Recently famed director Martin Scorsese announced he is working on a new film about Jesus.   Hollywood depictions of Jesus make me nervous. Sometimes, you get faithful attempts to depict Jesus, but other times, you get irreverent folly, like Will Ferrel’s prayer to “sweet Baby Jesus.”   But the temptation and the danger of making a false…

Jay Heinrichs is one of the most successful marketers and salesmen in the world. His pathway into sales began with a disastrous Father’s Day gift and a shrewd salesman who taught him that image is everything. The second commandment is all about the power of images. And few things could be more relevant for us because…

Learning to share is hard. I knew this part of parenting would be a challenge. But over the past few years, as I have tried to learn this myself, and teach other small humans how to do it, there are some aspects of learning to share that I wasn’t ready for. For example, one of the troubles…

I hope your new 2024 year is off to a great start!  I am excited to get back into the book of Exodus, and we will begin this year by taking a deep dive into the 10 Commandments.  Several years ago, when I was in youth ministry, one of our students had one of the…

We will continue our focus on Joy and look at Philippians. And our theme this week will be the connection between peace and joy. Those are two words you hear every Christmas season, but how do they relate? How can you have them? To help us unpack this, we will think about the Goal of joy, and…

When I was a kid, we used to sing a song:  I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart!     Where? Down in my heart!      Where?Down in my heart!  We don’t really sing that song much anymore. Maybe it is a little too silly? Or maybe we are a little…

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving filled with family, friends, and lots of really good food!  This Sunday, we finished the first major section of Exodus and point forward to our Advent series on Joy.  Fittingly, we arrive at the institution of the first Passover meal, which could be the original Thanksgiving meal. And central to…

Marketers tell us that the before and after photos are among the most powerful tools to motivate change and sell products.  We love a dramatic before and after photo.  And in Exodus 2 through 11, we see a dramatic before and after.  We begin with an overconfident, impulsive Moses who dramatically acts and drastically fails, which leads to a…

As we journey through Exodus, we come to the Ten Plagues.  The plagues run from the stomach-turning discomfort of spoiled water, to the cringe-inducing invasion of frogs to the exasperating annoyance of the lice and flies, to the economically damaging animal sickness, the personally debilitating pandemic of boils, to the environmentally disastrous hail and locusts,…

As we move through Exodus, we have come to the point where Moses must confront his fears. He claims he is afraid that neither the people nor Pharaoh will listen to him, and he will fail.  But is that what he is really afraid of? Or is there something deeper?   If I asked you: What are you…