Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself. No long list of rules. No pages upon pages to memorize, prayers to recite or tasks to complete. Love God, love your neighbor--it is so simple. 



One of the worst massacres and…

Before Jesus went to the cross, John's gospel tells us that Jesus washed his disciples' feet. While his disciples initially objected to this, Jesus did this to teach them about service. He said, "14 Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. 15 I…

Jesus calls us to love our neighbors as ourselves. And yet, most Christians do not know their neighbors--including their actual neighbors in their neighborhood--very well at all. There are many reasons for this, including the changed structural nature of neighborhoods, the inventions of television and air conditioning, which encourage us to stay…

Last Sunday night, my wife Becki and I went over the home of one of our neighbors, Venky and Sudha. They are from India (Andra Pradesh). We had a great time eating authentic Indian food and enjoying their home and company.

Venky was a doctor in India, but in order to be able to leave India and come to the US, he had to change his profession to that of an occupational therapist (it is hard for doctors to be allowed to leave India). And to get into the US, they…

Anytime I hear someone talk about "telling the truth in love," I know that that there will be a lot of no bars held blasting of someone with little actual love or kindness. It is much like the phrase "love the sinner, hate the sin" (which only seems to be applied to homosexuality, for some reasons)--the end result is the person ends up feeling hated and has very little sense…

Tomorrow's sermon message is on "Love and Restoration." This message has me thinking about the role of punishment in love and restoration.

God's punishment of Israel and the destruction of whole peoples in the Old Testament is hard to understand. But Israel had become so utterly wicked--so much more wicked than we probably ever…

Have you ever had God just drop someone in your lap? Have him put someone right in your path?

Last week I received a text from someone whom I will call "Sarah." She said, "I don't know if this is still ur # but I was just thinking about y'all/ I really hope hope everyone's doing well. I really miss u.…

In case you missed them, here are the first two blog posts in this series:

Why are Churches of Christ Shrinking - Part 1: A Left-Brained Fellowship in a Right-Brained World…

Here is a list of the 59 “One Anothers” of the New Testament, taken From Carl F. George, Prepare Your Church for the Future (Tarrytown: Revell, 1991), 129-131.

1. “…Be at peace with each other.” (Mark 9:50)

2. “…Wash one another’s feet.” (John 13:14)

3. “…Love one another…” (John 13:34)

4. “…Love…

Loving Your Immediate Family and Church Family



Besides Christ, who is most precious to us? Is it not our immediate family and our church family? And yet, sometimes we fail to show our love for our family. Stress (which has been tremendous during The Great Recession), health isssues, grief, loss of a loved one, or just the busyness of life can cause us to take our family for granted. When facing life's challenges, we can have unrealistic, idealized expectations of our spouse or our…

To all of my Christian friends--I know that it is hard not to lash out on Facebook to all of the immorality that we see. It is blatant. In our face. And it is Christians who are mocked, made fun of, declared intolerant. I saw a high school friend just post that he had a hard choice to make about the Boy Scouts due to their stance on homosexuality. And that is just a…

All of us enjoy a good story, but what is it that makes a story good? I suppose that's an entirely subjective question, one that if I knew the answer to I'd be writing screenplays or books instead of this blog!

But I don't think I'd be too far off the mark if I were to say that most

people are drawn to a couple of specific things. Most people love

hero's. They inspire us with their courage and their "never say die"

attitude. It's their charisma, confidence, leadership and…