do to an image to make it better, worse, older, younger, or different, my experiments with Instagram have given me a way at last to show what my... Read more
After months of writing and talking about regret, a few people have told me that they’ve thoughts about it, and they really don’t have any regrets. Ninety-nine out of a hundred conversations I’ve had with others about regret include the other person sharing a few headlines of their own if onlys. I am always ready to reference my own regrets in those discussions as well. The “no regrets” crew has two distinct categories: (1) People who have sought to live wisely,... Read more
Dr. Ingrid Faro has sparked some great discussion here at Pilgrim’s Road Trip with her recent posts exploring the character of God in light of the evil that seems to be flourishing all around us. I am grateful for her carefully-crafted thoughts on this topic, as well as the great questions asked by many commenters who’ve weighed in on her previous two posts. (Click here to read Part 1; click here to read Part 2.) These posts are by no means... Read more
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