I’ve heard it over and over from pastors, working moms, big brothers, and volunteers. Easter is like the Superbowl for anyone who works in a church. All the work we do, the meetings we have, the lives we try to reach, are all because of the events that we remember on Good Friday and Easter. Jesus Christ took our sins to the cross and paid the ransom for our lives. Three days later, He rose from the grave and He lives as our Savior.

While it can be exciting to look at Easter in that way, I feel it lacks something. When you look at the game of football, you see that it starts with preseason drills and games that don’t matter in regards to standings. The season starts and every team works to win as much as possible in order to make it to the playoffs. The Pro Bowl happens and the all-stars get to show off a week before the big event. After at least 60 minutes of kicking, running, passing and tackling, a champion is decided and a city celebrates. Then comes the off-season. Continue Reading…

What part of your life do you need to let go of? Are you worried about where your life is headed? Maybe you feel like you don’t have the right job or your finances are a wreck. Maybe you need to forgive someone and you’ve been holding on to the pain they caused for far too long.

It is a common practice among churches and youth groups to occasionally offer these types of things to God in a metaphorical and even ceremonial way. Maybe you write them down and nail them to a cross on Good Friday. Maybe you throw them into a bonfire on a youth retreat. I watched as people wrote the things they needed to sacrifice on flash paper and then lit them on fire before being baptized. However it is done, there is significance in the act of physically letting go and offering them to God. Continue Reading…

Saturday was filled with hiking through God’s creation. We visited Cucumber Falls, Ohiopyle Falls, and the Youghiogheny Dam. After a long day of fasting and experiencing the wonder of God through His creation (and needing some aspirin for the old guys), we gathered around the fire at the cabin to pray.

As I was stoking the fire to get it going, I began to think about the hot coals and embers that keep the fire hot. If you were to take one of the hot embers from the middle of the fire and put it off to the side, it would not be long before it cooled down. The orange glow would fade and the ember would eventually be nothing more than a cold black piece of charred wood.

This is not unlike a person in the Church, in The Body of Christ. When you are engaged and involved and growing in community with other believers, you tend to stay hotter in your faith. The joys in your life encourage others and keep their faith hot. When you share your struggles with fellow Christians, you have the support of the Body of Christ to keep you from growing cold. If you remove yourself from the Church, who is there to share in your joys and struggles? Continue Reading…

If there was one theme that was true for the three of us who went to my cabin this past weekend, it would be the proclamation that the enemy has already been defeated. From the text message that one got from his wife about one of their children getting sick to the fact that something goes wrong at work any time I am away for a weekend, it seemed as though the enemy did not want us to accomplish our goal of seeking God.

The enemy has been defeated
And death couldn’t hold You down
We’re gonna lift our voice in victory
We’re gonna make Your praises loud

Shout Unto God – Joel Houston | Marty Sampson © 2004 Hillsong Music Publishing (Admin. by EMI Christian Music Publishing)

After driving through heavy fog that would have stopped the faint of heart, we arrived at the cabin in the middle of the night. Our plan was to fast through saturday as we prayed for our pastors and the leadership around us as well as seeking God for direction in our own lives. Continue Reading…

Deja Vu from “The Matrix”

Do you ever wonder why you seem to keep hearing the same thing over and over again? I don’t mean the mudslinging political ads that say the same things about different candidates ever four years. I mean things that directly affect your daily life, how you respond to events, and your thought processes in general.

Some might say that an overactive conscience can bring someone to believe that everything they hear is directed towards them personally. Others would say that it’s the universe keeping itself in balance. I think most Christians would say that it’s probably God trying to tell you something.

Continue Reading…