I was spurred on to post this because of a recent conversation with my wife. I’ll start by just saying, guys, who are automatically given the upper hand in our current power structures, need to be intentional about relinquishing that authority and opening opportunity for women to be included.
There’s a great post by Heather at Emerging Women that has tips for encouraging women leadership (ht. Mark):
1. Include women’s voices and perspectives from the beginning. Don’t plan the event, outline the book, organize the tour, and THEN try to find a …

I figured rather then write, I wanted to ask some questions. I’ve had a discussion recently concerning short term missions and I wanted to hear some of my readers opinions. I’m curious what everyones take is on the issue of short term missions, global missions, western missionaries, etc. So, here are my questions:1. What do you think about short term missions? Do they do more harm then good, or vice versa?
2. Have you heard of indigenous missionaries? If so, what do you think of them?
3. On a Biblical level, what …

Thanks for all the feedback on the last couple house posts everybody! I’m realizing there are quite a few more interested parties then I originally realized. I mentioned earlier that one of the reasons we are excited about doing this, and taking seriously paying off our debt, is that we want to have an opportunity to serve as an example to others of taking debt seriously and paying things off. The ultimate goal for us, is to live on only what we need (more discussion here later) and to continue …

Dear Greg (or Gary, sorry I can’t remember) and others,
I met you briefly at Peavey Park in South Minneapolis last Wednesday. I was hanging out with some punk-rocker anarchist folk, eating dinner with homeless and having an all-around good time. You came by and politely offered us flyers to an event for youth you were having in October. You were kind and cordial and I appreciated listening to the conversation between some church-goers and anarchist, two groups I thoroughly enjoy hanging out with that tend to have some nearly polar …

I don’t usually delve too deeply into my personal life on this blog, though most of what I post is a reflection of personal experience and thoughts, but I wanted to take a minute to sort of reflect on where I (and my family) are at this moment.
I have been married for 4 years, 3 months, 5 days and about 12 hours (isn’t that cute?). I’ve been a father for just about 3 months now. We’ve recently moved to a new big city where we don’t know many people (though …

A great series I enjoyed writing that I wish I continued was about the church. And it started with this post, Why a Building?:
I think my initial hesitation about the whole building thing came when the church building craze started my last year of high school. My church decided we need to add a $2.5 million addition on to our building. I didn’t realize we were outgrowing the original building in the first place, and now they wanted to add on. And in adding on they wanted it to …

From some dude in the movie Walk the Line:
If you was hit by a truck and you were lying out in that gutter dying…
and you had time to sing one song, huh, one song…
people would remember before you’re dirt…
one song that would let God know what you felt about your time here on earth…
one song that would sum you up…
you telling me that’s the song you’d sing?
That same Jimmie Davis tune we hear on the radio all day?
About your peace within and how it’s real and how you’re gonna shout …

A News article tells of the story behind this sign in front of a Sydney baptist church and the criticism from The Australian prime minister.
I’m happy to hear of kindred spirits in the world. After 9/11 I posted a sign on my door that read:
GOD BLESS AFGHANISTAN
PRAY FOR OSAMA BIN LADEN
It was torn down multiple times in the first few days I had it up. Then I made a t-shirt, and it got comments from people left and right. I made a new shirt when we went to war …