For the first five years of being a pastor, I didn’t teach or preach about money. Looking back, there were several reasons: I was in my early 20’s making approximately $18,000/year and didn’t have much experience making or managing money. Another reason was fear. Every church growth book I read said the same thing: people won’t attend a church that talks about money. Then I noticed something: that line of thinking hadn’t stopped people from watching CNBC or reading the Wall Street Journal. It wasn’t that people were disinterested in the topic of money. But they didn’t want to attend a church that was ONLY interested in money. Specifically – THEIR money! Fortunately, my understanding of stewardship has matured over the years. We teach generosity at Mountainview not because we want something FROM you – we want something FOR you. This is true if you are a follower of Jesus…

"There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God ..." (Romans 3:22-23) We live in a very time-sensitive culture. We have appointments, deadlines, and alarms. Games kick-off at a specific time. Theaters list show times. Microwaves have clocks.  I time the various stages of making my coffee (for the record, there are three stages to making coffee with an Aeropress, each lasting 40 seconds). When Paul describes the human condition in Romans 3, he uses a word (hustereo) that has the idea of always being behind -- not in terms of importance but in terms of being late. In other words, we are terminally slow. In the words of Kenneth Boa, "We are in the race; we just do not ever win." It's not just that we lack the glory of God, we are incapable of catching up to…

I've spent a fair amount of time at airports lately (and will again later this afternoon). One missed flight, six hours of standby, a tornado, and a cancelled confirmation will do wonders to your schedule. One of the things about flying Southwest, which I absolutely love to do, is that they don't assign actual seats. You board in groups and pick the seat that's available. If you're lucky, you'll have an open seat next to you. This is when most people go into a human form of airplane mode. What does that look like? You avoid eye contact at all possible. You put your book on the seat next to you. You manufacture a fake cough. You place a stolen baby blanket on your lap. You pretend to be asleep and hope they won't bother you. If you're religious, you begin praying to God to keep that seat open. Why do people do…

It's about noon, Eastern Standard Time, and I'm enjoying a cup of coffee in Galveston, TX. We close the office between Christmas and New Year's and I took the family south to Texas. I believe it's called a vacation. For the record, the coffee probably would have tasted better in Florida ... but that's in the past. This past year has brought change to our lives and loves, as time has a habit of doing. Our oldest daughter graduated high school and started college. Our youngest daughter got her driving permit. Tonya continues to love her first-graders. Me? I got older and a little bit wiser. Progress doesn't always unfold in a straight line. But if you end ahead of where you started, that is progress. In my line of work progress can be a bit fuzzy. Pastors and preachers are tempted to measure progress in terms of heads and…