Enduring Election Turmoil Election year creates a unique hard all its own. We encounter social media disputes, cut-throat political ads, and disbelief at the great divide of opinion and thought, with those both inside and outside our spheres. During the months leading up to election day, we experience about every anxiety producing emotion possible. Climbing concern. Tightrope tension. Deep distrust. Dynamic disagreement. Angst and anger. Fear. How do we know God’s goodness in all of this? What possible treasure awaits...

Two Calls Ringing Across America Two hand-in-hand messages resound across our Country. They resonate from various venues, to the tune of different voices. These two calls make us uncomfortable as we pinch our ears shut and slip way from their conviction. The first is the cry to repent: as individuals, as a church, and as a nation. The events of 2020 and where we are as a society speak with clarity to the “why” of this call. To repent is...

Ain’t Nothin’ Gonna Steal My Joy Anybody else feel like you’re living under a cloud that just doesn’t go away? Walking around in a smoky haze the sun can’t break through? Seriously, just about one more “thing” added to the chaos and we vote to cancel the rest of 2020. Need we list all the things? Viral pandemic. Racial tensions. Brain-numbing riots. One destructive storm after another. Fierce wildfires. Hateful election rhetoric. And these don’t include world tensions and personal...

Surviving “In the Moment” Uncertainty In a difficult time, we often hear platitudes like “It’ll work out. It’ll be okay. It’s just a phase. This too will pass. My brother’s uncle’s cousin’s neighbor went through this and they’re getting along fine now.” But the truth is? In the moment of the crisis, we don’t know. We don’t know if it will be okay or work out or pass. Our minds run down a list of other’s experiences, or our own,...

How to be Awakened, Even if You’re Woke Can we just be honest? All of us share the same hard right now. Between Covid-19, social turmoil, and presidential election discord, we are embedded in a difficult season. We find ourselves at conflict within ourselves, with family members, church members, and the world. Turmoil stirs within as we check and double check our beliefs and position on a wide range of issues from how to do life with a virus to...