In the past few weeks, I’ve seen what many many many people have seen on Facebook news feeds – way too much of Mark Driscoll. First the hype about his new book about sex, marriage, and sex (which I have not read). Then about his insults toward the maybe-godly-but-definitely-wimpy preachers of the UK for not being famous enough. Then about the church discipline process enacted upon some members who weren’t willing to repent enough to be accepted back into fellowship after voluntarily confessing sin. Just moments ago, I finally read something that I, and many others have eagerly been waiting for . . . a sincere word of repentance from Mark Driscoll, as delivered from the pulpit at Mars Hill Church. Yes, really. Read it yourself: I believe that humility is the great omission and failure in my eleven years of preaching. I believe that this is my greatest oversight [...]

As I prepare myself for starting work on a PhD, I do so with a range of emotions. Some days I have the confidence of lion, knowing that I’m up for the intellectual challenge, the persistence through frustration, and the occasional need to outlast boredom with the research process. Some days I very seriously question whether I have anything of value to offer the academic world, and wonder if I’m about to embark upon the grandest form of missing the point I’ve ever been a part of. Some days I simply get a little nervous about my ability to answer questions. For me, questions are a big deal. Perhaps the biggest deal of them all. After living more than half of my adult life with the distinct impression that it was my job to find and discover the “right” answers to all of life’s important questions, I stumbled my way [...]

I just finished a quick read through The Outsider Interviews, by Jim Henderson, Todd Hunter, and Craig Spinks.* It’s billed as a “DVB,” meaning that it’s a book and a DVD together. The DVD has a large number of video clips that are referenced throughout the chapters of the book. I would guess that if this were to be published a year or two from now, the iPad and Kindle versions of the book would integrate the video clips straight into the text. While I read about half of the book away from a TV or computer, I was able to read the other half while sitting next to my computer, and followed the cues to watch the clips. The content of the DVB was largely driven off of the authors’ interaction with material presented in the book unChristian, by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons. That book presents a lot [...]

When I woke up this morning, and sat down with Americano #1, I looked out my home office window to see a beautiful orange and pink and purple sunrise sky.  It’s a nice way to greet the day.  But now, just a few hours later, I’m looking out at the trees blowing in the wind in front of a dark grey, ominous canopyh, and watching the rain fall.  The speed of change in the weather reminds me of my emotional state lately – I’ve been a moody roller coaster. But that’s not what this blog post is about.  I mentioned a few days ago that I spent time at some denominational meetings last week, where some significant changes were being decided upon.  I’ve had several questions about what that means, so I’ll try to describe that briefly – anything more than brief will be boring for you and probably frustrating [...]

In keeping with my “blogging a week after stuff happens” schedule, I wanted to mention the annual fall conference for the network of collegiate ministries I work with.  We had college students from all over Washington, Oregon, and Northern Idaho, descending on the nearly non-existent town of Antelope, Oregon.  Actually, it’s more accurate to say that you go to the nearly non-existent town of Antelope, Oregon, and then you go another 15 miles down dirt roads into the wilderness.  It’s way way out of the way . . . apparently it’s a perfect place for a cult compound, if you’re an Indian guru.  But it’s also a great place for a Young Life Retreat Center. We had the pleasure of being joined at this conference by my friends Jim Henderson and Matt Casper, co-authors of the book Jim & Casper Go To Church.  If you haven’t heard about it, here’s [...]

I’m posting here only to say that I’ve returned after nearly a week away – quite an eventful week, too.  There are plenty of topics to cover, but it’d be best if I broke them down into distinct posts, so for the sake of organizing my thoughts, here are a few of the things I’ll be updating – our latest inter::mission happenings, a collegiate conference featuring Jim Henderson and Matt Casper, a denominational convention which likely spells change for me and my work, and a few miscellaneous tidbits here and there. Before I get to all that, the more important thing for me to note is that it’s my beautiful bride’s birthday today!  She is an incredibly smart, hard-working, multi-talented woman, and I love her madly.  She just keeps getting better and better all the time in many ways.  So, happy birthday Michelle.  Thanks for sharing your life with me.

While the first week of August means that a lot of  universities are gearing up for students coming back to their campuses, in the University of Washington community, we’ve still got some time.  School doesn’t kick off here until September 24.  So, our days are still a bit slower-paced than normal, which in my case means a couple of things: one, I get to go home and see my wife almost every evening, rather than stay in the U-District  late into the evening; two, I get to work on my doctoral dissertation.  Oi – not so sure that second one is a better alternative to hanging out with college students! Anyway, lately, my days have been filled with the fun of building maintenance projects at The Purple Door.  Plumbing, furnishing, carpeting, window repair, cleaning out the refrigerators and freezers.  This is the stuff nobody tells you about in seminary.  It’s [...]

Last night we enjoyed another terrific teach-in at The Purple Door, as part of our ongoing inter::mission project.  Every time I go home from one of these nights, I get more excited about the things we’ve been able to do in our first year, and how things are coming together more and more. Our guest for the evening was Tali Hairston, who is the director of the John Perkins Center at Seattle Pacific University.  He led SPU in developing the center about four years ago, and has done some truly exciting things there that have made the university (and Seattle) a better place.  My appreciation for that school went up a lot last night, and I already thought pretty highly of it.  You can read an archived story of the development of the John Perkins Center here. Tali told the story of John Perkins and how he developed the Christian [...]

Last night was our first inter::mission teach-in of the Spring quarter.  It was really good to have everyone around the dinner table again after Spring Break.  It’s amazing to me how even one week off can make it feel like I’m completely out of rhythm with life around The Purple Door.  We laughed a lot over some tacos and some freaky marshmallow pastry thing for dessert. Our teach-in guest for last night has actually been one of the Purple Door housemates off and on for the past couple of weeks.  His name is Benson Hines, and he’s spent this entire school year on the road, criss-crossing the nation in search of the best college t-shirts.  Actually, he’s doing first-hand research of college ministries.  When he first pulled into town, UW was campus number 85 or 86, but now he’s up to 90.  He’s talking to campus-based ministry leaders, church-based ministry [...]

Tomorrow morning, we say goodbye to the last of three teams of college students that have visited Seattle, and stayed at The Purple Door, while on spring break trips over the past three weeks.  One group was from Minnesota, and two were from Texas.  We have a ton of fun with most of the teams that come hang out with us (even though we all sleep less – including me, who actually lives somewhere other than The Purple Door). There were several highlights of this time, which I could go into here.  But one oddity I’ve noticed about the state of Texas when it comes to college students, seems worth noting.  The gang signs.  Every college of every size in Texas has some funky little contortion that people put their hands into to represent their school and/or their mascot.  I had been familiar with the famous University of Texas “hook [...]