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This past Sunday we finished up our Four Small Words series in which we looked at the Bible as the story of God and God’s people through just four words: Of, Between, With, and In. Understanding the Bible as a homogenous narrative, rather than disconnected parts stuck together, led to an incredible deepening of my faith several years ago.…

I peek. Shew…that feels so good to finally confess! At 801South, we offer an invitation for everyone in the crowd to follow Jesus every single week. Sometimes the invitation is as simple as me saying something like, “If you feel as though God is becoming real to you today, please fill out the bottom of the…

I watch and visit a lot of local church worship experiences. Why would I choose to spend my time on this? First of all, it inspires me. To hear so many different places and people all proclaiming the same message and doing the same work—that just gets me going. Although the message and the work is the same,…

Who are you? Who is your spouse or significant other? Do you ever wish that you or someone you know were different? This is something with which I struggle all the time. Of course the comparison trap highlighted by social media in our culture today expands the magnifying glass of self-consciousness. Add this constant comparison to…

What are we doing here? This is a question that continue to pops up in my mind as we try to make the best decisions for 801South—a new worship venue and way of being the church—into which we have launched over the past year. Why would a very large, well-established, and traditional church want to…

I could not imagine doing what I do for a living—being in a paid ministry and leadership position—and not routinely making new friends. So what do making friends and being in (professional) ministry have to do with each other? A couple weeks ago, we had another great opportunity to make a new friend. The dynamic…

In one of my first seminary classes at Duke University, a guy named Chad sat down next to me and told me a story about how he had left his house (over 30 miles from Durham) without his wallet. Chad did not realize that he had forgotten his wallet until he rolled into a gas…

What I learned from a family trip to the Great Wolf Lodge.

How many of you are reading this blog on a mobile device? Did this post come through your inbox on your iPhone? Your tablet? Even a laptop? Some of you might be reading this on a desktop computer (shout out to 1998!) but most of us today rely heavily on our always-carry-with-us communication devices. As…

Christmas is a blast when your children are two and four years old. They jump and shout even when they open puzzles. Puzzles! Puzzles are basically educational tools, but we can still trick them into thinking puzzles are actually real toys. (Don’t burst their bubble and go spoiling it for us.) Our boys even get…