Faith & Culture

In the past few years I have been "blessed mightily" with hundreds of emails, comments and love-letters from my favorite fans: the religious jerks. I have read all of them (well, most of them) smiled with hope, and drank a few extra glasses of chocolate milk… for comfort. Religious Jerks are usually angry people who justify their hate as spirituality, they dress their bitterness as God’s truth, and turn their frustration into “holy” manipulation. The problem is not religion, it’s actually self-righteousness. The New Testament uses the word in a positive manner, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is...

I have based most of my understanding of leadership on the premise that God wants ME to be a LEADER. But the more I get into the story of Jesus (his words, his actions, his life) the more I realize, that God has no interest in me being a leader. He wants me to be a servant. So I’m in trouble. Because I like the title servant… until people start treating me like one. 😬 You see, I have intentionally chosen positions of leadership. They make me feel valuable and significant. Pastor. Founder and Director. Dad. Husband. To every one of those titles (whether I say...

  Dear Christians, Did you know that Jesus was an asylum seeker? His parents escaped the brutality of Herod and lived in Egypt for years. Yes, as a migrant family. Sincerely, The Bible We can put Jesús, José and Maria in a cage… or we can welcome them. It's as simple as that. And then, it isn’t. You see, in Luke 10, a lawyer (also know as "a Bible expert") stood up and tested Jesus. He said to him, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” or in other words, “What can I do to go to heaven?” In full-Jesus-style, he replies to...

I have seen it too many times. The church wants others to do less _____________ (drinking, cursing, fornicating, etc.) and more _____________ (praying, tithing, serving, etc)  *And mostly in that specific church, not anywhere else. But we have to ask ourselves, do we want them to start/stop doing those things for their benefit, or ours? I think we have confused salvation with behavior-management and traded the good news for "good advice". Our exclusive... Only-we-are-right... Advice.Now, we don’t do it just to individuals, we have tried doing the same with society. We tell people how to follow the law, when to go to church, which TV...