“490”

“490”

John 20:19-31 Sermon Audio A few years back my wife and I attempted to introduce our then 6 year old daughter Michaela, to the Star Wars universe. We could tell even before Luke met Obi Wan that she needed a few more years before she could handle that much awesomeness. We decided to try it again during her spring break this year, and I am proud to report that she has made it through the original trilogy. Personally I have some reservations about showing her Episode 1, because it will be just my luck that she actually likes Jar Jar Binks. Now I am sure a lot of you are scratching your heads because you have never seen any of the movies or care one bit about it. And that is ok because this is not a Star Wars sermon. All you need to know is that at its core, the story of Star Wars is the story of the struggle between good and evil, darkness and light, hatred and love. I will never forget snuggling with Michaela when she discovered that the ultimate...
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A Pint With The Pastor

“For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon;’ the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.” Matthew 11:18-19 Odds are better than good that there are some of you who read about our pub theology ministry “Doubt on Tap” in the bulletin every week and you silently shake your head. “How in the world could the pastor think it’s a good idea to invite people to a bar? Doesn’t he know there’s alcohol there?” Indeed I do know that there is alcohol there, and I think its not only a good idea, but a necessary one. First and foremost, if Jesus were here in the flesh, I believe that the bar is exactly is where he would be (a whole lot more than once a week for an hour or two). Jesus would...
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The Table

When Bri and I got married we didn't have much in the way of furniture (didn’t have much in the way of anything, actually). Most of the furniture we did have, though, was inherited from her mom. My mother-in-law did a lot to help us out as we began our life together: a nice couch, an old, slightly-used car for a song, but to me, the greatest inheritance from Bri’s mom was our kitchen table. This table was well-loved when it came to us. During our first move, part of the pedestal broke, and the movers spent an hour or so fixing it. For our second move, the one that brought us to Ypsilanti, something broke on it again, and this time the repair made it impossible for us to remove the leaf extension. We had our first family dinners around that table. Michaela stubbornly resisted eating a single grain of rice at that table when she was two, to the point...
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Smelling Coffee

Smelling Coffee

There is nothing like the frustration of a blank page. Especially when I have to write something. The little cursor line just sits there mocking me with its blinking. Even now, it just blinks at me, taunting me. Daring me to push it across the page with letters and words that are strung together and make some sort of sense. When writing is as big a part of your ministry as it is for pastors, the blank page is your enemy. In life though, getting a blank page is not always a bad thing. There is an old pop Christian song by Chris Rice called “Smellin’ Coffee.”  When I get frustrated with a blank page there're some lines in the chorus that really help me to avoid banging my head against the wall. It goes like this: “I’m smelling coffee, the birds are singing just outside, here comes your [God’s] mercy streaming with the morning light…” When we read about the mercy...
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Bear With Me

Bear With Me

I am afraid to try and calculate the number of minutes I spent on the phone on “hold” this week. Our family recently switched cell phone and cable companies without realizing that it would require oodles of time on the phone with customer service people in order to get everything set up and the billing information correct. I think I had to call at least four times just for them to get my email address right. But I noticed something though in all of those conversations that kind of broke my heart a bit. Almost every time the person on the other end of the line started a new sentence, they said: “please bear with me a little longer.” At first, I thought it was just one particular representative. And then I noticed it was happening with all of them; it didn’t matter if the call center was in Dallas or Mumbai. They also apologized a lot and thanked me for...
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