The Rev

October 23, 2017December 11, 2017 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...

Flex and Obey, There Is No Other Way

October 23, 2017December 11, 2017 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...

This All Sucks!

October 20, 2017December 15, 2017 by The Rev2 Comments

Every once in a while you come face to face with a brokenness that overwhelms you. It seems that lately this has been the case more than not. I look around and people are not being healed, they are losing jobs, they are experiencing death. This all sucks. I know, I know, I’m a pastor and my Mimi would be mad that I just used the “s-word.” But, you know what, it does suck. That’s the truth of the matter. The brokenness of this world is overwhelming at times. I am so mad and frustrated with it. I wish God would simply do what I want him to do. When I pray for him to heal someone, I want him to do that. When I ask him to save a marriage, I want him to do that. Every once in a while, I want him to supersede the secondary causes of human sin, frailty, and brokenness to make this world how I want it. He’s...

Here Is What I Know

October 19, 2017December 11, 2017 by The RevNo Comments

Two young black men were riding home from football practice in my car. The four of us were laughing, cutting up, and making fun of each other. We came up on multiple police cars and officers investigating something. These two young men immediately folded their hands in their lap, became quiet, stared straight ahead, and were silent. After we passed the officers there was a moment and then the teasing, laughing, and cutting up began again. My brother and many of my closest friends are police officers. I love police officers. I am grateful for them and the service they provide. We could not live the lives we do without them. But, in that moment it, there was fear, a raw fear that sucked the air out of my car. This fear demanded two young men to immediately become silent upon seeing officers even while being in the car of a white man. We can love and respect and support our police officers and...

Let’s Teach Them To Be Men

October 19, 2017December 11, 2017 by The RevNo Comments

When I was on staff with a large college ministry we spent a lot of talking about how to help college guys become men. We did men’s retreats every year. There was a very specific model that we thought these men had to fit in; tough, rugged, and macho. We also spent a lot of time trying to teach college girls to be women. This focused a lot on their outward appearance teaching them to dress modestly so they didn’t cause the “men” to “stumble.” Summer mission trips had female dress codes. No bikinis. No tankinis. No “cheek leak” in your one piece. No spaghetti straps. No “shorts that were too short.” No. No. No. No. I’m now the father of a teenage son and a teenage daughter. My perspective has radically changed as my wife and I are trying to raise a good man and a good woman. As I look back at that time with college students I need to ask these...

I’m With You

October 19, 2017December 11, 2017 by The RevNo Comments

You know that time when you watch a television show and it shakes you up a bit? Sometimes works of fiction do that to me (A Brave New World rocked my world). Sometimes it’s reading history. Other times it is talking with a new friend. In this particular moment, it was a television show. We were watching Madam Secretary and one of the plot lines revolved around the middle daughter, Ali, and the youngest child, Jason, going to a school dance. Ali was wearing a slightly provocative dress and attended with a senator’s son. Jason overheard her date in the bathroom talking about how he was going to “get some.” Jason didn’t do anything. That evening Jason and Ali were talking and Jason learned that Ali had to fight her date off so she didn’t get raped. She challenged her brother for not doing something or saying something when he heard the boys talking. Ali said something like, “There will always be...

Person of Peace

October 19, 2017December 11, 2017 by The RevNo Comments

If the first step into the mission of God is showing up, then the second is to begin paying attention to the people around you. What are they passionate about? What are their hopes? What are their fears? What are the areas in their community that are broken? What are people worrying about? Who are the people that are trying to fix the brokenness of the world? Who are the people who know these people? These people are called, “persons of peace.” In every mission setting we need to find a person of peace. “From Troas we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace, and the next day we went on to Neapolis. From there we traveled to Philippi, a Roman colony and the leading city of that district of Macedonia. And we stayed there several days. On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat...

Will I Learn? Will You?

October 18, 2017December 11, 2017 by The RevNo Comments

Do you like to learn? I pretend to like to learn. Learning requires me to change. It demands that I do something different from what I used to do. Learning requires me to change my mind, actions, and possibly even beliefs. So, I pretend to like learning. I listen intently and nod my head at appropriate times. Every once in a while go next level with a well-timed, “Hmmm…” I’m a master at being a fake learner. Particularly when I know that I know something or that I know that I know more than the other person. You’re probably a better person than me. Actually, I am confident that you are because if there is something that I know it my own thoughts. Inside me is a darkness that if you knew about it would disgust you. You are probably not like that. Being a fake learner is really hard when you’re a Christian. To be a Christian is a call to being a...

Run Away! Run Away!

October 18, 2017December 11, 2017 by The RevNo Comments

https://media.giphy.com/media/3o7ZeEZUzRjyvWuuIg/giphy.gifEvery Wednesday I post what passage of Scripture I am thinking and meditating on. This week, it is the story of Jonah. One verse in particular has me stuck, But Jonah set out to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to to Tarshish; so he paid his fare and went on board, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord. (Jonah 1:3) I am so very much like Jonah. ...

The End is NIGH!

October 17, 2017December 11, 2017 by The RevNo Comments

Photo by Al x on Unsplash Every week it seems that there is a new preacher, televangelist, or “numerologist” proclaiming that the end is here. If you walk around many cities or college campuses you will find someone screaming that, “The End is Nigh!” It seems like everyone is looking for “the end of the world.” Like we will miss it or something. Christianity teaches that the end of things will be a noisy, noisy day. We won’t miss it. It’s a day that will come. We just don’t know when. It will be on us like a “thief in the night.” But it won’t be quiet. You absolutely will not miss it. I promise. So what do we know about the end? We know that Jesus will come back, bodily and personally. We know that when he does he will judge the living and the dead. We also know that he will reconcile the world and make all things new. Check out this bit from Revelation...