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 [...]
A Personal Update
This morning I made a difficult announcement to the church I serve regarding a significant transition on the immediate horizon. Below, I am posting the full text of the letter that was shared for anyone who might be interested in knowing about these changes. March 4, 2018 Dear Church Family, For the past eight years, [...]
The Image Is Everywhere
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” These words from Genesis 1:27 are among the first and most important statements in Scripture about the mysterious class of creatures known as human beings. In a world full of countless created wonders, [...]
Prayers and Politics
Unfortunately, this script is starting to become familiar. A mass shooting takes place. A group of grieved and angry people react by calling for stricter gun control laws. A second group of grieved and angry people react to the first group by admonishing them not to politicize a tragedy. The first group says, “Well, your [...]
