I have written about it before, but one of my favorite tunes comes from the rock group Coldplay. It’s the end of their incredible album Viva La Vida, and they choose to end their album with these words: No I don't want to battle from beginning to end I don't want a cycle of recycled revenge I don't want to follow Death and all of his friends For a long time, death in our culture has been p…
Watching your kids grow up right in front of you can be a beautiful, yet heartbreaking endeavor. Watching my boys learning how to crawl, how to walk, how to ride a bike, and how to shoot a hockey puck has been one of the greatest joys of my life. But there are other things that my boys are learning to do, and they excite me a little bit less. The other day I was picking the boys up from…
There are any number of texts that confuse me deeply. Yes, even as a pastor, even as someone who has studied these texts far too much, I am still confused and disoriented by some texts. Which, right at the onset, I should say I think is good. We are called to wrestle with God, not just understand God. One of the texts I wrestle with is when Jesus is telling his disciples to go out in to the…
I have had the blessing of being part of a graduate certificate program in Church Planting and Revitalization at Pittsburgh Seminary this year. While some of my fellow students are in fact church planters, starting their own New Worshipping Communities, a majority of us are more interested in the revitalization piece of the equation. We come at our studies from the sure and steady conviction that…
I had a friend who once said that everything before the “but” doesn’t actually count. For instance, “I think you are a really great person. You are really thoughtful, considerate, and kind. But, I think you really need to work on your personal hygiene.” Or perhaps you’ve heard something like “I think Phil Kessel is a really great hockey player. He’s got an incredible shot, and he scores more goals than most…
