I’ve been reading Ethics by Dietrich Bonhoeffer recently. It is a profound treasure chest of wisdom and insight. One of the insights that has struck me the most is that a primary idol of the world is success. I now realize that success has been my idol. I have based my identity on it so much that it has led me to a sense of shame—feeling like a failure or fearing failure. This…
Today, we’re going to meditate on John chapter 4, and I have to say that this may be one of my favorite chapters in Scripture. The more I’ve been meditating on it, the more I see the spiritual gold it holds, and I’m really excited to share what I’ve discovered. In this passage, we witness a story of transformation—an account of a conversation that leads to transformation. We go from conversation to transformation.…
This past Sunday, I was preaching through John 3:16-21, which prompted me to ask, “What is the Gospel?” On meditating on this passage, I came to see that the gospel (and the bible) contains a very strong honor-shame element. This is actually a huge discovery because it shifts the way we think about, and thus, present the gospel. And to me, it is a much more personally connected way to think about the…
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” Matthew 5:5 We are continuing on this journey together as we try to discover how to witness to our yet to believe friends. And the question is really how do we frame the gospel to them in a way that can be impactful? We know the gospel for ourselves, and that is well and good. But how do we articulate it to those…
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Matthew 5:4 This is now week 12 meeting as Ethos Communion Church. We are still in our soft launch stage, and trying to hone in on the vision that God has for us a church. We know there is a Huge Harvest of yet to be believers out there, and we want to prepare so that we are sharpened instruments ready to be…
Matthew5.3 ““Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Well, we just concluded a series on The Harvest from Matthew 9 which began shifting our gears as a church to prepare to bring in this harvest. In the final sermon of that series, we saw that the work of harvesting is the work of teaching which corresponds to what Jesus said in the Great Commission. He said to…
Now, as we move forward as a church, I’ve come to realize that it’s very important that we don’t just try to plan out our church in a conceptual, cerebral, manner where we attempt to design a theoretically perfect church. Our church needs to be born of experience because God is sovereign over our experiences. He has hand-crafted all of our lives as his stories (HIStory) where we can give testimony to the…
So there has been a lot on my heart and mind this week. Trying to figure out the direction for our church and also still lots to do after moving homes. And I don’t know, just a lot on my heart and mind; a lot of moving pieces of things to do, or things to think of, and a lot of uncertainty for the future. And I found myself wrestling with some more…
It’s been well over a month since the funeral for my father-in-law. This is the sermon I preached that day. “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is…
This is the sermon I preached yesterday (2024-04-28) for Ethos that follows last week’s sermon on the Huge Harvest. Praise the Lord, we are now nine weeks into soft-launching Ethos Communion Church! It is wonderful that we have made it thus far, and I am so grateful for your excitement and your faithfulness up to this point. I have to say that these last two months have been restful for me. It’s very…