Perhaps you’ll enjoy reading over my shoulder again. This is an email exchange that came up yesterday. I think his questions and passion speak volumes for us and some of his questions might help us take a fresh look at how we all live in the world… Just listened to the latest podcast Why are [...]

Someone mailed me a brochure recently that a former pastor had made one afternoon when he had way too much time on his hands. I found it hilariously tragic! I know it’s a bit edgy. I know not every Sunday-morning group out there would advance this notion. But I have been part of groups that [...]

Man, this really freaks me out in a wonderful way! I got an email the other day and in the course of telling his story he included a question posed to him by a friend that he later said “rocked me to my core and ricocheted around my emptiness for years like a steel marble [...]

If you missed yesterday’s blog, go back and read it before continuing the saga here. This is an amazing story of a man who came to Jesus days before returning to Africa and how God is making himself known through this man as he simply follows Jesus each day. If you want to read the [...]

I have to be a bit vague on some of the details here, because the writer of these emails, Jamal (not his real name), lives in an area of Ethiopia dominated by Muslims who persecute those known to be Christians in that region. He was in the States on an education visa, and at the [...]

I got this email yesterday from a brother in Missouri and got quite laugh out of it. It reminds me how easy it is to see through the bondage of religious obligation when the smallest bit of light gets in. The only ones who can’t see it are those who either make their living selling [...]

Here’s another over-the-shoulder read. I got a wonderful email today and know many others with similar questions who might appreciate a bit of our dialog: Since I have been a Christian I have followed the leadership of my pastor\friend. He has served as my mentor for over a decade, but int the last couple years [...]

Got this from a friend in an email last week: I’m leading a devotion today in our all church staff meeting titled “commitment and discipline is what we do when we are no longer in love.” I think you would like it. I think I would to. The title’s awesome and so profound. When love [...]

I got this email a few months ago from someone I met in England during my last trip there in late March. I have wanted to share his letter here for some time, because it is so full of life and freedom. I hope other people’s stories like this are as encouraging to some of [...]

Yesterday was NOT the day to fly. When I arrived at LAX the security line was over half a mile long. No one was allowed to take any liquid or gels through security. Even bottled water purchased inside secure areas of the airport couldn’t be brought on board. My flight was 25 minutes late leaving [...]

Nadia, a reader in Russia, is translating So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore into Russian and we will be posting chapters on our website as she makes progress. If you know readers who speak Russian, you are welcome to forward the link on to them. The first chapter is up and others [...]

I love what Jesus does to transform people from the onerous burden of religious obligation, with its requisite demands for performance and overwhelming guilt. I got this email the other day from a mother who was part of a time I had with a group of believers this summer. The ‘bit about the cross’ that [...]

I was with a group of believers not long ago in a time of song and praise, and I noticed something curious during one song. I didn’t know the song but in one of the verses there were two lines about things that need to die. The first said something like “where religion dies.” Every [...]

I just got back from Kansas and a week with New Jerusalem Mission which is spearheading the conversion of a hospital into a care facility for the homeless and for those afflicted with HIV/AIDs. How this came to be is the an incredible story about a woman loving her ex-husband through his death with AIDs, [...]