Tag Archives: grace

Review: No More Dragons – Jim Burgen

This book’s central metaphor Is borrowed from the scene from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader where Aslan removes the dragon scales from Eustace and heals him. Jim Burgen paints a picture of what Jesus can do in the lives of Christians who are willing to let Jesus radically transform their hearts. Burgen does aContinue reading “Review: No More Dragons – Jim Burgen”

Grace and Fairness

Read the story of Noah this morning. And in the story it says, “Noah found favor in the sight of the LORD.” In the middle of all kinds of human depravity and wickedness, Moses somehow found favor, grace, in God’s sight. When reading stories like Noah’s we tend to put in all the reasons thatContinue reading “Grace and Fairness”

Work In Progress

I’m never done.  It seems that as soon as I finish one project it leads to another.  Sometimes that’s incredibly frustrating.  Sometimes I just want to look at all of done and say, “It’s finished, it’s complete.”  That will never happen though.  And I’m ok with that.  I’m ok with it because as a pastorContinue reading “Work In Progress”

Tension

The past few weeks have been fairly tense in my world.  We’ve recently had to let one of our team members at Creekside go.  Not fun.  There are a lot of emotions around this whole event.  And I’m not really a big fan of emotions other than happy.  I’m like a dog that way.  HappyContinue reading “Tension”

Brothers, we are all broken

My heart is hurting for people who have been deeply hurt by a church in my area.  As a leader in a church I know that it is not hard to offend someone.  As someone who goes to a church I know that it is not hard to be offended. But the stories that IContinue reading “Brothers, we are all broken”

Freedom of God

“The idealized God is maintained at the expense of his freedom.  The idealized God lacks flexibility; initiative, the capacity to surprise.  The resulting picture of God is a sophisticated idol, but still an idol.” (Judson Mather, “The Comic Art of the Book of Jonah.” Soundings 65, no. 3 [September 1, 1982], 286). I read this in my research onContinue reading “Freedom of God”

Thinking about Salvation

Yesterday after staff meeting Anh, Mike and myself were talking about the series that CSM is going through.  The students submitted a bunch of questions and Anh and her team are doing their best to answer them.  Great stuff! One of the questions asked was something to the effect of, to be a Christian doContinue reading “Thinking about Salvation”