Rescued by Jesus. Rebuilt by the Spirit. Responding to God's grace.
Communion isn’t just between you and God. It’s communion with the worldwide body of Christ. So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread […]
When God calls us to something, He might not call us to finish it. <<Previous episode January, 2017. I had just started my new job a month earlier. This role was an incredible answer to prayer: getting paid to write and be on social media all day, all to serve people with disabilities in the name […]
When calling doesn’t turn out the way you expected. <<Previous Episode Facebook reminded me that two years ago, I posted something about feeling like a doormat. “It is one thing to follow God’s way of service if you are regarded as a hero, but quite another thing if the road marked out for you by […]
Definition of Lament: intransitive verb : to mourn aloud; wail transitive verb : to express sorrow, mourning, or regret for often demonstratively : to regret strongly (from the Merriam-Webster dictionary) I had to write a personal lament for a seminary class. It wasn’t hard. At all. Not after an emotionally draining week. Last Thursday, my […]
What lessons can a divided church learn from the 1st century church? Members of my church’s men’s and women’s groups take turns writing devotionals each week, going through books of the Bible verse by verse. We are currently on 1 Corinthians. When my turn came up the other day, my assigned passage was 1 Corinthians […]
Going “home” after two years was harder than I thought. << Previous episode Two-thousand-fifteen. It had been nearly two years since my family left California for Japan. What would this experience be like, I wondered, as my flight from Narita began its descent into LAX on a Friday afternoon in April. It turned out to […]
Is church all about the numbers? Part 2 of my case for tent-making. << Previous episode Before going to Japan, I was on staff at a church of nearly 2,000 people. We met in a 65,000 square-foot warehouse located in “America’s Safest City.” I think this would qualify it as being a megachurch, though it […]
It’s not what you think. << Previous Episode Tony and I arrived in Bangkok a little over one week after my mind-blowing “jackpot” answer to prayer. A movie producer had sent us there to do some research for a script that he had commissioned us to write. You’d think I’d be excited to be working […]
<< Previous Episode I was never into church, but there was something different about this one. Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. (1 Thess. 5:16-18 NIV) I tried to embrace my newly-single status and distract myself from the misery, diving back into […]
<< Previous Episode If this relationship truly was from God, He’d have to help us overcome major hurdles. How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? (Psalm 13:2a NIV) I didn’t call Soo the next day, as I normally would have done. We had been talking […]
