For the past two years at Hope Church, we have been on a mission – a mission against typical, traditional Western Christianity and toward Normal Christianity. We’ve suggested that our standard brand of Christianity tends to be rather boring and lame compared to a biblical one. ...
The temperature is in the forties, there is drizzling rain, and an excited crowd gathers together. After moments of anticipation, a roar erupts! There is mass celebration, one heard from quite a ways around. After all, football is king in the heart of Texas. Only… it’s not a football ...
If angels were walking among us, I think they’d say there’s far too little celebration in the world. Far too little singing, and dancing, and outright rejoicing. I think they’d say that we are a people who have never really learned to celebrate. Angels should know, after all. ...
We know we need it, yet few attain it. We desire it, yet shut it out. We like it, except live like we don’t. That’s how rest is. In the midst of our fast-paced society, rest has become optional, even superfluous. We have shoved it into the margins of life, relegating it to our ...
Hope. It’s one of the strongest human emotions. It compels us to keep going, even when we’re tired. It lifts us up when we’ve been in despair. And it fuels our actions when suffering abounds. We all long for hope. All of us, on all continents, in all types of situations. We all ...
Of all the challenges in America today, it seems our sense of identity is perhaps the greatest. There are few of us, if any, who don’t struggle with it. We live with the tension of a life viewed through lenses different than our Creator’s. In the process, we bear the fruit of this. We ...
Three adults. Three kids. And a lot of tears. On the face of it, not much of a celebration. Two years away from family and friends, leaving all the amenities of America behind. Adopting a life of challenges over a life of security. So why do we celebrate? Because we always choose Christ over ...
If a church is getting its job done, that church should be a launching pad, not a landing place. This truth is uncomfortable for some of us, grating us a consumer-oriented approach to church. That’s the “come on in, customize your experience, and stay here forever” type of ...
There is a tension that rests within each of us. It’s a war of priorities, ever ravaging our minds and our souls. It pursues us, and at times consumes us. The tension comes from competing values. We simultaneously espouse both God’s Kingdom and our own. We are a people dominated by ...
As John conveys his glorious narrative of the scenes in the book of Revelation, one cannot help but be struck by the picture unfolding in chapter seven. It reads: After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and ...
