News & Updates

On Tuesdays I get away from the office to read and think. I become immersed in reading and thinking attached to the upcoming Sunday message. I like to find hideaways close to coffee. A holy Tuesday morning would be lacking without a cup of holy brew. This past week I landed at the mall. Did you know you can get into the mall very early before any of the stores open and people invade. It’s quiet and peaceful. There are…

Over and over throughout scripture, God’s people are called to turn back to their Creator. Brokenness, selfishness, ambitions, Satan’s whispers… all work against us and push us away from the heart of God. Turning back to God is called repentance. It’s a literal 180. An about face. A U-turn. A teenage King Josiah helped turn the entire nation of Israel back to God (II Chronicles 34). Change begins on the heels of repentance. As a young kid, I remember week-long…

I didn’t calculate my soul beyond the wedding. If you don’t know, my first-born daughter got married last Saturday. This was my first run at giving away one of my precious girls. This whole process has been wild, fun, emotional, sad, exciting, exhilarating, and draining. It’s amazing the input and output of emotions a wedding demands. After the last out-of-town guests drove off late Sunday afternoon, I was ready to collapse. I had planned and worked and drove myself right…

Every year at about this time we turn off all the air conditioning and open up the windows to get that fresh breeze blowing through the house. And as the season shifts, we close the windows and turn on the heat – but, for some reason we still get that same breeze blowing through the cheap windows and cracks and poor seal job. So, I called Bank of America and asked them to fix my windows; they laughed at me.…

We’re waking up this morning to the news of JP Morgan Chase reporting another security breach of 76 million people. Recently Home Depot and Target admitted their databases had been hacked, and millions more became wobbly-kneed with security fears. Sherry and I cut our cable a while back to free up some extra cash. Simultaneously we picked up a new expense. Identity theft insurance. Current trends, risks, and fears drove our decision. An NBC cameraman has contracted Ebola. A man…

I have in-laws who will drive 8 hours from Indiana to Georgia just to catch a birthday dinner for a grandchild. The next morning the drive back to Indiana begins. That’s a 16-hour sacrifice. Crazy. You will sacrifice greatly for something you desperately love. On Monday night my 20-year-old, Lauren, was having a very bad migraine. The pain was increasing and the vomiting ensued. Finally, around 10 p.m., we asked Lauren if she wanted to go to the ER. She…

Hello Church! I wanted to make you all aware of some changes to our monthly Prayer Gatherings. First things first: Our normal Prayer Gathering will NOT be meeting in October. In light of the “seismic shift” that is going on in our vision for Community Groups (see this video for more info), we are redirecting some of our efforts… Instead of inviting you to the church to pray and worship one Wednesday each month, we’re going to bring prayer TO YOU…

The family has been in Blue Ridge, GA for a few days. All of us! With just 22 days away from Brooklynn’s wedding, the timing of this get away could not have been better. After lunch today, the plan is to pull out our Bibles and do a little Bible study while gazing out over God’s great, mountainous creation. We’ll create our own Mastercard commercial. Priceless! I’m expecting to see life and light and energy fused into my wife and…

Do you ever have the need to enlarge God? Sometimes I can let my circumstances, the whispering lies of Satan, and my own version of self-discovered greatness make God seem small. So often, the need to glorify, magnify, and enlarge God becomes a very necessary exercise. How does one enlarge God? Each year on study break, I pull out Gungor’s song, “We Will Run,” stick my chair deep into the Oceanside sand, plug my ear buds into my wandering head,…

Our oldest daughter, Brooklynn, gets married in 36 days… and 15 painful hours. I can’t imagine how I’ll be feeling when the wedding is about to start, and my baby girl is only minutes away from not being mine anymore. I’m thinking about a smokin’ bribe to get her to escape to Six Flags with me in that exact moment. Our son, Michael (who is all of and text book thirteen), asked Brooklynn why she was packing up so soon.…