Close to 13 years of doing Improv with Megan Furniss and differing amounts of years with the rest of this crazy bunch i usually get to hang with on a Monday evening. Making stuff up. And to be absolutely honest, i had been getting a little tired of the same old formula, week in, week out, and so when i was about to leave for a month to go overseas again, in one sense i [...]
This one will no doubt surprise and shock a few South Africans, but one of the highlights of my life was being a Spur waiter for five years, back when we didn’t know how offensive the logo potentially was: […]
Just over a week ago, tbV and i spent five days on two houseboats with about 20 incredible people, mostly younger than me. Here are some of the guys: We lived together, we ate together, we read the bible and sang some worship songs together, we confessed some struggles and some sin and prayed for each other, we sat in silence for three hours and were just still and knew that He was God, we [...]
i mean, how can you not love that, right? Coming home to Cape Town was an easy one. But leaving Oakland was also a less easy one than we may have thought. It was surprising to both tbV and myself just how much like home it felt to us. Which was great. And had a lot to do with the people and some of the places. Especially getting to stay for a month with Aaron [...]
It was the smallest of deals, it was quite possibly the biggest of deals. This morning i'd been asked to share a little about church at a house church meeting of a friend of mine - never met the group before and only knew the leader through a camp i spoke on last year for his youth. But i'd also spent the last few days feeling very challenged by the tragic events in Charleston and [...]
In Acts 7 in the bible, we read about the stoning of Stephen. Does anyone know what role Stephen had in the early church? Let me give you a clue: In Acts 6.5 we see him described as "a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit". So what did he do? Are we thinking pastor? Elder? Worship leader? Let me give you another clue: In Acts 6.8 we read that Stephen was "a man [...]
Last night a small group of us gathered at a friend's house for a bit of a farewell celebration. Our buddy JT Burns was leaving the state of California and heading home for new adventures and possibilities. So there we were, a small group of us huddled around an outside fire pit, drinking beer and eating chips and marshmallows and just enjoying our friend Jon. Then at one point, Nate suggested we share some fun [...]
I was thirty-five when I tied the proverbial knot and so had attended many marriages and yet this one continues to stand head and shoulders above the rest. Not simply because it was my marriage, which no doubt adds its own weight of bias, but I imagine regardless of whose ceremony I was attending that day, I would have still been blown away. Purple-haired, black suited, I waited nervously for my bride to arrive. Upon [...]
When tbV [the beautiful Val] and i were living in Oakland about a year ago, we came across a book titled ‘Free’ by a friend of ours we had met over here, Mark Scandrette. The tagline of the book is ‘Spending your Time and Money on What Matters Most’ and that really does sum up the book. We decided to gather some people together and work through the book over an eight week period. [...]
i wrote a post a couple of years ago titled, 'Your Obituary Starts Here' which i need to flesh out a little i think, because we don't say or think enough about that. When i turned 40 last year, among other things my wife got my best friend from college to bake a Boob Cake [yup, exactly what you thought when you read that] and put together a bunch of the things i had wanted [...]