Writing
Essays and working ideas from more than fifteen years of writing about faith, leadership, discipleship, the church, family, and life in Austin.
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A few essays that introduce the questions and convictions behind this site.
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Fluent in Feelings, Silent in the Spirit?
We have grown fluent in the language of feelings and gone quiet about the Spirit. Caution has crept into hesitation, and hesitation has led to a kind of spiritual muteness, so that almost nobody in our…
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Re-Formation: How is God Reshaping the Church Today?
What if we thought of reformation less as a revolution and more as a re-formation, the same materials molded differently for a new season? Watching five years of church movement in Austin, I do not think…
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Jesus Has All Authority—Stop “Releasing” People to Do Ministry
If you are in Christ, you have been commissioned, and you do not need a second opinion or a stamp of approval to make disciples. A friend recently told me he wanted to do that in…
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Extra Ordinary Prayer
Praying with groups across Austin these last weeks, I have found embers of the Spirit’s presence but not yet a fire. Extraordinary prayer is just extra ordinary, so whatever is ordinary for you, add something extra.…
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Forerunning, Not Competing
Ministry conversation slides too easily into who is growing fastest and reaching widest, and I do not want to play that game. A forerunner goes down the course first, not to compete but to test the…
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Lost and Led: Learning to Trust Jesus in the Unknown
Even the best human guide will eventually fail us, or give good counsel at the wrong time. I learned that standing lost in the lobby of my daughter’s dance competition, the only dude in a sea…
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The Deadline Dilemma in Ministry
Ministry tends to explain its fluid deadlines as prioritizing people over projects. I wonder whether it is less about prioritizing people and more about avoiding accountability, because deadlines force clarity and reveal priorities, and that kind…
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Thinking Out Loud: Groundbreaking
Groundbreaking ceremonies have always struck me as funny, a circle of people in nice suits and hard hats shoveling a bit of dirt. But when we launched the Greater Austin Mission Society it was a good…
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One Body, Many Parts
The body of Christ is not a theoretical concept, it is a living reality, and it is at work Monday through Saturday in coffee shops and living rooms and late-night phone calls. We need each other…
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Nostalgic Novelty
The pull toward old things right now is not nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake, because we are incapable of reproducing the old thing exactly. It is nostalgia with a twist, and it bridges the tension between progress…
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Hope that Does Not Put Us to Shame
A quarter of my support-raising time had passed and the polite declines were coming in, and what surprised me was the shame. If my struggle produces shame, I am not actually suffering well, because I am…
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Coherently Incoherent
My calendar makes as little sense as the phrase coherently incoherent, and I have wanted my life of faith to look more strategic than it does. Abraham went out not knowing where he was going. Maybe…