(Editor’s Note: This post is a response to an actual job listing for a pastoral position. I chose for the headline a nickname for the church (from a website they referenced and/or created) rather than the actual stated church name. I did this in the hopes that, should they abandon this particular branding experiment, my…

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So yesterday, on the way to church, I received a citation for speeding. It happened while I was listening to a song from my middle school years, in a blast of nostalgia. The weather was nice, I was grooving along, and before I knew it, red and blues were flashing behind me. 75 in a…

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<![CDATA[ Editor’s Note: This is the text of a sermon for the good people of Kaleo Covenant Church on August 14th, 2016. I didn’t intend for it to be a blog post, but a few people on Facebook might be encouraged by it, so here we go.   We’re in the middle of August. Labor…

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<![CDATA[Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation is out in theaters, and it dutifully fills all the boxes in the spy thriller checklist. Lifelike masks? Death-defying stunts? Car chases? Gunplay and physical combat? Glamorous locales? Check, check, checkity-pop-zoom-bam-BOOM. One thing that stuck with me was the title; an interesting development, because action movie titles are…

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<![CDATA[ (Editor’s Note: Yes, the title is a bit clickbaitey, but hang with me. I’ll back it up.)   Yesterday, Andraé Crouch slipped into eternity, present in full with the Lord, in perfect peace. I’ve been half suspecting, half dreading that this day would come for a while now, and yet now that it has, I…

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<![CDATA[ (Editor’s Note: If you don’t know the history behind the term “modest proposal,” you won’t understand unless you read the whole thing.)   Well, last night happened and, as far as I can tell, the four horsemen of the apocalypse have yet to appear. Which world-shattering event am I referring to? A new development in…

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<![CDATA[So in the last five to ten years, as hip-hop culture has continued the march from being simply popular from becoming a downright universal lingua franca — and if you think I'm overstating that at all, consider that right now, at this second, The Roots are now the house band on The Tonight Show —…

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<![CDATA[Tye Tribbett, Fresh, “Only Help” So I’m going through some things. Like, the kind of “going through” that you might hear from one of the saints who’s been around the block a few times and is waiting on the Lord to get their breakthrough… that kind of “going through.” One of the things I’ve noticed is…

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<![CDATA[(This poem was written to me by my friend James, after he witnessed a particular exchange I had with my uncle at a church function. Without unpacking all of my personal history, I can say that I found it to be deeply moving and personal. If you know James personally, that shouldn’t come as much…

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<![CDATA[ But he knows the way that I take;when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.Job 23:10 (NIV) Being a card-carrying citizen of the hip-hop nation, I have a passing familiarity with gold. Back in the late 80s, if you wanted to be rapper, you needed to look the part. That meant…

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