Jem and I recently spent the morning together. We started, of course, with breakfast at City Café, where the waitresses call you “honey” and the old guys at the big table by the window always have a new joke to tell you. From there we rode our bikes all around downtown Northport. We talked to two guys fishing down by the river, passed one of our neighbors who was also out biking, waved to people s...  Read More

When we look at God’s instructions to his people in Exodus 25-27 to construct a tabernacle in which his presence will be manifested, one of the things we are reminded of is the importance of physical place. The physical place of the tabernacle created a tangible environment for God’s people to keep him consistently before themselves. One application of this idea for us is to think about learning t...  Read More

Pastor Ben recently shared a link to an article entitled “In Praise of the Boring, Uncool Church.” I found it a very interesting and relatable read. Around the Church Office we will often joke and say, “We can’t do that. That’s too cool and we are not a cool church.” It is meant in fun, but really, it is true (at least according to the world’s standards), and it is intentional.This quote from the ...  Read More

In God’s making of covenant with his people in Exodus 24, the people respond by agreeing to obey all of the commands God has given them. There is an important principle here, namely, that God’s words are meant to not just be acknowledged as important information; rather, they are intended to be followed in a way that brings transformation. In his book “Living by the Book” Howard Hendricks offers n...  Read More

One of the categories of laws for God’s people in the Old Testament can referred to as societal or civil law. This past Sunday we referenced multiple categories of these types of laws (i.e. laws of slavery, protection against injury, restitution, social justice). Because God’s people in the Old Testament formed their own unique society as an independent nation-state, there were certain laws put in...  Read More

 After sitting through the Sunday School class on parenting this past spring, Anna Grace and I have had our fair share of parenting conversations lately. One helpful concept from that class is the realization that our approach to parenting has to shift over the course of a child’s life. The issues a parent is facing with a six-year-old are different from those of a sixteen-year-old (or at least th...  Read More