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Layers of Mystery: What Happens at the Table?

4 weeks ago

3 Min Read

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You’ve done it a hundred times: walked forward, received the bread dipped in grape juice, and returned to your seat. It can be easy to simply repeat the rite, to just go through the motions. But have you ever paused and wondered, Wait a sec…what just happened to me?

Holy Communion isn’t a simple transaction. It’s not a magic rite. It’s not just bread and juice with a prayer attached. Communion is a mystery with layers—each one drawing us deeper into Christ himself. Here are three ways to think about what’s really happening when we come to the table.

Layer 1: We Enter the Story

Holy Communion has its roots in the Passover meal, during which pious Jews proclaim, “We were slaves in Egypt.” Not “they were slaves” but “we were slaves.” Similarly, we don’t simply recall what Jesus did long ago. When the celebrant retells the story—”On the night he gave himself up for us”—we are transported to that upper room and take our seat at the table. Jesus’ death and resurrection aren’t distant historical events; they become present realities happening to us, for us, right now. We don’t just remember; we relive.

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An Amish Barn Move

January 28, 2026

3 Min Read

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Have you ever seen an Amish barn move? It’s a sight to behold. Google it. You can thank me later.

Creating meaningful change in any large context is like moving a barn. Whether that’s bringing health to a dysfunctional family, enacting justice and reform in a toxic system, protecting human life from oppressive political structures, revitalizing a dying church—or whatever big work you are called to—it’s going to require a lot of coordinated heavy lifting.

It requires everyone to lift. No one can spectate from the sidelines, expecting a few other people to do all the heavy lifting. We can’t just bank on the pastor, the board, the elected official, or a few key leaders to pull it off.

It requires everyone to move in the same direction. We must move with singular purpose and trajectory. We cannot each continue to go our own way and do our own thing. We must be humble and open-handed with our own preferences or agendas.

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Home and Hideout

September 29, 2025

3 Min Read

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Yesterday, a year and a day after Hurricane Helene brought unprecedented destruction to our city and so many others, I preached a sermon from Psalm 91. A message of hope in the face of life-threatening storms.

You can listen to that whole sermon HERE. Or, if you’d rather spend 3 minutes reading rather than 30 minutes listening, below is an article-ized version of it that will be coming out in our church Newsletter in October.

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Hard Day’s Work (A Labor Day Riff)

September 1, 2025

2 Min Read

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Even so, I have noticed one thing, at least, that is good. It is good for people to eat, drink, and enjoy their work under the sun during the short life God has given them, and to accept their lot in life. (Eccl. 5:18)

Work is hard. Even work that you love and believe in sometimes just feels like a job. It taxes us. It demands of our bodies, our minds, our hearts. Hence all the groaning and complaining about Mondays—or whatever day your work week tends to begin. We learn this early on. Even my kids complain about going to school on Mondays, like their father before them, and my father before me.

That’s fine. Complain if you must. Sometimes you just gonna let it out. Just maybe don’t overdo it.

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Prayer is Putting Down Roots

August 29, 2025

3 Min Read

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It may seem like not much is going on. All your effort hidden beneath the dirt. More burying than harvesting. More getting your hands dirty than keeping your life neat and tidy. But deep beneath the soil, out of your sight and out of your control, something is happening.

This is the hidden business of heaven. Tapping into the life that is transferred in darkness. Forming a stability that will support whatever future growth may come. Over time, often when you’re not even paying attention, life begins to sprout.

As Jesus said, this is the way the kingdom of God operates:

“The Kingdom of God is like a farmer who scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, while he’s asleep or awake, the seed sprouts and grows, but he does not understand how it happens. —Mark 4:26-27

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Stewardship + Collaboration > Ownership + Control

July 29, 2025

3 Min Read

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“This is is my ministry.”

“God gave me this calling.”

“I’ve been in charge of this for twenty years.”

“This is our church.”

“We’ve always done it this way.”

“We built this from the ground up.”

I’ve heard church people say lots of things along these lines. Pastors, board members, congregants. Heck, I’ve said things like this. And it’s not all bad, but it’s certainly a mixed bag. Sometimes it’s said with pride, and other times with gratitude. Sometimes it’s said with anxiety, and other times with love.

But underneath it all is a subtle (or not-so-subtle) posture of ownership and control.

It’s easy to slip into this way of thinking. We care deeply. We’ve poured ourselves into something. We’ve sacrificed. So of course we feel a sense of responsibility. Maybe even a sense of possession.

But the longer I pastor, the more I’m convinced that ownership and control are not the posture the church needs. Especially not now. The way of Jesus looks more like stewardship and collaboration.

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Forgiveness is Hard as Hell

July 19, 2025

3 Min Read

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Forgiveness is hard as hell. That is, forgiveness is as hard as the hell that was done to you.

If you scratch my car with your shopping cart in the Kroger parking lot, I’ll be annoyed, but forgiveness won’t be too hard, like leisurely sifting sand through my fingers on the beach. However, if you hurt my kid, digging forgiveness up out of my heart is going to be more like swinging a pick mattock into Georgia red clay: a lot of sweat, cursing, and sore muscles.

Over the past year I’ve been haunted by Jesus’ final expression of forgiveness: “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” This is divine absurdity.

After being arrested for no other crime than offending the powers that be, being mocked, beaten, stripped naked, paraded through the streets, suspended by nails pounded between his bones, and slowly dying as his torturers gambled for his clothing to pass the time…

…this is the moment Jesus prays for their forgiveness!? Divine absurdity.

This haunts me because forgiveness disconnected from apology is crazy talk. Hurt me on purpose? I can forgive that. Hurt me because you’re a clueless narcissist? That’s a a bit harder. Got a heartfelt apology? I can extend heartfelt forgiveness. Defend yourself and scapegoat me as being the one in the wrong? I’m gonna hold a grudge.

But then again, for the record, I’m not Jesus.

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Reading the Bible Plurally

June 25, 2025

4 Min Read

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The Enlightenment did humanity a lot of favors: The scientific method. The idea of democracy and the separation of powers. The founding of public education systems and increased access to books. The development of what we now call classical economics. The beginnings of social reforms like gender equality, the abolition of slavery, and prison reform.

Within the Christian Church, this period also saw tremendous advances: Biblical scholarship and historical criticism. The rise of apologetics. The promotion of religious tolerance and Ecumenical dialogue. Abolitionist movements, care for the poor, prison reform, and practical holiness. The expansion of theological education and global mission. Movements that emphasized personal experience with God and lay involvement in the church.

High fives to all those big brains and brave hearts.

But the Enlightenment’s fruit was not all roses and cupcakes. Among the many critiques that philosophers, theologians, and social critics have raised, I want to highlight just one: HYPERINDIVIDUALISM.

In our over-obsession with ourselves we lost sight of the fact that we are communal creatures.

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I Wrote a List of Pastors

June 21, 2025

3 Min Read

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Recently, in the gently rising sun of morning prayers, sparked by one of the lectionary readings for the day, I felt the Spirit prompt me: Write a list of pastors you know, love, and trust.

Within three minutes I had a list of over 50. Fifty. I could have kept writing. I stopped after just a few minutes, and I limited my list to only Lead Pastors. If I was to keep going, or to broaden my scope to include Associate Pastors, Worship Pastors, Kids Pastors, or any other pastoral staff or church leaders I know, the list would have exploded exponentially. By nature of where I’ve invested most of my life, I know a lot of church folk. This exercise was surprisingly easy, and it was healing to my heart.

While not the scripture that sparked this exercise, I was reminded of Philippians 4:8, which I paraphrased to myself after writing my list:

Finally, Rodger, whoever is true, whoever is noble, whoever is right, whoever is pure, whoever is lovely, whoever is admirable—if any pastor you know is excellent or praiseworthy—think about those people.

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Dangerous Business

June 11, 2025

7 Min Read

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“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door,” he used to say. “You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

—Frodo, quoting Bilbo to Pippin, The Fellowship of the Ring

Standing on the path outside the front door of his cozy hole at Bag End, having been out on a long walk, Bilbo would often repeat this saying to young Frodo. He would remind his nephew that this familiar, well-worn path continued well beyond the reaches of the Shire. That very path, he said, ran through the forest of Mirkwood, all the way to the Lonely Mountain, or “even further and to worse places.” If you’re not careful, “if you don’t keep your feet,” you never know where you might end up.

Sounds like life to me. Sounds like faith to me. Abraham left home without a map. Peter stepped out onto water. Paul tried to head to Asia and ended up in Macedonia. The Spirit drives us places we never planned to go. The road is risky, but that’s right where the wonder lives. One day you’re walking down a familiar, well-worn path, fully expecting to end up back at your front door, only to find yourself caught up in an adventure you never asked for, swept off to a far-off destination you never dreamed of visiting.

No matter how determined you may be to “keep your feet,” sometimes life still throws you off balance. Sometimes the the Good Shepherd has a more adventurous path than you expected. But, because he is in fact good, he leads to “even further and to better places.”

Last week, the unexpected adventure that Angela and I have been on led us to the Annual Conference of the Global Methodist Church of North Georgia. The Methodist world is, in many ways, dramatically different than the Vineyard world we are used to. They are a tribe that does things quite differently than the tribe in which we were trained as pastors. As foreign to us as Mirkwood or the Lonely Mountain was to Bilbo.

Nevertheless, there is surprising beauty to be had on such adventures. Here are a few snippets of the beauty I saw last week:

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