What my son taught me about the Father’s Love

“You shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child. If you do mistreat them, and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry.” – Exodus 22:22-23 1. The same unexplainable love that pours from my deepest heart for my son extends infinitely greater from God’s heart to each and every person in creation Until […]

Jesus Didn’t Die to Make You Republican/Democrat

“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.” – Titus 2:11-12 Recently my news feed has flared up with a few things – people arguing about a religious freedom law and hundreds of photos […]

Concrete Disciple – Renew Your Mind

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. – Romans 12:2 (ESV) This verse has stuck out to me lately as I have been spending a lot of […]

Concrete Disciple – Fridays Are Messy

So Mark 8 tells this crazy story. If you follow Jesus life you see people went wherever he was. The story starts with this crowd who had gathered for the past three days. There number is now at 4,000. And they were hungry. So Jesus calls his disciples to him, and he says something really […]

When the church needs Grace

I remember thinking working in a church would be easy. Maybe not easy – but I certainly didn’t think it would be this difficult. I liked to believe a community of people gathered together who claimed Christ would be a good representation of the One they claimed to follow. But as I looked closer and […]

When the Still Sinner Shows Up to Youth Group

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person-though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die-but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. – Romans 5:6-8 […]

Trusting God and Trusting Parents – An Apology

This is a difficult one for me to write. But I realize in the past five years God has really shaped me and taught me a lot. When I started my journey in youth ministry I was young and thought I could do it all. I thought I was the best one to do it […]

The Five Letter Word

Today I am blogging about that crazy five letter word. Usually we write about words in terms of letters when they are bad. But this word is actually really good – and much needed – not just in the world of middle school ministry, but in responding to Jesus’ call to follow me. The word is […]