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28 God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” – Genesis 1:28, NRSVUE   Bowling Alone by Robert […]

First, what is church? What is church for? There are endless ways to answer, but I’ll try to stick to a short simple one; church is the community of people gathering to follow Jesus. The church exists to work with God in building the kingdom of God on earth by growing in love of God

I’m trying something strange. I think it is good to try unusual ideas. I guess I think strangeness is a virtue. I am aware that just because something is strange does not mean it is good. However, if we are trying to follow God’s will in a world of sin, we will end up acting

I heard a podcast host recently talk about bigotry. One of the people on the show was down on the idea that bigotry gets better when people are in contact with the people they hate. I think there is good evidence for them being right; plenty of people have harmed their neighbors because they were

I am graduating from seminary tomorrow and I have done a lot to accomplish it. I listened to my Dad teach me in early morning Sunday School and my Mom in Confirmation. I listened to Coach Butler, my FCA coach teach us no one is too young to serve God. I listened to excellent professors

Ranger, our dog, has a new enemy. For the last couple of days, a turtle will appear and slowly making his way past our little patio backyard. Once, while Ranger growled and the turtle walked by, it was joined by a cardinal sitting on our little fence, a squirrel digging in the ground below, and

Obrei and my apartment is under attack. Flies have been relentlessly invading for the past two days. I don’t know what type of fly these are, but they are big and nasty. We’re in a terrible arms race. As we get better at killing them, more of them come in. Where are they coming from?

Obrei and I are going on a trip this summer where we’ll fly into Canada, so I applied for a passport this week. I Googled what to do, and found a ten-step process, which was really two: fill out a form and go to an office to apply. As someone who dislikes paperwork, the form

Some of the offices at Perkins seminary have strangely high ceilings. For one of my professors, I think this was a good thing. His walls were lined, floor to ceiling, with bookshelves. Many of them were double-full of books; there was a row of books behind another row of books on a shelf. More books

Happy National Hippo Day! Oh, that was yesterday.  You learn lots of fun things being married to a Special Education Teacher. Happy Valentine’s Day!  Or maybe for you this is a Happy National Singles Day!  Or maybe it’s not a happy day.  Holiday celebrations are always complicated.  In any case, as Christians, we can always

This week, I read an NPR article defending Groundhog Day’s weirdness. Overall, I liked it, but it said, “Groundhog Day is the only popular American holiday that explicitly celebrates our relationship with nature and reliance on the delicate balance of the seasons.” Which… sure. That sentence belongs in an NPR article. I think we should