Faith

I love a good meal. My favorite thing to do is find new places to eat. Food is a conduit to connecting people. There’s something that happens when you share a good meal with people you care about that allows relationships to flourish. A few years back my wife and I began eating breakfast weekly…

There’s some strange stuff in the Bible. When Jesus came on the scene, “the Bible” as we know it today did not exist. The Torah, or the first five books of what we call the Bible, were taught by Rabbi’s. Added to that were writings of the Prophets and other works that would eventually become…

Doubt is a powerful thing. In our culture where answers to anything can be discovered with a Google search, we doubt things we can’t answer, define, or discover. We live in a world where saying, “I don’t know” is a weakness. We’re taught to always portray confidence and strength of conviction, even when we’re not…

In the first Avengers movie, a team of superheroes comes together to stop an alien invasion. One character is Bruce Banner, a mild-mannered scientist who, when he gets angry, turns into a giant, green, rage monster named The Hulk. At the climax of the final battle, Captain America says, “Now might be a really good time for…

The World Series of Poker was a big thing when I was in college. ESPN spent weeks covering the tournament each year and turned contestants into celebrities. It also caused a heightened interest in the game of poker. My friends and I would have poker nights in the dorm. We’d take over one of the…

Carla and I have been rewatching Game of Thrones. We’ve both read all the books and seen all the episodes, but are moving back through the series before the final season airs next year. The series is about kings and lords and attempts at claiming the Iron Throne. Both the book and television series begin with…

This time of year a question arrises among people who think about these kind of things: when do you decorate for Christmas? Through years of thorough research I’ve discovered three distinct camps: First, there are purists. These people say Christmas must wait until after Thanksgiving. Second, there are nonconformists. These people say Christmas is fair game after…

The average person picks up their phone between 47 and 82 times per day. I fall right into the middle with an average of 63 pickups per day. We pick up our phones to check notifications — of which I average 56 per day, to read the news, to check social apps, to distract us from doing other…

I went on YouTube the other day and typed in “who is the GOAT?”. After going down a YouTube hole, I discovered people have a lot of opinions about the GOAT — the Greatest of All Time. According to the videos I saw the GOAT is: Earl Manigault, Tom Brady, Drake, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Tiger…

As I drove through the neighborhood the other day, I noticed the dozens of yard signs everywhere. There were signs for every political candidate you can imagine. There were also signs for different schools. Flags on houses for college sports teams. As I drove, it was really easy to see what people stand for — what they…

Community is is a word that gets thrown around a lot. The dictionary defines “community” as a group of people who live together or who share something in common. We take that loose definition and define our communities in various ways. People reading this are part of a community. Schools are communities. Friend groups are communities….

Tonight we come to the end of the Bible in Twelve Words series. Before we can move forward we need to quickly return to the very beginning. Genesis, the first book in the Bible, sets the tone for God’s epic story with humanity. In Genesis, God creates everything and calls it good. That includes you,…