Liminality

Jesus tells his disciples in Luke 24 to preach repentance and forgiveness of sins. What exactly is repentance and why do I need to be the one to forgive? I agree with Richard Rohr in that the best way to look at this is with the image of a circle. All circles have centers and circumferences. I propose God wants us to live our lives from the center of our circles. This is the place we feel welcomed, loved, and whole. It is the place we feel forgiven. The hard part is society and our dogged egos want to live life on the circumference. This is a much showier life. This is a shallower life that receives tremendous praise and blame from others. And I think deep down you know what I am talking about when I say living a life on the circumference. It’s the furthest point from the center while still being in the circle. It is calling yourself a Christian and changing nothing about your ordinary life. We are all circumference people. We substitute spiritual for superficial...

In hindsight my life shows an ignorant boy struggling to arrive. All my goals and aspirations led towards something not yet obtained. The books I read, the Bible studies I taught, and the youth I ministered to were all attempts at fulfilling a sense of identity and quenching an eagerness for arrival. Granted there was a mixture of prideful egotism and conceit within my sincere attempt at discerning God’s guiding voice in my life. Regardless, I have never known a time when I did not feel the weight of conviction in figuring out God’s calling. But what an interesting choice of words: “calling.” What does it mean? Is God really calling me? Does God call everybody? Is it possible to miss a call? Does God call back? These questions haunted me for some time in college. How did I know God wanted me to pastor? Was I hearing God right? Was I hearing God at all? Was my ego masking God’s voice? On some level or another I believe we all face this existential anxiety about ou...

I have been told my biggest weakness is I take myself too seriously. I agree. But here is my dilemma: My life is filled with responsibilities and deadlines. I go to school, pastor a church, assist my seminary in their admissions process, and feel obligated to be a good friend. My school takes up twelve hours a week plus roughly twenty hours of study. I work at least 10 hours on my sermon and spend two days a week with my congregation. Fifteen hours of my week is given to the McAfee Admissions Office and every Saturday I play softball with some friends. With this schedule I am up to 57 hours of responsibility time plus two days are given to my congregants. Why do I do this you ask? Because I can. Because God is blessing me in it. Because it gives me a sense of fulfillment. All of these shape an identity for me. And I love every second of it. We are all busy people. We all know what it is like to work the extra hour or sign up for one my volunteer role. We all over...