close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades

In her 2010 book, Almost Christian, Kenda Creasy Dean coined a phrase to describe what she and her colleagues were seeing in their research in American youth groups at the time. The phrase, Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, pointed to the fact that teens they observed were practicing a form of “Christianity” being modeled for them that…

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the way home

I did something a couple of days ago I hadn’t done in quite some time. I opened up my Bible. Now I know this probably comes as a huge shock to many of you, especially if you knew my previous vocation. But honestly, the last couple of years have been filled with a lot of…

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treasure

Yesterday was one of the longest days of my life; at least in recent memory. You see it all began when our five-year-old had a stomach bug over the weekend…Holy Saturday night…you know, the night before Easter Sunday. So here I am the night before one of the biggest days of the church calendar changing…

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in control

Last night just before bedtime, a boomer of a West Texas thunderstorm began to roll in. This immediately means a few things…number one, Odessa will get some much needed rain (this is always the case regardless of how much we get). Number two; that I myself will have a potentially wonderful night of sleep as…

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just believe

Lately I’ve found myself spending a good deal of time in the gospel of John. I’m currently teaching a Sunday school class on the “I am” statements, working our way chronologically through John in a Sunday evening Bible study and even the Lectionary has us encountering Christ through John. So needless to say I pretty much…

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a bit shaky

One of my favorite table top games to play is Jenga. However I do not recommend playing this game with a 6-yr-old as their frustration with a loss can be a bit intense. For those of you not familiar with Jenga, it is a game with a tower involving multiple layers of 3 small wooden…

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mediocre

I love being sick…said no one ever. Unfortunately this has been the case for me now for about a week now. Something about this West Texas air just does not agree with my lung stability. And I have found that when I am sick, I really just don’t care about the tasks on my to-do…

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stormy weather

I used to be able to sleep through any storm. I’m not kidding. I have slept through thunderstorms, tornado warnings (I have yet to confirm if I have slept through a touch down) and even a hurricane in north Florida. But all of that changed on December 6th 2007. Why you may ask? That is…

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bigger

Last night a group of us at our church finished up a study on the book Love Does by Bob Goff. (If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it*) One of the main premises of the book is to think about life and love’s effect upon life differently. He even closes the book with…

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dangerous, deadly and doubt-full

My wife and I don’t have cable. In fact, we cut the cable a long time ago. Now this doesn’t mean we don’t necessarily enjoy TV, it just means we spend less and binge watch more thanks to streaming services like Netflix, Amazon and Hulu. That being said Hulu recently ruined my life. In the…

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