Essays

    I'm Not Scurred

    The Four Gs: God is Glorious

    Photo by kyo azuma on Unsplash

    When I was in middle school I was not what you would call, “popular.” I was a home body, I played a non-school sport, and didn’t have many friends. Shockingly, middle school was really hard for me. It’s not a period of time that I look on with any kind of fondness.

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    I Got This!

    The Four Gs: God is Great

    Photo by pixpoetry on Unsplash

    It was cold. The mist hung thick in the air. It was late in a game that was out of hand underneath those Friday night lights. My son, the quarterback, dropped back to pass and after he released the ball a defender crushed him. It was by all means a late hit, one of many that game.

    I lost my mind.

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    Silence

    Photo by freestocks.org on Unsplash

    To take seasons of quiet and silence are important.

    Simply, observe the world around you. Try to set aside your ego and be present.

    This is hard.

    Really hard.

    Over the last week or so, I have been trying to do this. What’s been beautiful about it is that I am seeing more of my tribe and what it is that is broke. I am seeing other tribes and their beauty. I am noticing my neighbor and the love I have for them.

    In this too, I’m seeing my own selfishness, greed, and unloving actions.

    I am also becoming aware of an inner rage that needs to be dealt with.

    The ugly isn’t everything though, I’m seeing in myself some growth toward empathy, compassion, and the ability to let things go.

    In the silence, I’m coming to grips with the absolute fact that Growth = Grace + Truth + Time.

    The “Time” piece is the hardest. I want growth completed yesterday. I don’t want to wait or be patient. I am reminded that time needs to be given to all, including myself.

    Fear Not

    Photo by James Coleman on Unsplash

    Fear is powerful. It generates strong emotions for fight or flight. Fear brings about not just emotional responses but physical as well. For the most part we work very hard at mitigating the fear that we feel and experience on a regular basis.

    The time within which we live is filled with people telling us everything that we are afraid of or should be afraid of. Fear and promotion of fear is everywhere. It seems to be the currency by which those in power trade.

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    Dignity of the Person

    Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash

    The story of the Scriptures opens by grounding people in their fundamental identity: human, the divine image bearer.

    Thomas Browne in Religio Medici writes, “Let there be no doubt at the end of your life that you have been human. You are entitled to a Divine particle and to union with the invisible.”

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    Beauty In One Another

    Photo by Madhav Rajesh on Unsplash

    >“Beauty is the soul’s birthright.” - Bernard of Clairvaux

    There is something that Jesus said, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:30)”

    Have you ever thought about it?

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    To Love Well Is To DO Something

    Photo by Clark Tibbs on Unsplash

    When was the last time that you changed something about yourself? Perhaps it was a diet or workout regimen. Maybe you limited the amount of screen time you were consuming to read more.

    What was it?

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    Welcome! I Wish You’d Leave

    Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

    Have you ever been to a place where you expected hospitality and received none? How did it make you feel?

    • Frustrated?
    • Angry?
    • Annoyed?
    • Disappointed?
    • Unwelcome?

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    Rise and Choose

    Photo by Vladislav Babienko on Unsplash

    Each day we rise and choose. Nobody else chooses for us. It is our choice and our choice alone.

    We choose joyfulness. We choose hopefulness. We choose gratefulness. We choose happiness. We choose love.

    We choose anger. We choose rage. We choose frustration. We choose irritation. We choose hate.

    It is our choice. Nobody can make us do anything.

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    Faithful Presence - Reconciliation

    LoveWell Podcast

    In this week’s installment of #LoveWell Dan discusses the discipline of reconciliation. He’s riffing off David Fitch’s text, “A Faithful Presence: Seven Disciplines That Shape The Church For Mission.”

    Continue the conversation with Dan on Twitter: @danielmrose or Telegram: t.me/danielmrose

    Pastor, Celebrate!

    Photo by Pablo Heimplatz on Unsplash

    Every so often there is what I call, “The Pastor’s Lament.” This is when pastors take to the social media and explain how hard it is to be a pastor. They share memes of how pastoral ministry is so hard that they age like the President of the United States. They complain about the people they serve (not in public, but in private forums).

    Basically, they whine.

    I too am a pastor. Are there difficult things that go with being a pastor? Absolutely.

    However, let us not lament, whine, or complain for we get to be cared for by the people of God to pray, serve, study, write, preach, and lead.

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    Family Together Is Better

    Antioch

    When we started the Antioch Movement, what is now becoming the Acts 13 Network, we made a decision about families. We decided that we wanted families to be together in all that we did. Our hope was that families would not be separated during their times of worship.

    We believe that for children to grow and see what it means to be God worshipers, they need to be with their parents. Not only that, we think that they need to see other adults worshiping God too. Also, they need to be witnesses to the worship of their peers.

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    The Promises Are Good

    Photo by Alberto Barrera on Unsplash

    Do you ever wonder about God’s promises? You know, the ones that seem to be huge and wide sweeping. The ones that seem to go on forever.

    Yet, never really seem to happen.

    I do.

    Often.

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    Shhh...Quiet Your Soul

    Photo by Kristina Flour on Unsplash

    How is your soul?

    >Is it filled with anxiety? Is it filled with stress? Is it scattered? Is it weary? Is it joyous? Is it happy? Is it content?

    How is your soul?

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    Faithful Presence - The Lord's Supper

    LoveWell Podcast

    Dan explores the significance of the Lord’s Supper in being the church on mission as he riffs on ideas from David Fitch’s text, Faithful Presence: Seven Disciplines That Shape The Church For Mission.

    Continue the conversation with Dan on twitter: @danielmrose or on Telegram t.me/danielmrose

    A Waiting Hope

    Photo by Ümit Bulut on Unsplash

    It was late fall and the leaves were almost completely off the trees but hadn’t been raked. At the end of our street was a 90 degree turn because we lived on a horseshoe. One morning, shortly after receiving my driver’s license, I was fiddling with music in my car and wasn’t paying attention. As I looked up the turn was coming at me. I slammed on the brakes and slid into a bank of mailboxes. Thinking nobody saw me, I continued on to school.

    Later that day, I was home watching TV when the phone rang and my mom answered it. Something in me knew I was done for.

    “Dan, were you involved in a hit and run today?” my mom asked.

    “Me? No I didn’t hit anyone. Come on.” I replied.

    “Well that was the police and they said someone reported that you hit the mailboxes at the end of the street this morning and fled the scene.”

    “Oh. Yeah. That was me.”

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    The Bullied Theme

    Photo by Kat J on Unsplash

    “Why do bad things happen to good people?”

    That’s a question that is on the tip of many tongues. Too often too many people feel as though they are experiencing injustices.

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    Faithful Presence: The Intro

    LoveWell Podcast

    We get going proper into our discussion of “Faithful Presence - Seven Disciplines That Shape the Church for Mission” by David Fitch. Dan gives a general overview of where we are headed over the next few weeks. We hope you will join us in the conversation!

    Connect with Dan on Twitter: @danielmrose

    Connect with Dan on Telegram: danielmrose or love well.

    Happiness Is...

    Photo by Huyen Nguyen on Unsplash

    There is a great picture floating around on social media. It’s a photo of two kids on a medal platform. The kid in first place has a sour look on his face. The kid in third place is rejoicing! The caption typically reads something like this, “Happiness is all about your perspective.”

    I dig that sentiment.

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    My Kids!

    Photo by Robert Collins on Unsplash

    Are you a parent? I am and I struggle daily with being a parent. It’s really hard and scary work. Parenting is not for the faint of heart.

    In America we organize everything around our kids. Over the last few years there have been helicopter parents and now lawn mower parents (I’ll let you hit the Duck Duck Go Machine if you don’t know what those are).

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    Joy in the Memory

    Photo by Laura Fuhrman on Unsplash

    A conversation…

    “I could never be a pastor. I don’t know how you do it."

    “What do you mean?” I asked.

    “You have to walk through all the terrible stuff in people’s lives. You’re face to face with all the bad stuff all the time. I guess, I don’t understand how a pastor could ever stay a Christian. It seems like it would be really hard to keep the faith when you see all the times that God doesn’t do what you want."

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    Who Are You?

    Photo by Felicia Buitenwerf on Unsplash

    Where do you find your roots? Is your identity rooted somewhere? How do you know who you are?

    As we walk through this life I think that this might be one of the most important questions that we face. The world comes at us pretty fast and more times than not the knowledge of who we are helps us to know what to do.

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    Be Honest

    Photo by Andrew Butler on Unsplash

    There are times when we feel like nobody cares about us. Sometimes, we feel all alone. That sense of being alone in the world is brutal. It lays us bare. It can feel like a million pounds is weighing us down.

    This sense of being alone in the world and that nobody cares is not something new. It is common to the human experience.

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    Grateful To Live Here

    Photo by Luke Stackpoole on Unsplash

    Some Bible passages make us super uncomfortable in the modern era. It’s often because we don’t take time to think about what they’re saying and what they’re not saying.

    The Scriptures were not written in a vacuum, culturally or otherwise. Neither should we interpret them that way. Nor are all passages written in the same genre and so we must take the time to understand what is happening in a particular passage.

    Psalm 122 is one of those kinds of passages.

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    A Song for the Journey

    Photo by Clemens van Lay on Unsplash

    Have you ever noticed that life isn’t quite as easy as everyone says it’s supposed to be?

    Our conversations so often look like this:

    “How are you?" “Fine. Everything’s good."

    Then you find out they are dealing with marital problems, cancer, or something else super hard.

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