9/30/2013 2:00:00 PM — It’s a schoolyard bully’s taunt to anyone who dares to stand up to him or her – “Who do you think you are?” Unfortunately, far too often it carries over into the conference rooms of office buildings, spoken by former schoolyard bullies. But it’s something every believer should say into the mirror on a regular basis.

Who are we, really? Each of us fulfills many roles, to be sure. But no matter what else we are, first we are sinners whom Jesus Christ redeemed via His horrifying, excruciating death on Calvary’s cross. Jesus’s death was motivated by a love for us so deep that it’s impossible to appreciate it outside of a relationship with Him. And yet, the symbol of His sacrifice and His love for us – the cross – has been marginalized and trivialized not only by the culture, but also within the Church. Read More

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9/23/2013 2:03:00 PM — More than 40 years ago, the folk-rock band The Eagles made the charts with a song that included the lyric, "I'm standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona." I was in high school when "Take it Easy" was a hit, but even then I surmised that corner was a lonely place.

It's become lonelier still. In the late 1970s transportation planners created an interstate highway that eliminated the need for people to drive along the famous U.S. Route 66, which passed through Winslow. Like the fictional Radiator Springs from the Disney movie "Cars," Winslow hasn't exactly thrived since then. The most recent U.S. census shows that the city has less than 10,000 residents.

There's a lonelier intersection than the one The Eagles immortalized in song, though. It is the intersection of two rough-hewn beams of wood that formed the cross on which Jesus Christ died. It is, as I write in my new book, "The place that no one desired to come to and yet, the very place where all humanity must be summoned to make their appearance."Read More

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9/16/2012 2:49:00 PM — One of the greatest miscalculations of cultural Christianity is the presentation to the world of a Jesus that leaders believe the masses will accept. As a result we have churchgoers who join us throughout the Christmas season but won’t darken the door for a Good Friday service – because they relate to the baby Jesus of Christmas, but not the suffering Jesus of Good Friday.

We think we get to choose which Jesus we worship, but God doesn’t offer us options. The Jesus God gives us is one who came to earth as a baby, certainly. But more importantly, He suffered and died the cruelest death imaginable to redeem us from an even more horrific fate. That is why we worship Him, and why we must always remember the cross.Read More

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9/5/2013 9:52:00 AM — Our congregation hasn't done "church as usual" for a very long time. More like church unusual. So nobody thought anything was amiss two Sundays ago when at the end of our praise and worship time, our brilliant worship leader, Lisa Brunson, asked the people to be seated to hear one more song.

We're used to passionate music from Lisa and her team, and that's certainly what we got. We also got something nobody could have expected.Read More

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