Loving, Learning, and Leading

" I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married,"  President Barak Obama As Pastor of a wonderful congregation (www.newhopefree.org), I have been asked numerous times "What do you think of Gay marriage?".  I have been lobbied by Godly people who feel strongly for and Godly people who strongly oppose Gay marriage.  I have talked with congregants who feel this is the single most important issue of our era, and with those who feel this is merely a distraction in the church's mission.  I share that to say that church is not monolithic in its approach to this issue and I recognize that Godly people may respectfully disagree with what I am about to say. From a Biblical perspective, I have written extensively that healthy sexual intimacy is always from a perspective of marriage.  Sexual intimacy before marriage or outside of marriage is clearly prohibited in scri...

Over and over, when I ask God why all of these injustices are allowed to exist in the world, I can feel the Spirit whisper to me, "You tell me why we allow this to happen. You are my body, my hands, my feet." Shane Claiborne Each November, I am reminded of the privilege we have in democracy, to choose candidates who lead our government, and to weigh in on local and state policies.  It is truly a privilege because there are many places in the world, where the people being governed have virtually no influence or voice in the process. Every year, I am asked as a pastor, what should be the Christian's role in the politics.  Typically, its usually a veiled request to find out where I stand on a particular issue.  Yet, I do think its a fair question to ask and a worthy question to consider.  In the secularized society, where one's faith is reduced to smaller and smaller sphere's of influence, there is a tendency to separate one's faith and one's politics.  ...