Holy Be Your Name

by The RevNo Comments
…or taking time to acknowledge God Photo by Thomas Griesbeck on Unsplash Over the last week I have been doing something new in my spiritual practice, not asking God for anything. I have simply been taking time to acknowledge God. It is ridiculously hard. No, I am serious. I have never done anything this hard in prayer in my life. Spending time in prayer simply acknowledging who God is has been beyond difficult. You would think that someone who has been actively seeking to follow God since 1995 and is a “professional Christian” would be able to spend hours and hours simply acknowledging God. Nope. I can’t. Monday it was about 5 minutes before my mind and heart wandered to other things and people and concerns. Tuesday it was about 2. Wednesday, I didn’t even take time to do it because, “What’s the point?” Yes, I’m firmly Gen X. Thursday, I figured I better make a bit more effort and was successfully able to focus on God and God alone...
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Jesus is Not A Sales Pitch

by The RevNo Comments
…or all of life is sacred. Photo by rawpixel.com on Unsplash Last night I spoke at an event called, “The Merge: Where faith, culture, and art meets.” For just a few minutes I spoke about the reality that all of life for the person of faith is sacred. This was in the context of being a person of faith in the public forum. As the conversation after the talk developed it ceased to be a discussion about living life as a sacred whole and became a discussion about how Christians have conversations with non-Christians. It almost felt like a sales seminar. I have been thinking about this response to the talk (and my attempted questions after) trying to discern why this is what happened. I think it is because people of faith in America, particularly evangelicals, have lost their sense of identity. We struggle to understand that living as a Christ-follower is to live this way, “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it...
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Don’t Be Crusty

by The RevNo Comments
…how to get out of your spiritual rut. Photo by Amador Loureiro on Unsplash Part of being on mission with God is our continued growth as a follower of Jesus. It is realizing that we have not arrived nor will we fully arrive with God. As we are on mission with him we must continually hear from him, change, and draw ever closer to him. How do we do it? When you first start following Jesus it seems like everything is exciting and new. Your spiritual life feels fresh and real. The Bible “comes alive.” You’re reading it and praying. You and God feel super close. It is almost like you can audibly hear his voice. Then something happens. Those books in the Bible like Ephesians and Philippians feel stale. You try to read some Old Testament and it’s just confusing and hard. So you read a Gospel and it seems really long. All of a sudden your prayers feel like they are bouncing off...
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Where Is God?

by The RevNo Comments
In the dark we just need a glimmer of light… Photo by Jordan Whitfield on Unsplash I rolled over and opened my eyes. It was dark. The darkness seemed to drip from the ceiling. My body ached and my head was pounding. The gentle sound of my wife’s breathing was the only comfort in that moment. As I lay there the anger raged inside me as I thought again of my friend dying, as I sat next to him praying for a miracle. Staring at the imperceptible ceiling listening to her breathe in and out, listening to the fan occasionally creak, his face flooded my mind. The smile. The coy eyebrow raise when he knew he got you. The excitement of some new trinket in the man cave. There was a joy and a glimmer in his eye that always drew me in. He was a man. He laughed like a man. He cared like a man. She continued to breathe quietly. The fan continued to...
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What Good is Theology?

by The RevNo Comments
Photo by jesse orrico on Unsplash Honestly, theology is pretty useless. There, I said it. I have wanted to say it since seminary. Now I’ve said it. Theology is pretty useless. Well, let me clarify. Theology that isn’t applied is useless. Doctrine that is aloof and disconnected from the everyday life of the believer is pointless. It is nothing more than a noisy gong. Paul writes, If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:1–3) I think we can rightly understand “love” here as living out the gospel in...
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How Do You Do It?

by The RevNo Comments
…10 Things We Do As Parents I’m not an expert. I’m not even close to being an expert. I have a son who is 16 and a daughter who is 14. Both of them are excelling as human beings (in my all too biased opinion). They each have passions that they are pursuing with zeal. I think both of them are becoming good people. They have friends, they respect adults, they are both people that my wife and I enjoy being around. Any time I ask people what they think I should I write about, one of the most requested topics is, “How do I raise my kids?” I don’t think people ask me this because they think my kids are angels and they want to know how we did it. I think anyone who is raising a child wants help in making sure that they don’t screw up. In our culture we get more training to drive a car than we do...
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The Rev

by The RevNo Comments
L to R: Amy, Libby, EthanWhen you write a blog some people typically want to know about your credentials. Credentials are pretty big deal and people who care about such things, really care (and those who don’t, really, really don’t). I am a graduate of Central Michigan University with a B.S. in Psychology and a Minor in Religion. I also hold a Masters of Divinity from Michigan Theological Seminary. I am an ordained Teaching Elder (a fancy term for pastor) in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. I am the lead pastor with the Antioch Movement and I am a part-time teaching pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Presbyterian Church. The Antioch Movement is a church planting movement that is focused on “sending the sent.” I am hopeful that the kingdom of God can expand in an organic and missional way in the local church. Before launching the Antioch Movement, I served as Assistant Pastor at Grace Chapel in Farmington Hills, MI and before that I spent...
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Flex and Obey, There Is No Other Way

by The RevNo Comments
…or when things don’t go as planned. Photo by rawpixel.com on Unsplash You’ve worked hard all week on an amazing message. The illustrations are poignant and powerful. People will get teary eyed when you drop your perfect tweetable line in the conclusion. You can’t wait to preach. You know this will be one of the most life changing messages you have ever communicated. Then it happens. It. Whatever “it” is. It happens. You have to zig instead of zag. The entire night has to be changed because your pastoral heart knows that the people need something else. They don’t need your life changing sermon. They need a different message. Maybe they don’t need a message at all, just time and space to be together. Who knows? But what is evident, is that you have to flex. Many of us pastors create strategic plans. We have plans for three, five, ten, and fifteen years out. We know exactly how we want everything to work out in our ministry. The strategies, we believe...
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