Photo by Omar Franc, courtesy of stock.xchng

I learned a great lesson this week: Conflict will bring out who you truly are. Really, I also learned not to edit code in my blog during the wee hours of the morning.

Sunday night, I crashed this place. Single posts were not displaying right and I was frantically trying to bring it back into balance (for some reason I thought the apocalypse was rounding the corner). I was up until about three in the morning and Monday’s wakeup call came way to fast. Even multiple cups of coffee didn’t spring me into a better mood; this one source of conflict brought out my worst, which the community of people closest to me experienced first hand. Continue Reading…

I love celebrations. There’s something about getting together with a large group of people all on the same page, cheering, hollering and enjoying life together. One of the greatest celebrations I went to was a student’s Quinceañera… this birthday celebration was a blast and shamelessly overshadows some of the weddings I’ve been to. Choreographed dances, a live band and a multi-course meal are just a few of the highlights I experienced. But one of the greatest aspects of this young lady’s night was being able to celebrate with her and her family. Continue Reading…

“How are you?”

“Good.”

A normal conversation in many church, business and casual circles. But I’m starting to wonder just how much we mean it. What if the reply wasn’t good, but the person began to pour out how life was falling apart? Would we know how to respond? Better yet, do we want to know how people are really doing?

Transparency in many churches has all but disappeared. We’ve covered our hurts and heartaches with our Sunday best. We go to a church service hoping people see our projected persona of all is well and all the while we wonder why no one has come to stand by our side in our time of trouble. How has church lost the very transparency… the sharing of burdens that it was commanded to possess? Continue Reading…

Photo by: jmjvicente courtesy of stock.xchng

I figured I should probably kickoff this new adventure of writing a blog by explaining why I heart the church. Really this could be a complete series of blog posts, but I’ll do my best to limit it to the one on my heart right now.

I love the church because of the ability to do life together with people. There is something about living in community that brings out the best in me.

Today I had the privilege of eating lunch with a man who I can say is becoming a good friend. “J” (we’ll just keep it simple) bought lunch, which is always a plus and as we sat there eating our fast food Mexican dishes we began discussing how God has been revealing his power in our lives. You see, J is unemployed and his wife is the sole provider for the family. Yet when an opportunity for J to give to our church’s Better2Bigger campaign… J and his wife were on board even though they knew financially they had nothing to give. Continue Reading…