So I've been in LA now for about three weeks and one of the things I wanted to take care of sooner than later when I got here was finding a church. So I did a search online for "Acts 29 churches Los Angeles" and one came up that was pretty close to me. So I went. This coming Sunday will be my fourth. In the last four weeks, I think I've been learning something important to know and...

Imagine someone approaches you with a proposition. They say, "Hey, man. I wanted to see if you'd be interested in something. There's this guy I know and, well, follow. I know that sounds kind of weird. He's really an amazing guy and is actually much more than just a guy. He's changed everything for me." With a raised eye brow, you say, "Okay, well, I'm probably not interested, but...

Often when we think of mission, we envision ourselves doing high profile acts of kindness or large scale projects that deeply impact the surrounding community. Mission can involve this kind of stuff, but we can really miss the point thinking about that sort of thing while we let low profile, equally important opportunities pass us by. When I first came to Maine, I imagined we'd take Portland...

As I get older, I'm becoming increasingly aware of the how my actions and the decisions I make may impact the world around me for good or evil. There is a person who often gets on my case at work. Let us call her, Barb. She is one of many supervisors who all have very different approaches to management and leadership, and she happens to fall into the micro-managing category. Barb seems to...

I just finished a book by Tim Keller called "The Prodigal God." When I first saw the title and thought about it, I couldn't see how it could possibly make any sense. I thought the word "prodigal" was a negative thing. The prodigal son is the guy who asks his dad for his inheritance early, which was basically like saying he'd rather his father was dead so he could finally get the loot, and...

Typically, from what I've read, which is mostly from a Mark Driscoll book, you've got two kinds of churches. One kind has a mission of community. For these churches, the actual goal of the church is to create a community and enjoy real friendships within it. People share their struggles, pray together, talk about Jesus, and just hang out a lot. Once you have gathered a critical mass of...

"Every church should be dirt poor." I was talking to my buddy who I work with at the Red Cross. I thought about what he'd just said and his reasoning behind it. My jaw dropped. I'd never heard my friend, I'll call him...Marvin, say anything like this. I'd talked casually about Christ or the Gospel within his ear shot with other co-workers, but had always noticed that he appeared to be...

I was eating a very bland breakfast, made by me, with Joel and Jonathan this morning. We were talking about our lifegroup's little endeavor to try and make a difference in the lives of immigrants and non-English speaking people in our city. Jonathan brought up our annoying tendency to forget WHY. Why are we doing this again? Its very easy to forget the big story. You begin to serve, to...

This blog is for writing about and talking about Jesus Christ, the goings on of Missio Dei, what we are trying to do, how we are succeeding, how we are failing and what we are learning from it. Feel free to comment on, agree or disagree with or just talking about what's put down here.