I have to tell you about a new app I’ve been enjoying. I k now, I know, the last thing you need is another app to navigate and figure out and to make sure you have enough space on your phone.  But this app is very simple, and in a weird way, life changing in regards to the relationship in our lives.

For the last year, We’ve been talking about the new novel we’ll be publishing this spring called “Flat Earth”!   The story is finished, and is the novel is in the last stages of editing.  We think you’ll love it!

But today, we wanted to share with you a little surprise!

Apparently a young 20 something from California who migrated to Columbus with his wife wrote a handful of songs he wanted to share with a few of his friends from church.  Henry is painfully shy, yet looks like a rock star (my first impression) but he went to friends, including one of my best friends in high school, and asked if he could perform some of those songs for them.  At the same time, I asked Clay if my wife and I could come hang out with them for New Year’s.

All the pieces came together.

“ I don’t think people want cool when it comes to their church, I think they want unity.  The difference is huge, and I think the church in general should pay attention to this.  Many new churches that have a cool and relevant way about them are growing, and so we think somehow, (and I have certainly thought this) that the reason for this growth is because the church is cool. “ 

John Crist recently became another in a long line of famous Christian men who found their career and reputations destroyed by a serious breach of ethics.  He’s not even the first comedian to hurt the name of Jesus with his actions.

Three years ago I launched a mission with the intent purpose to save lives, not in the spiritual sense, but in the literal physical sense. Dead people cannot hear the gospel, can they? But a victim of a disaster who is grateful for saving their lives or the lives of their family, is fertile soil for witnessing your love and compassion to strangers and they might just want to ask what compels you to such sacrifice and action.

But using the prophet metaphor rings a bit hollow to me right now as when I read the stories of the prophets, certainly they lived a very different lifestyle than the self professed prophets I read on Facetagram today. In fact, when we look at the prophets from Scripture, we see that the prophet is not just a truth teller, but someone most of us would NOT want to be.

The thing about expectation is it is often not rooted in love, but in pride. I expect you to live a certain way or believe a certain thing or walk a particular road, not because I love you and it’s best for you, but because of the pride I have in my own heart that would be embarrassed if you took a certain path. After all, I influenced you and trained you to be a particular person, right?

In the past, I never wanted to be part of a house church. There’s nothing flashy about that. There’s no place in “America’s Fastest Growing Churches” magazine for my little house church. I’d see these large churches with massive buildings and thousands of attendees and thought, “man what a testament to God’s Spirit being poured out.” Until you get involved in larger churches and then realize that most of those people aren’t even followers of Jesus. That was the part that kept nagging at me. All the time and effort (and tons of finances) poured out to grow the gathering but not adding to the Church.