How to Pray Better What’s a skill or ability that you wish you had? I would love to be the best golfer in the world. Players can win big trophies and get paid a ton of money to play a game. Also, in what other sports can professional athletes drink alcohol while they play it!?...Read More
Violence & The Bible Most nights, when we’re putting our sons to bed, we have Oliver read his Bible Storybook to Elijah. It’s a good Bible for their age and stage of life. When I was preparing for the subject that we’re getting into today, violence in the Old Testament, I was curious how his...Read More
About a year ago, a book written by Dan Kimball called How (Not) To Read the Bible came out. When I got the email that this book was coming out, I pre-ordered it and planned to do a teaching series based on it at Madison Church. We talk about the Bible weekly during our gatherings, but...Read More
Giving Is Good Jesus is known for his profound wisdom and paradigm-breaking teaching. Even 2,000 years after Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection, his followers are challenged to live in the ways he has called us. One of those countercultural teachings is found in Acts when he is quoted as saying: “It is more blessed to...Read More
Winning The Lottery In 1988, a man named William Bud only had $5 in his checking account when he bought some lottery tickets. As fate would have it, Bud won the $16,000,000 jackpot. It’s not hard to imagine how Bud must have felt because we’ve all had $5 to our name at some point and...Read More
We went to Florida in our old 2012 Ford Escape with 210,000 miles on it last December. All my friends were taking bets if it would break down in Nashville, Atlanta, or Orlando. We made it back, though! We found out that the air conditioner doesn’t work on the way down there, which was a...Read More
Finding Nemo Have you ever seen the Disney movie Finding Nemo? Finding Nemo came out 20 years ago. That makes you feel old, doesn’t it? For those who haven’t seen the film in two decades, it’s about an overprotective dad clownfish whose son gets taken from him. The dad goes on the adventure of a...Read More
“Circles” are essential to us at Madison Church. They’re part of our strategy for connecting people with God and each other. We have systems to help people read the Bible daily and pray regularly. We also have a plan for sharing meals with one another. (We literally have “eat together” on our website. I don’t...Read More
Awkward Family Photos Have you ever looked back at a picture from childhood and wondered how your parents would let you leave the house looking like that? I do. I try to not look back at some of my old school pictures because they are very cringy. Although, to be honest, my parents did try...Read More
A bunch of years ago, I worked at a bank. When I was being trained, there was this particular form we had to fill out and send in periodically. They taught me to take this piece of paper and roll it into a typewriter and then type into all those little boxes. And I’m like,...Read More