So the last time I preached, Peter came up to me afterward and said, “Thank you for taking time to ask, “What now? What do we do with all this?” He told me he appreciates that I always manage to land there and how getting practical is often difficult. While I externally thanked him, internally…
A few weeks ago when Peter asked if I would preach on Palm Sunday he said, “You remember that story right?” I smiled and said, “Isn’t that the one where they broke out some leaf and Jesus almost got stoned off his ass?” Now, I can imagine there’s a lot of confusion in the room…
There’s been a question dripping off my chin for the last year, something I’ve been trying to make sense of in my own life and I hope that me unpacking it might serve some of you as well. And it all centers on my relationship with my parents. But first, a bit of backstory. Family…
Goals are guides to get you moving. This is one of those lessons that it first and foremost on my mind right now, largely because I’m a month into 50-for-50 and, despite my well laid out plans and my devotion to the task, I am already finding myself impossibly behind. Why? Three reasons: Let me…
Forward and through are two essential life lessons, but they are so connected that I share them in a single post. As last week’s post on spiritual bypassing implies, the only way forward is through. So let’s break both down. Welcome to 50-for-50. This post is part of a collection of 50 things I’m doing…
Spiritual bypassing occurs when faith enables the avoidance of hard issues. While it often appears in the spiritual but not religious realm, spiritual bypassing undergirds contemporary Christian theology. Learning this, and adapting my faith accordingly, significantly changed my life. Welcome to 50-for-50. This post is part of a collection of 50 things I’m doing involving…
On a quiet evening thirty-something years ago, my family gathered in the living room and asked that oh so common question, “What should we watch?” My dad pulled out either the TV listings from the newspaper or a paperback copy of TV Guide and began mentioning things he thought might interest my mom, brother, and…
Good morning. So for those of you who don’t know me obviously my name is Joe. Part of the reason I’m standing here right now is that I’m a recovering Lutheran pastor. And I mean that in a few different ways. Recovering, Lutheran, Pastor In one sense there’s a part of me that is still…
Whether I express it here or through my work over at Abundance Reconstructed, I believe, by and large, the Western Church gets the Bible wrong. Moreover, because we misunderstand the overarching story, we end up applying the message incorrectly. Now, I do not believe there is some conspiracy theory going on and that these errors…
On Sunday, January 24, 2021 I preached on the right way to be hated at The Sanctuary in Denver, CO. The essay on love and power that shaped my thinking is the second chapter of Henri Nouwen’s book, Intimacy.
When your bread and butter job is officiating funerals, you spend time with people living a fractured existence. Death fractures community. My primary roles as a funeral officiant is helping people step into a new but unwanted normal. New because their loved one is no longer part of it. Unwanted because their loved one is…
Are religious and cultural shame holding you back? That’s a huge part of my story. This week I make a guest appearance on the “Show the F**k Up” podcast and talk about not only the history of how we read the Bible, but how it shapes the way we understand ourselves and the world. Here’s…