The Blog

Ever notice how a pilot stays steady in a crosswind? The plane gets pushed sideways by the wind, and the pilot has to keep fighting to keep the nose aligned with the runway. From inside the cabin, it can feel unstable — like something's wrong. But pilots will tell you the opposite is true. That tension is proof the pilot is staying on course. The moment they stop resisting and just "go with the flow" of the wind, the plane drifts off the runway entirely. That's a strange plac

We live in a culture that has become remarkably skilled at avoiding suffering. We medicate discomfort, eliminate inconvenience, maximize efficiency, and organize much of life around personal preference. Even Christianity can quietly absorb these assumptions. We can begin to imagine that faithfulness means God will make our lives increasingly comfortable, our circumstances increasingly manageable, and our problems increasingly solvable. But the New Testament offers a radically

Fiction Once Upon a Wardrobe by Patti Callahan // This book was fantastic. Callahan is a fantastic writer. My wife read this and I refused to pick it up because it looked like one of those books only a women would read (I know, I know - calm down). I was wrong. It's a great book that I enjoyed and would recommend to anyone. The quotes, “reason is how we get to the truth, but imagination is how we find meaning” and “every human interaction is eternally important” are still sit

Melchizedek appears in Scripture for three verses, speaks two sentences, and vanishes. Yet the Holy Spirit returns to him a thousand years later in a royal psalm, and again a thousand years after that in the longest sustained argument of the New Testament's most theologically dense letter. Few biblical characters receive so little narrative and so much theological weight. That imbalance has made Melchizedek a magnet for speculation. He has been called an angel, a heavenly red

Most of us have a version of the party. Not a literal banquet with gold goblets and a thousand guests, just the noise we turn up when something underneath our lives feels unsteady. Busyness. Scrolling. Staying ahead of the to-do list. If we can just keep moving, keep optimizing, keep the momentum going, maybe we won't have to sit still long enough to face what the silence might reveal. It's an old strategy. It's also exactly what's happening in Daniel 5, on the very night an

There is a big difference between questioning your faith and abandoning your faith. That distinction matters. In some Christian circles, even asking difficult questions can feel dangerous. A person encounters something in Scripture they do not understand, wrestles with an intellectual objection, struggles with doubt, or discovers that something they were taught does not actually seem to fit the Bible, and immediately wonders whether they are drifting away from God. But Script

There's a particular kind of pride that doesn't announce itself as pride. It sounds more like satisfaction. You stand back from something you've spent years building — a career, a home, a reputation, a platform — and something in you quietly says, look what I did. It's not always arrogance. Sometimes it's just tired relief after a long climb. But Scripture has a way of asking an uncomfortable question right at that exact moment: whose kingdom is this, really? That's precisely

For years, one of the familiar stories in American Christianity has been that men are missing from the church. Women have often attended more consistently, participated more visibly, and carried significant responsibility within congregational life. So churches have rightly asked an important question: How do we reach men? But perhaps we have been asking a question that is too small. The deeper question is not simply, “Are men coming to church?” It is, “Are men becoming like

You don't need a ninety-foot gold statue to feel the pressure to conform. Most days it's quieter than that — a notification, a scroll, a comparison you didn't ask for, a rhythm of urgency that never quite lets go of your attention. The modern world doesn't need to build monuments to get you to bow. It just needs your attention on repeat. Little by little, almost without noticing, we start giving our time, our imagination, and our anxiety to whatever plays the loudest music. T

We live in a world competing for our attention. A notification vibrates. A screen lights up. A headline catches our eye. A video ends, and another begins before we have even decided whether we want to watch it. We pick up our phone to check one thing and, fifteen minutes later, wonder where the time went. Most of us recognize the problem. But perhaps we have not considered its spiritual significance. What if our attention span is not merely a matter of productivity? What if i

Check your phone. Go ahead. How many times have you unlocked it in the last hour? Most of us don't reach for our phones because something urgent is waiting. We reach for them because we're afraid of missing something, of losing our grip on a day that already feels like it's slipping away. We call it staying on top of things. It might be something else entirely: a quiet, exhausting attempt to control a life that was never ours to control in the first place. Believe it or not,

There are encouraging signs in the current conversation about men and Christianity. After years of headlines announcing the decline of male participation in church, some researchers are beginning to see indications that men—particularly younger men—are showing renewed interest in Christianity. We should be grateful for every sign of spiritual hunger. But we should also ask a more important question: Are men merely becoming more interested in Christianity, or are they becoming

There is a danger that can exist in the church without looking like sin. You can know the Bible and not obey it. You can explain the gospel and fail to live by faith. You can listen to sermons every week, read Christian books, memorize Scripture, discuss theology, and accumulate years of Christian vocabulary and yet remain remarkably unchanged. It is possible to become spiritually informed without becoming spiritually mature. That is a sobering thought, and it is precisely th

Daniel 1 introduces us to four young men carried into exile and immersed in a culture determined to reshape their identity, convictions, and worship. Yet Daniel and his friends demonstrate that faithfulness to God is possible even when surrounded by pressure to compromise. In the message above, we walk through Daniel 1 and explore what it means to remain faithful when the world around us pulls us in another direction. Daniel’s courage was not rooted in his circumstances, his

Loneliness is one of the strangest experiences of modern Christian life. We can sit in a crowded sanctuary and still feel alone. We can have hundreds of social-media connections and no one we would call when life falls apart. We can attend church every Sunday, participate in a small group, serve on a ministry team, and still quietly wonder, “Does anyone really know me?” For Christians, loneliness can feel especially confusing. We belong to Christ. We have been adopted into th

One of the questions I get asked fairly often is, "What are you reading?" Here are a few books I've been working through over the past month, along with some brief thoughts on each. Fiction* Benediction by Kent Haruf // Haruf came off a recommendation from another fiction author I appreciate. It was a super quick read about an old man diagnosed with terminal cancer and the process of him coming to terms with his death. If I read it slower, I might have cried. I pondered for s

Psalm 46 speaks directly to the heart of anyone living in a world marked by uncertainty, fear, and upheaval. The psalmist declares that God is our refuge and strength, “a very present help in trouble.” Even when the earth gives way, the mountains shake, and the nations rage, God remains unshaken. This message walks through Psalm 46 and explores what it means to find confidence and peace not in the stability of our circumstances, but in the steadfast presence and sovereignty o

Social media has given us an extraordinary ability to communicate. We can encourage friends, celebrate God's faithfulness, share truth, tell stories, invite people into community, and even proclaim the gospel to people we might never otherwise reach. But there is another use that comes far too easily: turning a public platform into a public complaint box. Someone frustrates us, and we post. Someone disappoints us, and we hint. A relationship becomes difficult, and suddenly ev

You can know a great deal about someone without actually knowing them. You might know where they were born, what they do for a living, what they believe, and even be able to tell stories about their life. But if you have never spoken with them, trusted them, loved them, or shared any meaningful relationship with them, you would never say, “I know that person.” The same distinction is profoundly important when it comes to Jesus. A person can know the facts of the gospel withou

There's a moment every Sunday that nobody in the congregation sees. It comes after the benediction, after the handshakes and the hallway updates on someone's surgery, after laughing at a kid's joke and praying with a couple who needed it. It comes after the sanctuary empties, after the foyer empties, after the last car pulls out of the parking lot. I walk back into that sanctuary I love, and it has gone completely quiet. That's usually when it hits: relief and ache arriving a