continuing my walk through the Gospel of Mark, in this clip i chat briefly about the baptism of Jesus and the full approval given to Him by His Father before He has done anything significant in terms of life and ministry... to continue on to calling, click here
so this morning i decided i need to get back into some more regular reading of the Bible again and decided to work through the gospel of Mark - one chapter in and i already have a bunch of notes of things that stood out for me.so i decided that, similar to the Psalms i have been working through every now and then, this could be something that i share with anyone who might be [...]
this is one of my favourite photos of myself and it is titled "Hebiggermeless" based on the verse in John 3.30 where John the Baptist, talking about Jesus, says, "He must become greater; I must become less." it is the essence of Christianity and Jesus-following and problems always erupt when we forget that and this picture helps keep me grounded by reminding me how pathetically small i am compared to something relatively tiny that God [...]
crawling through the desert on my hands and knees, torn jeans clinging desperately to my legs, shirt mostly in tatters, hanging loosely off my shoulders... eyes darting to and fro, hoping to catch sight of, a quick glimpse, the hint of, a water source, river, stream, oasis of sorts... some type of cactus with juicy flesh waiting for me to discover in its hidden caverns the satiation for my current devastation, even temporary relief for [...]
i love my wife, the beautiful Val, i really do, and when i love her well, i think i love her really, really well, but when i love her badly, i can REALLY suck at it... one way i have becoming increasingly more aware of doing this is by giving her a "yes" to a question that she asks or a request she makes for me to do something, that sounds a lot more like [...]
i don't have an iPhone slash any phone right now and so don't have the ability to Instagram [which is something i'm not too sad about cos much like predictive text and apparently mac computers until you get them you think they are silly] but there were a couple of snapshots from the last day at CCDA conference that i would like to share, each of which could probably be worked into their own blog [...]
on the way to the CCDA conference in Minneapolis that a bunch of us from the Simple Way are currently attending, three of us stopped over at a Nurturing Communities event hosted by David Janzen who has just released a book on community and met up with a bunch of people from different intentional communities all over the country and spent a really great day connecting and dialoging and having an opportunity to connect with [...]
a number of the simple way staff and residents are currently at the Christian Community Development Association [CCDA] conference in Minnesota which started last nite and is set to be an incredible time and i'm sure i will share a little bit about that here. last nite, Richard Twiss, a native american leader [who also spoke some challenging things last year which i think in part led to this year's theme being 'Reconcile'] started off [...]
in morning prayer this week we read from Matthew 9.27-34 about how Jesus heals two blind men and frees another man from some demon. what was interesting about the translation we were reading from was that it said this: 'As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed Him, calling out, "Have mercy on us, Son of David!" When He had gone indoors, the blind men came to Him, and He asked them, "Do [...]
this is a short psalm with one of the most powerful endings... in the middle of what is clearly a lonely, worrying, desolate time, still the psalmist realises and remembers where his hope lies and that is with God and so he pleads his case, ending with: 'Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.' [vs.5] [...]