About ten days ago, the board of trustees at Liberty University requested Jerry Falwell, Jr take an indefinite leave of absence. The decisions the board has made since Jerry has been on leave have made it fairly obvious there will be no long term change in the leadership of the University. With that in mind, and knowing Jerry will likely be back in his role within the next few weeks or months, I wanted to write an open letter to him on what I hope he can do with the future of the school I love.
The biggest thing missing from American Christianity
When society say you deserve whatever you want, whenever you want, and however you want it, it’s hard not to believe that’s the case. We get conditioned to believe this is the truth. But Jesus teaches something different, and it’s the single biggest thing missing from American Christianity today.
On addiction, grace, and Demi Lovato
I don’t write much anymore. But when I did write a lot, one of my favorite things to do was take pieces of pop culture and see where and how they intersect with the Gospel. Yesterday, after almost crying in a gas station parking lot, I knew I had to write again, if only for this one post. That’s right: a song from Demi Lovato had me all up in my feelings outside of a Weigels. Many of you, when you hear the name Demi Lovato, you think one of three things: 1. The girl from Camp Rock 2. That pop singer on the radio 3. Who?! Demi Lovato is 25-year-old singer and actress who is a former child star. After getting famous at such a young age, she – like many child stars – developed a dependency on alcohol and drugs. She eventually ended up in rehab and celebrated…
On teenagers, depression, and growing up; or five ways the Church can help prevent teenage suicide
Has your best friend ever looked you in the eye and told you you’re “just so G– damned depressed all the time”? Has your grandma ever looked at you and said she was worried about you because you weren’t smiling? Have your friends ever stopped inviting you to things because you simply weren’t any fun to be around anymore? Those things all happened to me within a three month span my first year of seminary. A few months earlier, over the course of a weekend, I lost the job I loved, got dumped by the girl I loved, and got in an ATV wreck where I flipped over the handlebars without a helmet. Oh, and I was starting grad school working in a program that I ended up hating. It wasn’t a fun time. The whole thing led to a downward spiral of depression. The only thing is I didn’t…
Seven things I don’t like about following Jesus
I’m a Christian. I make no bones about that and hide that from no one. I went to the world’s largest Christian university and have two different degrees from there. I worked on staff at a church for 4.5 years. Now that I own my own business, almost 70% of my work is with churches. I love me some Jesus. But there are some parts of following him that I don’t particularly like. I don’t like adhering to an absolute truth. I get why non-Christian thinkers love the idea of a “personal truth”. I would love nothing more than to determine my own right and wrong or set my own scale of morality. I don’t like that marriage is between one man and one woman. I know what God’s design for marriage is. I understand why it’s like that. But I also understand that love is love and some people end up…
The six word prayer every dad should pray every day
I’m a jerk. Ask anyone who knows me and most of them will have a story of how I’ve been a jerk to them and had to later come back and apologize for it. It’s not something I’m proud of. I work really hard to not be a jerk but inevitably I slip up and do something to remind myself (and everyone else) that I am, in fact, a jerk. As I’ve grown up and become more self aware, I’ve learned that at the core of my jerk-ness is a very high level of self absorption. I like to do what I want. When I want. How I want. Don’t get me wrong, I can be selfless and put others before myself, but only when I want to and in ways I want to. That personality trait isn’t great when you’re single, but…
On flags, faith, and freedom
Normally I try to start out these posts with some sort of statement that hooks you in and makes you want to finish reading the post. I’m not going to do that today. Instead, I’m going to start with a request: There have been tons of things said over the past month about the flag, National Anthem, and athletes kneeling. Memes have been created. Stories have been shared. And everyone and their mom has had an opinion on the issue. By this point, you probably have your feet firmly entrenched in the side of the argument you’re on. My request of you is that you don’t read this post with clinched fists looking for an argument to tell me the four reasons I’m wrong with an annotated bibliography of references proving your side right. Instead, I ask that you read this as if we were having a conversation over burgers at…
Four things I learned from flaming out in ministry
When I left my full time job at a church to start my own business, it was framed in a way that was positive. I was going after my dreams and other fluffy things that made me feel good and made people I knew proud of me. It took me a while to admit to myself what really happened. I wanted to be the hero and control the story of my own life. I wanted people to think I had it all together. The truth was I’d had a horrible 18 months after a leadership change and had been (deservedly) all but fired. Saying you quit your job after your pay was going to be cut 25% is a lot less sexy than saying you’re chasing after a dream. But once I admitted to myself what happened, a weird thing started happening: pieces of anger, guilt, and embarrassment started to…
The Christian racist; or how I’m part of the problem
Eight days into my first ministry job out of seminary I jumped on a bus with 54 people and headed to inner city Jacksonville, Florda for a mission trip. I was interning with a high school ministry and what nobody knew at the time was that this was my first mission trip. Ever. Especially into the inner city. I’m from a small redneck town in North Carolina. Seeing the Confederate Flag fly from a truck bed wasn’t strange. It was normal. Imagine my culture shock when, on the first day we’re there, we see a woman in the street tripping on whatever drug she had taken that day. I was in a position where I had to calm down the freaked out 15-year-old girls when secretly I was freaking out inside. This world was so foreign to me. Later in the week our entire group had a sit down with the…
Jesus farted.
Jesus farted. He also laughed. And cried. He was sarcastic to his friends. He played jokes on people. He wasn’t immune to sadness. He hurt when his friends hurt. He got hungry. And thirsty. He felt pain. He even got scared. I don’t want to disregard his kingship and priesthood at all. But many times in our worship and pursuit of Jesus, we forget he was a normal dude like many of us. The emotions we feel on a daily basis? He felt them too. There’s nothing more comforting than knowing the creator of the universe knows exactly what you’re going through because at some point in his life, he felt it too. So today when you laugh, remember that Jesus had an incredible sense of humor. When you hear bad news, remember he got sad when he heard bad news. And when you fart, remember Jesus farted too. Say…