Posts Tagged: "Rachel Held Evans"

my table

I Fell In Love With A Table

- - Life With God, Uncategorized

This is the story of how I fell in love with a table…

From growing up in the church, there are two things I remember about communion:

1) I remember it passing me by because I was too young, apparently. So I watched my parents receive. I could smell the grape juice on their breath when they would whisper something to me afterwards. I didn’t understand why I wasn’t included – because I knew that I was included in every other meal my family had.

2) When I was “old enough” to receive, we had another pastor at that time. What I remember was how this pastor seemed bored with communion and in a hurry to get on with the real show. He said the same exact lines every time at the speed of an auctioneer.

Twenty years later, I have… Read More

I love the bible

I Love The Bible

- - Life With God, Uncategorized

It is said that after Jacob wrestled with God, he walked with a limp.

So it has been with the Bible and me.

I have wrestled with the Bible, and it has left me with a limp.

But I am glad. I am glad because this limp has slowed me down a bit. It has humbled me. It has forced me to stop running so fast and sure down the path of certainty that I forget to listen, to pay attention, to ask questions, to build altars, to wait… Read More

can we just admit it

SPIN: Can We Just Admit It?

- - Uncategorized

Several years ago, I was on a teaching team at a church. We crafted a summer sermon series together entitled, “Heroes & Bums.” The idea was to highlight various Old Testament characters and portray them as either a “hero” or “bum” based on their behavior.

I was pretty excited about this series. In fact, the idea was mine—so I was REALLY EXCITED about “Heroes & Bums.”

Looking back, I’m rather embarrassed about the whole thing. It took some serious finagling to fit these Bible characters in either the “Hero” box or the “Bum” box. The heroes weren’t all that heroic and they had quite a few shady bum tendencies.  The bums weren’t all bums either—every once in a while, they had bright heroic moments.

What’s embarrassing to me is the amount of spin required make this sermon series work the way we wanted it to. We left large amounts of information out, and we emphasized the bits that reinforced our angle… Read More