Held Back By Your Complaining?

The best way to be stagnant at work, in your career, or in life is to be a complainer. I’ve learned this the hard way. Trust me when I say, no one likes a complainer. As a complainer-in-recovery, I can tell you that if you want to be consistently marginalized, overlooked, dismissed or excluded, be [...]

Purity Tests

There is a fundamental problem with “purity test.” If you hadn’t noticed, the American political scene is in shambles. Neither party is looking all that great and regardless of your personal political leanings, you’re likely not satisfied with all that is Washington D.C.. Here in Northern California the disenchantment is heard across the dial from [...]

As A Witness

On facebook, I’ve been chronicling my ups and downs – mostly downs – in dealing with my former landlady here in Redwood City. From our arrival six months ago, she has been – in our opinions – intrusive, abusive, and over-bearing, to say the least. At first she stopped by the house every day to [...]

Celebrity and Humanity

For some reason, I feel compelled to write a few words about celebrity and humanity with Michael Jackson’s memorial hanging as the backdrop. It should be said at the outset that I have always been a Michael Jackson fan, though a conflicted one. If MJ were still alive and had a CD coming out next [...]

The Real Thing (a reflection on “Lars and the Real Girl”)

Last night I began preparing for my summer preaching series, “Summer Blockbuster.” I’m going to take a look at movies that subversively — even to the authors and producers — tell the gospel in beautiful and compelling ways. One of those movies will certainly be “Lars and the Real Girl.” Lars… is about a quirky [...]

Not Preaching

As the Senior Minister for a church, you might find it odd for me to say this: There are times when I HATE preaching. I don’t mean the craft or the art, but rather having to say anything at all. What I mean is this: There are times when the words of scripture are so [...]