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RE-ENCHANTMENT
I keep coming across this word: enchantment. It comes from the same roots as incantation – the placing of a magic spell on something or someone. I hear people speaking of our need to recapture the enchantment of life. And everything in me screams “Amen!” It feels like we are all vaguely aware that some of the magic of existence has disappeared. Or perhaps it has simply been crowded out. In this high-tech age where gadgets and AI and doomscrolling dominate what little is left of our individual imaginations, we are less likely than ever to stop and smell the…
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OPTIMISM KICKS IN
I think of myself as a generally optimistic person. BUT, I have a tendency to fixate on how anything I am directly involved in could go wrong. And I realized something kind of weird about myself this weekend: I swing from pessimism to optimism as the due date approaches. Our church was open to switching up our approach to VBS this summer and doing a neighborhood festival instead. It was still aimed at kids, but we weren’t doing any explicit Bible lessons during our time together. It was more about simply having a positive interaction with our neighbors. Anyway, after…
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THE MIST
“A mist in the pulpit will result in a fog in the pew.” This truism, attributed to Charles Spurgeon (among others), is why I don’t think I would have made a very good preacher even 5 years ago. Now, one of the great blessings of my position as pastor at Sardinia Baptist Church is the opportunity week by week to blow away the mist in my own understanding of the Christian faith. It gets me excited every time. And I’m not talking about Bible trivia – it’s big picture stuff. And how everything fits together. I’m coming to see that…
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PUDDLES AND LEAKS
“Are you dealing with a leak or a puddle?” If you are facing a problem in your life – (And who among us isn’t?) – You might find the following distinction from author James Clear useful. He says there are 2 basic types of problems: It’s important to know which kind of problem you’ve got on your plate! If you want to read Clear’s explanation for yourself, you can find it HERE accompanied by a “sketchplanation” by artist Jono Hey. The little visual helps to make Clear’s point stick.
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CASE CLOSED
When I was younger, I was impressed by any Biblical “expert” who could rattle off a dozen verses proving their particular viewpoint on Scripture. I assumed it meant that teacher really knew their Bible inside and out. Now I know that this is called proof texting – and, when it comes to defending a “Biblical doctrine”, I consider it a practice which is suspect at best. There was a (brief) time when Calvinism actually appealed to me. This was about 15 years ago when I was invited to a Together for the Gospel conference without knowing it was organized by…
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PERHAPS
“15 Perhaps the reason [Onesimus] was separated from you for a little while was that you might have him back for ever – 16 no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother. He is very dear to me but even dearer to you, both as a fellow man and as a brother in the Lord.” Philemon 15-16 As he is writing to Philemon about receiving back his slave, Onesimus, the Apostle Paul is engaging in some conjecture about what God was doing behind the scenes in this whole scenario. Many people assume that Onesimus…
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THE DONKEY
There is a fable about human nature I don’t want to forget. Here it is as retold by Sahil Bloom: A man and his son were bringing their donkey to the market. As they were walking along the path, a man passed them and said: “You fools, what is a Donkey for but to ride upon?” So the man put the boy on the donkey and continued. They passed a group of men, one of whom said: “See that lazy youngster, he lets his father walk while he rides.” So the man ordered his boy to get off, and got…
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YOUR OWN SYSTEMATIC
The Church would be much healthier if we ditched the system where each generation two or three persons develop a systematic theology to be shared with millions, in favor of …. Millions of believers developing their own systematic theology and each sharing their ideas with two or three other believers. Wouldn’t that be something? No longer would we blindly swallow what we’ve been taught by other well-meaning Christians – who have never questioned anything they themselves were taught. In a way, my unofficial theological project since stepping into the role of pastor has been to develop my own systematic understanding…
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ALLEGIANCE
Once you start to notice the misalignment of the American gospel with the biblical gospel, it’s hard to ignore. I am reading Salvation by Allegiance Alone by Dr. Matthew Bates and giving a hearty “Amen!” with every page. The subtitle is Rethinking Faith, Works, and the Gospel of Jesus the King. Here’s the book’s argument, “reduced to its simplest terms”: 1) The true climax of the gospel – Jesus’s enthronement – has generally been deemphasized or omitted from the gospel. 2) Consequently, pistis has been misaimed and inappropriately nuanced with respect to the gospel. It is regarded as “trust” in…
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WEDDING WEEKEND IN PHOTOS
It was quite the weekend for our family. We had a perfectly timed beginning on Friday: I picked Caleb up at the airport and returned to the house about 3:30 pm, just two minutes before Melissa and Hannah pulled up after driving from Myrtle Beach. From there it was a whirlwind of activities as we attempted to maximize our short time together. The photos below are in no particular order and that seems fitting:
