That Sunday morning before I headed out the door to make my walk to the church building, I told my wife goodbye and half-jokingly warned her that it might be my last sermon. I knew the message that day would be controversial, and I was preparing her (and myself) for the fallout. It was a [...]
Caravans and the Communal Conscience
They’re coming. It sounds like the tagline to a new action-horror movie. But no, it’s just another week in American political discourse. As thousands of soldiers are deployed to the southern border, the collective imagination of our country is gripped by the prospect of a coming invasion. The so-called “caravan” making its way through Mexico [...]
These Fruits Are Made for Pickin’
“I am the vine. You are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit.” These beloved words of Jesus have shaped the spiritual formation of countless people who, over the ages, have sought to walk in the way of Christ. They’re inspirational. They’re endearing. They beckon [...]
When God Has Other Plans
Have you ever seen a bird fly full-speed into a crystal clear window? He thinks he’s about to enter the luxurious haven of your living room, and he’s wasting no time trying to get there. But then the unexpected happens, and he’s suddenly confronted by an invisible barrier that radically alters his course of flight. [...]
The Edge of the Frame
Note: The following is the funeral message for my grandfather, delivered on June 19, 2018, in Leitchfield, Kentucky. One of the more welcome effects of loss is nostalgia. For me these past few days, that has looked like shuffling through my own mental database of memories involving the man the world knew as Hubert Gene [...]
Listen Up!
A plot of farmland is its own little universe. Driving past one corn field after another on some vast stretch of Midwestern highway, you may not recognize this fact. But each field boasts an identity as complex as it is unique. Its location, its contours, its soil quality, its surrounding environment, its climate, its ability [...]
The Gospel Has Feet (Part 2)
A few weeks ago, a small church in Montana made news as a result of its decision to part ways with the Southern Baptist Convention. This announcement came just days after MLK50, a national conference commemorating the legacy of Martin Luther King that was organized in part by one of the most prominent SBC entities, [...]
The Gospel Has Feet (Part 1)
G.K. Chesterton opens The Everlasting Man with the imaginative scenario of a boy who grew up in a cottage on the slope of an ancient, rolling hill. One day, the boy set out from his home in search of a great adventure, and when he had covered a fair distance, he turned around to discover [...]
Get Naked
Two. That’s all. If you’re a Bible trivia veteran, you probably know that the Christian Scriptures contain 1,189 chapters. That’s a lot. Read one per day, and it will take you over three years to get through all of them. And yet in this vast, sweeping narrative of God’s work in the world, it only [...]
The Righteousness of Rage
My wife and I make it to the movie theater about once a year—maybe twice if we’re lucky and have a gift card. But even then, we attend merely as chaperones and financiers, dutifully setting aside our own cinematic preferences in order to allow our eager offspring the rare pleasure of stuffing buttery popcorn in [...]
