This has been an undertaking in the past 5 years of the most brutal brokenness, haunted humbling and severe undoing of everything I was in ability and identity throughout my first 50 years.

I see faith in the irreverent, miracles in the ordinary, and beauty in the margins…We don’t have a church building yet we conduct personal, pastoral, practical ministry in 10 locations around the city.  We don’t have a pulpit to preach from, but we have hearts to talk to.  We don’t have sacraments to offer so we present ourselves as living sacrifices.  We don’t meet only on Sunday’s we meet on any or every night of the week.  We don’t require the people to believe or behave, we only require ourselves to make them feel like they can belong and become.  We don’t require that they come to us, we make our way to them.  We are an apostolic missionary outpost of the kingdom of our Great God and Savior.

We are learning to speak Broken Gospel like a foreigner learns to speak Broken English. Why? Not so we fit into their world, but so that they can cross over into ours.

I have voluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people: religious, nonreligious, meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists, the defeated, the demoralized—whoever. I didn’t take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ—but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I’ve become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. I did all this because of the Message. I didn’t just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it! (1 Corinthians 9:19-23 MSG)

It is easier to die than be killed.  I see people whose life is killing them and I see people dying who are coming to life.

The church has trained many people in not growing up.

Things get ugly when talent exceeds maturity.  Our culture celebrates personality too much and character to little.

We do not need leaders to serve the church. We need servants to lead the church. Right now we are overrun with leaders. Time to prune the vine.

Get to a place where normal living doesn’t make sense. So ruined you can’t and won’t go back.

I have not yet encountered God in my fast. I’ve just been encountering myself.

PASTOR’S ONLY conference…  Confess your sins to one another, Tissues will not be offered so wear a long sleeve shirt. Pray for one another. Bear each others burdens. Love one another. Speak the truth in love. Bibles are not allowed, only the Word that has become flesh is spoken. Pour in oil & wine in open wounds. Bandage up the brokenness. Real wine and a single chalice is offered for your forgiveness and tasteless broken bread is given for wholeness. You won’t leave with a notebook of cool ideas to grow the church. There will not be a front of an auditorium, only a circle of chairs. No refreshments will be provided except for the soul. There will be no worship band to make you feel better only the stringed instruments of the heart will generate song. We haven’t rented out Bronco stadium, because we really only expect a closet full to attend. See you at the Tree +

Decrease your certainty is an increase to his mystery.

Lent will always come it just may not coincide with the season. The season may be the preparedness for the time when it comes out of season.

A good source of guidance: if you were watching a movie of your life, what would the character playing you have to do to make you proud? -Ortberg

My sons were just home for Christmas; all three of them. They are young men now, out making their way in the world. And as is fitting to their stage in life, they are living on limited means. But when they come home, they get to feast. The refrigerator and pantry is theirs to pillage and they don’t have to ask permission. When we go out to dinner, there is no question that dad will take care of the bill. For they are sons—they get to live under their father’s blessing; they get to drink from the abundance of my house (Ps. 36:8). And when the holidays were over and they packed up and left, they took with them my best shoes, my best sunglasses, some of my favorite books, climbing gear, and cigars—with my absolute pleasure and blessing. Luke was the last to go; he was hoping to pillage some of my travel gear for an upcoming trip. I said, “You are my son—everything I have is yours. Plunder as you will.”  This is how sons get to live; this is how a father feels toward his sons. -Eldredge