I’ve heard a lot of messages on grace and I love all of them. But if I had to pick only one message on this subject, this would be the one.

Barbara Duguid is the author of Extravagant Grace: God’s Glory Displayed in our Weakness. She is incredibly transparent. If you want to hear profound, encouraging, life-changing good news, listen to this.

NOTE: The first seven minutes are introduction so you might want to skip that part. If you click the menu button you can download and save it.

If that’s not drinking grace from a firehose, I’d like to know what is! [Read more...]

I’m pretty big on nostalgia, especially at Christmas.

I remember my Mom putting on the Johnny Mathis Christmas album and we’d start decorating the Christmas tree. When that album ran its course, we’d finish trimming the tree to the Captain Kangaroo Christmas album.*

Fast-forward 20 years . . . first Christmas in our first house. I wanted to re-create those same nostalgic feelings for my family.

Abundant nostalgic Christmas tunes*? Check.

Tree and decorations? Check.

Now all I had to do is decorate the tree with my bride and voila! Instant memories!

*insert record-needle scratch

No one told me that in my wife’s family growing up, her father painstakingly wrapped the Christmas lights around each branch of the tree, and that she’d bring that expectation into our marriage.

No one told me that putting said Christmas lights on a Blue Spruce the way her father did would make my fingers ache for weeks. (Meanwhile I’ve been lobbying our church to cover “Christmas decorating” in our pre-marital mentoring program).

Lastly, no one told me my tiny dog would assume that the tangled mess of lights yet to be put on the tree by The Dad would be seen as a threat to be attacked. Every time the lights would move along the floor, the tiny dog would bark at and then bite the cord . . . every . . . time.

The combination was a disastrous blow [Read more...]

Here’s a guest post by a friend who loves music, and, better yet, loves to find the meaning in songs.

Do You Hear What I Hear,
by Faye Slabaugh

About a year ago I received an email with the link to this video. I proceeded to watch it twenty times back-to-back. The thought of hugging perfect strangers . . . not knowing where they’d been, where they were going, just hugging them. No strings attached. Just a random act of love. The idea inspired me and gave me great joy. So I replayed the video another 200 times –ask my kids. And then finally . . . finally I heard the lyrics. Do you hear what I hear?

I’m sure what I hear is probably not the original artist’s intention. But as a Christ-follower, my heart aches when I hear this song. There is a darkness here. A brokenness. A deep sadness. Do you hear it? Do you hear an atheist, a widow, an alcoholic, an adulterer, an orphan, a drug dealer, a pedophile, a sex offender, a prostitute, a thief, a meth addict, a cancer patient, a pregnant teen, a runaway, a porn addict, a liar? I hear the cry of a sinner.

I hear me. I hear you.

This song is the gospel. That is what I hear. I hear the broken sinner who is done. Done with life. Disgusted by their own face in the mirror. The one who has lost everything that has ever meant anything.

I hear the one on their face in the middle of the night in a puddle of their own tears and mucus. The one who is [Read more...]

As a pastor, I often deal with people who are discouraged. If you are wrestling with discouragement I hope this encourages you . . .

Discouragement occurs when we shoulder our own worries, fears, and troubles–and then begin to collapse under the weight. But when you think about it, this approach to disregards God. It treats Him as though He were not worthy of our trust. Or worse, it treats Him as though he were not there for us at all. Is that really the approach you want to take?

Instead, let’s deal discouragement a death blow. How? [Read more...]