I'm a naturally curious person. I like to find things out, investigate, and dig into obscurity sometimes. I did this with AI recently. Not because I needed to or had some desire to make my writing something. But because I wanted to see what would happen. To be honest, I wasn't fully ready for the response I got. A few months ago I fed a machine about four years of my own writing. Sermons, blog posts, the odd half-finished thing I never published. Then I asked it for a paragra

I was asked to preach at a wedding a few years back, and the couple wanted Ephesians 5. Every pastor who's done more than a handful of weddings knows the particular flinch that request produces… half honor, half dread… because you know you're about to stand in front of a room that's heard this passage wielded as a leash far more often than they've heard it preached as love that empties itself to the point of death. You spend the drive over rehearsing how you're going to get t

I attended a Christian Nationalist dinner and discussion the other evening. These were guys that I have genuine love and respect for. Fathers, friends, pastors, scholars, etc… and I get why they hold the line that they hold. It makes sense. But I disagree on the means to the end. Hopefully love and respect can be had, even though I don’t agree with the platform or the way to and through towards a desired goal. The food was delicious and the conversation was profitable, on mul

Do you think the cross is weak? Think about that question for a bit. Because a lot of men walking around calling themselves men of faith would, if they were honest about the posture their lives actually take, say yes. Not out loud. (Never out loud). But their fruit tells on them and it's a modern "wolf in sheep's clothing" ordeal. “You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?” (Matthew 7:16) James says it plainer: “Fait

Tension was created in me this past week. At first, it sucked. But as I mulled and prayed…I sensed Christ leading me somewhere new. We were at the beach. Holly and the kids, my two sons and my daughter, and the kind of ordinary that is so full it almost hurts. Sand and sunscreen and someone always needing something and the sound of the water doing what the water always does, indifferent to the smallness of the moment and the largeness of what I was feeling inside it. And some

There is a hard truth that we need to discuss. The word “church” has been used to cover so much ground. So many buildings, brands, movements, institutions, scandals, revivals, and slow declines. “Church” has become almost semantically empty. When I say “the church,” I am aware that you may be picturing something you’ve been hurt by, something you’ve left, something you’re still in but barely, something you love and are watching die. I am picturing all of those things too. Wh