We are all going to face hard days. If you haven’t yet you will. I remember being moved when I first heard Nightbirde sing and tell her story. As we have followed her story, until she passed away this weekend, she showed courage and hope in the face overwhelming odds.—About a decade ago I remember […]
I hope this encourages someone today. Several years ago the people in our church may have thought I had gone a bit crazy. I removed everything from our stage and almost everything from our sanctuary, for a season. We were a few years into starting Lighthouse and I could sense there was a shift happening […]
I started writing this months ago but I have never been able to find adequate words to explain my thoughts. However, this is the day we remind ourselves of our need to talk, to share, and listen to those who are suffering. So I will try to express the feelings, words, despair, and pain so […]
I am happy to have realized something amazing as we come to the end of 2020, and kick off a new year. For the past years I have always tried to look back and assess how things are going personally and ministry wise. This year has been a struggle in so many ways. It has […]
The Beautiful Hope Science is wiser than religion: it never tries to do the humanly impossible, like making you love your neighbor like yourself. — Anonymous In Evan Esar, 20,000 Quips and Quotes, 704. Doubleday (June 1968) People of Hope change things. When I think of some of our great leaders of humanity almost all […]
‘Facts do not “speak for themselves”; they are read in the light of theory. Creative thought, in science as much as in the arts, is the motor of changing opinion. Science is a quintessentially human activity, not a mechanized, robot-like accumulation of objective information, leading by laws of logic to inescapable interpretation.’ Stephen Jay Gould […]
Faith is powerful enough to immunize people against all appeals to pity, to forgiveness, to decent human feelings. It even immunizes them against fear, if they honestly believe that a martyr’s death will send them straight to heaven. — Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, Oxford University Press, 1976 Religion has been called the root of […]
After six years of constant writing, travelling, speaking, and blogging about youth ministry it was decided it was time for a break. Over two years ago I completely stopped so I could focus on ministry in my home community. The last two years have been filled some pretty amazing moments and challenges. Here is just […]
I can be, and am, moral without God, I do not need a belief in a deity to make right choices. Religious people make bad choices all the time, this alone proves they have no moral advantage over the rest of us. Anonymous It is amazing how even a small gift of goodness can change […]
As a new year starts, I am usually excited to talk about my hopes, dreams, and vision for a new year. This is no ordinary year though. My mind has not been in the same place. I am still incredibly excited for the future, because I believe something better is emerging. Yet at the same […]