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As we pass the 1 month mark of Owens birth, death, and burial…questions remain, hurts remain, memories remain, and hopes remain deferred. What are we to make of all this? Pious platitudes seem quite hollow, even if they are constructed upon eternal truth. My heart craves real, honest reality…real hope…real change, I don’t want to […]

I came across this in my reading today:
Difficulty does this, it changes your perspective. In ways that are subtle and not so subtle, it alters the way you see your world. Perhaps it causes you to look at your world through the lens of fear and dread. Or maybe it makes you look at life […]

I suspect that for decades, there will be days of the year that we celebrate and days that we mourn.
It’s hard to do both in the same day. Like Mother’s Day, we’ll always celebrate God’s gift to Erin in motherhood and remember the time she did get to share with Owen, though it was only […]

Bracelet 1Originally uploaded by cultivatethesoul.
Davids servants asked him, “what is this thing that you have done? You fasted and wept for this child while he was alive; but when the child died,you arose and ate food.” David said, “while the child was still alive, I fasted and wept, for I said, ‘who knows whether the […]

I’ll wrap this 5 parter up with this…The Comfort of Friends.
Like I said earlier, I wanted people to see the comfort of God’s hand in the midst of such daunting circumstances and the two ways that are most visible are through Scripture and through Friends. These kinds of circumstances really do clarify and define things, […]

Structure.
It had to be right…the service had to allow us to grieve and to worship, to cry and to hope, to love and to let go. I wanted the service to have a rhythm, to carry us.
In this time our souls were downcast and there was turmoil within us…yet we are to hope in God; […]

Me. My. I.
As a pastor and a father it is easy to get focused on things being “others centered�. I am always asking myself, “how do I communicate these riches in Christ in a way that people will see them and cherish them?� “How do I get my son to see the value other people?�
It’s […]

George Grant said that, “too much focus on giving things up keeps us from realizing what we’ve been given—the gift of Salvation through Christ’s death on the cross and resurrection.”
I’m practicing giving up something for Lent because I need the practice. My soul needs to know what it’s like to deny myself, to give myself […]

Lint: noun: the annoying, short, and very fine fibers that separate from the cloth during processing or drying.
Lent: noun: the 40 day period proceeding Easter in the Christian Church that is marked by fasting and penitence to prepare hearts for the resurrection celebration.
Well, tomorrow is the official start of Lent and this year we will […]

As I’ve been reviewing, A Father’s Guide to Blessing His Children, I’ve been humbled by my tendency to not follow wise advice. In particular, David Michael suggests that we use one Sciptural blessing for few dys or a week to let it sink into our hearts and get used to the habit of blessing […]

Years ago I was blessed to have lived for a brief time in Minneapolis and attend Bethlehem Baptist Church. The day I left, I stopped by the church bookstore and stocked up on books and tapes for the road. One booklet that I grabbed with the future in mind was, A Fathers Guide to Blessing […]

These questions, from Don Whitney of The Center for Biblical Spirituality, were the catalyst to what God has been doing in my life. May they be the same to you as well.
Leave a comment if you use them and let me know what you think.

What’s one thing you could do this year to increase your […]

“A dog in the hunt don’t know he’s got fleas but a porch dog can only sit there and scratch.� - a good southerner
“Consider your ways!� (Haggai 1:5)
I’ve been doing a lot of self-examination for the past few weeks. It’s healthy to spend time examining where you are going and how you plan on getting […]

My blog roll is made up of many men that I would like to know and a few that I do. Over the next few weeks I will do my best to introduce you to them. Yesterday I linked to a blog called, ” The Gospel Driven Life“. It’s author is pastor Mark Lauterbach from […]

Mark Lauterbach has written a “litmus test” for Gospel ministry that hits the nail on the head. Here’s a taste:
Yes, we need to speak clearly and connect the dots of people’s lives to the Gospel — and we need to critique their world-view and show that it really finds its true hope in Jesus. But […]

Is it in my performance? Is it in my theological depth? Is it in my maturity? Is it in my reputation?
Where must I go to find real hope in the face of such adversity? My track record is spotty, my knowledge is suspect and my maturity is, well…it’s in progress.
All of the things that normally […]

It’s been a long time since I heard this Jeremy Camp song. But I listened to it today through new ears. It seems like being a pastor and also going through a difficult time, like we are with our son, are two things that people have a hard time responding to. Some think that they […]

This morning our church prayed for our family, especially Owen. Before we came forward, a letter that we wrote last night was read to the congregation. We tried to express the basic details of the situation, how we are doing emotionally right now, and how the church can be a part of our survival.
It has […]

Names carry weight, or at least they used to. In ancient cultures personal names carried the weight of a persons character and destiny. Names were descriptors. You don’t have to think much further than the Sunday School stories of Adam naming Eve, Abram to Abraham, his son Isaac (laughter), Jacob the deceiver, and so on […]

Leave it to Eugene Peterson to write one of the greatest descriptions of the call of a pastor that I have ever read. Right now this both strengthens my passion for ministry and voices very real and raw thoughts that are in me right now because of what we are going through as a family. […]

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