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When I was a sophomore in high school (that's year 10 for you non-Americans) I took an elective class called "Human Diseases". I thought it would be so cool. SARS and the Bird Flu had been in the news the last couple of years (this was the early 2000s) and we were just starting to hear about this freaky epidemic called "Mad Cow Disease", which was caused by some kind of weird virus that infected cows' brains. The media did its part to drum up fears among the populace by reporting on the possibility of the virus (technically a prion ) spreading to humans and they kept furtively winking at the idea of maybe a real life zombie outbreak. In the same year, the actual zombie movies  28 Days Later  and Resident Evil were reviving the genre in Hollywood after a long absence. All this is to say that I thought taking this class was going to be epic. I was picturing dramatic stories and graphic images. Gory stuff. Bleeding eyeballs and chest bursting and things of th...

Today I have decided to publish a lengthy pastoral note that I wrote to the parents of teens in my church. I wanted to remind myself that no matter what takes place on the earth, the Lord is King and that there are no political circumstances down here that change heavenly reality in the slightest. Anyway, it's all explained below. Dear parents, Bad news on the Internet Earlier this afternoon I sat through our pastoral team meeting distracted and only somewhat listening as I obsessively switched browser tabs back and forth from the meeting minutes to the infamous New York Times U.S. Election forecast . As it became increasingly clear that Donald Trump will once again be elected President of the United States, I felt a pit of anxiety grow deep in my stomach. I was bracing, and not at all ready for another four years of emotionally exhausting political discourse, circus headlines, deeply divided culture, and what my friend described as “watching a car crash online every single day”. ...

Have you ever felt like nobody was there? Have you ever felt forgotten in the middle of nowhere? Have you ever felt like you could disappear ? Like you could fall, and no one would hear? I occasionally worry about projection.  Simon and I have often talked about the need for authenticity in ministry. People don't respond to "Thou shalt" as much as they do to "I feel like". Facts and data can be disputed, and these days you can cherry pick data from the Internet to prove any point that you would like to make. But in our culture it is a sin to invalidate someone's personal experience. And so I frequently tell personal stories in my preaching and candidly share about how the passage applies in my own life. And people usually respond pretty positively to this; they often tell me how much they appreciate a preacher who is "real" or "open about his own weaknesses" or (ironically) "not too preachy".  But sometimes, oftentimes, I wonder...

I freakin' love chicken wings.  When I was in college, there used to be this bar near our campus that did twenty five cent wings on Thursdays. For five bucks (plus beer money) I could get a great feed that hits all the key nutritional food groups ( salt, fat, acid, and heat . Hmm, now that I'm thinking about it, there's an argument to be made that the buffalo wing is the ultimate food that perfects all the core elements of deliciousness). But to top that, a different bar  only a slightly longer drive away did TEN CENT WINGS and dollar PBRs on Monday nights. You could get drinks and eat yourself stupid and still get change for your five-spot.  Twenty years on I am a whole lot more health conscious, but my love for wings hasn't changed. In fact, I've succeeded in passing this affinity onwards genetically. The other day my family almost finished an entire Costco package of chicken wings in one dinner. The kids carried their weight; even my one year old was stacking the...