I think Michael Guglielmucci’s song is more poignant now

I had never heard of the pastor from Australia with the unpronounceable last name before his story broke a couple of weeks ago, so I didn’t have an emotional attachment to his apparently popular song. I also don’t want to diminish the damage his sin has done to people who trusted him and the [...]

patience, patience

I was having a late night conversation with my wife not too long ago and we were talking about, well… pretty much everything, mostly a project that I’m working on about church.
Some background for our conversation. People leave Church. Not just my church or your church but Church. They do this for a variety of [...]

come again

By now most of you have heard about the murder that took place on a bus between Edmonton and Winnipeg. When things like this happen people sometimes look to me as a pastor to answer questions. Questions like where is God when a psycho stabs a random guy to death on a bus. Questions like [...]

It’s okay not to like stuff!

I don’t generally write rants here. Not because I don’t like a good rant now and then, but you can find a lot of them online and I don’t need any more space in my life to complain about stuff. So forgive the next 200 words or so.
Matthew Paul Turner has a post on not [...]

how to read the Bible #3

Part 3 in a bible reading series
why we read the Bible

if I say it out loud it will be real, right?

So I’m working on a book. It sounds silly even as I say it but I am and I want to finish it so I’m going to pressure myself by announcing it publicly. Feel free to ask me how it’s coming so I will feel stupid if my answer is that I haven’t touched in [...]

The best laid plans… #1

So we’re in a re planning thing for Bridgepointe. There are some church planters or aspiring or recovering church planters who end up here, so I’ll put the plan up in small parts for your perusal and ridicule. Enjoy.
What
What is a church?
We believe that the local church is a group of people called by and [...]

Yes I signed it, and I’d do it again

I signed the Evangelical Manifesto today. I read it first, in case you’re wondering. And I read the whole thing not just the shortened highlights version.
I didn’t expect to sign it. These kinds of large scale statements tend to have some mileage amongst people like me who have a vested interest and the time to [...]

If I’d been Senator Obama’s pastor…

He would have heard a lot more lame jokes,  like this one
“So with Phinehas God begins what we sometimes call the Aaronic Priesthood… Not to be confused with the Ironic Priesthood, that was a mediorce sketch comedy troupe from Winnipeg circa 1993″
See, It might be painful to listen, but no one is going to replay [...]

I’m going to invite you to church

In my completely informal and non scientific study of people I know and work with and have come in contact with who have no church affiliation, poll data reveals the following troubling “fact”:
Most people have never been invited to church.
In retrospect this isn’t that surprising, because I haven’t invited most of these people to church, [...]