We gathered at the beach for our annual baptism service and potluck. Always a highlight to preach in the open air with the lapping waves and morning breeze coming off of Lake Minnetonka. I resisted making mention (this time!) that just a few hundred yards down the shoreline Bill Bright housed the Campus Crusade headquarters…
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Jesus’ Call to Discipleship
Just skimmed a little book by the great NT scholar, James Dunn, on Jesus’ Call to Discipleship (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992). If you’ve ever wanted a short, concise summary of the heart of Jesus’ radical teaching and summons to discipleship, here’s a great summary from pp. 121-122: 1) It begins from God and…
Happy 42nd Anniversary, Mom & Dad!
She was 16 years old, and for some reason attending a dance at the Technical College in her hometown. He was about 20, and for some reason flirting with a high school girl. (It was the 70s after all – people did a lot of “iffy” things.) He asked her to dance. She said yes….
Bono & the Psalms
I’m going to see U2’s 30th Anniversary Joshua Tree Tour concert at U.S. Bank Stadium in a few weeks. My only other U2 concert was their Popmart Tour 20 years ago at the Metro Dome (a horrible echo-chamber for concerts). Needless to say, it’s about time. I’m pumped. I’m a long time fan of U2 and an…
‘Love Your Neighbor as Your Dog’
Strangely enough, it started with the popularity of our local Westonka “Dog Days” celebration. Everywhere I drove around our small community I saw red yard signs in proud pet owners’ lawns making it clear to all residents and visitors of our city: “We love our dogs!” The event, now in its 7th year, is a…
Imagine a World: Grateful Stewards (Matt 21:33-40)
Jesus’ parables, in the words of my teacher Scot McKnight, invite hearers to “imagine a world like this…” Like a good novel or film, you get swept up into another world for a moment and when its over you’re dropped back into our world pondering what you just saw, heard, experienced or imagined. Jesus’ parables fire…
A Faith that Relieves & Releases
A member of our church paid me a great compliment this week. She said, “I’m discovering a trend among MainStreeters I am getting to know. I keep hearing people say, ‘Well, Jeremy challenged us to do such and such and here’s what resulted.” She quickly qualified her statement with, “Don’t worry, its the good kind of challenge…
Acts 2:42-47 Rewritten for Today
I’ve been reflecting again on the community life of the first Christians described in Acts 2:42-47. We now stand 2,000 years removed from this first glimpse into the radical social experiment called ‘church’, and we marvel at the quality of their koinonia, or life together. I wonder what Christians 2,000 years in the future (if…
