Walking Through the Fire

There’s a strange thing that can happen when you’ve been around church long enough: you get good at sounding like a Christian. You know the words. You know the posture. You know the rules. But sometimes, even when we are religiously fluent, we miss the point. In this second entry in the  Love is a Verb  series, I’m reflecting on something I see in Scripture — and try to be aware of in myself: it’s easier to talk about following Jesus than it is to actually follow Him. In Matthew 7, Jesus said something that ought to stop us in our tracks:  “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven” (Matthew 7:21). That’s not about perfection — it’s about direction. Following Jesus is more than showing up to the right places or holding the right opinions. It's more than saying the right things or hanging around the "right" people. The real evidence of our faith is found in how we live, how we love...

I've been the pastor at Lantana Community Church for several years now. In that time, we've talked about love...ALOT. But love for us isn't the kind of love that we bottle up and keep to ourselves, its a love that flows through us and to others. It's the kind of love Jesus meant when He said, " As I have loved you, so you must love one another " (John 13:34). We're talking about the kind of love that gives of self, sacrificially. The kind of love that serves others and considers others better than ourselves. With this blog post, I want to talk about that type of love. The next several posts will be part of a series I'm calling Love is a Verb . (That sounded way better in my head, haha. Typing it out just now it seems like an overused phrase.) This series is built around a five sermon series I preached on biblical justice. This isn't political commentary, and it's not sociology or economics, it's pastoral. It's theological. It's bibl...

The Wednesday between Palm Sunday and Easter always feels like holy tension. Just a few days ago, we were waving palm branches and shouting,  “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!”  But we know what’s coming. On Sunday, I said something I haven’t been able to shake:  “The same crowd that shouted ‘Hosanna’ will shout ‘Crucify Him’ just days later.” That’s more than a dramatic contrast. It’s a mirror. It’s easy to cheer for Jesus when He looks like the king we want. The crowd welcomed a Messiah they thought would overthrow Rome, not surrender to it. They praised Jesus as long as He fit their expectations. But when He didn’t — when He challenged the temple system, refused to take up the sword, and started talking about suffering and sacrifice — the cheers stopped. The same voices that cried out for salvation became the ones that called for His execution. We’d like to believe we would’ve done better. But if we’re honest, we know how quickly our own hearts...

After more than two decades in ministry, I find myself walking through fire again — not one that consumes, but one that refines. This season has brought a fresh sense of urgency, and a deeper invitation to walk with God into unknown places. Here’s a reflection on where I’ve been, what I’m learning, and what I believe God is calling me to— and maybe all of us — in this moment. I've been in ministry long enough to know that I don't know everything — but also long enough to have experienced the sweetness of God’s hand in my life. The refinement I’m experiencing is not one that brings discouragement or disillusionment. Rather, it’s a refining fire that leaves me encouraged. I’m in a season where the familiar somehow feels unfamiliar, where God’s call still burns in my heart… but differently than before. It feels deeper, quieter — and yet more urgent. The Unlikely Call I don’t have the familiar story so many of my friends share about an early call to ministry. In fact, my call came...

This week I’ve been reflecting deeply on the idea of justice — not in a cultural sense, but in a biblical one. A while back, I preached a message titled  “Social Justice?”  rooted in Jesus’ call for His followers to love as He loved. That love, as we talked about, is never meant to stay stagnant. It's a verb — it moves outward. It takes action. And in Scripture, God consistently challenges His people to care for the most vulnerable: the widow, the orphan, and yes — the foreigner or stranger among us. That teaching has been on my heart again this week, especially as I think about our worship pastor, Bruno, and his wife, Gabi. Many of you know them and have been blessed by their ministry. What you may not know is the incredibly difficult, expensive, and often confusing journey they have been on trying to navigate the immigration process. Their story is deeply personal, and I won’t try to summarize it here, but they’ve written it down — raw and honest — and I encourage you to rea...

  I've left this post up for posterity. This was my first attempt to start blogging my senior pastor journey. Be kind 😀 Th e Kingdom of God is the sphere in which what God says goes. It is where everything meets with God’s approval and delight. Jesus wanted to bring this realm, the Kingdom of God, into our realm. Jesus modeled the Kingdom so that all we have to do is take a look at Jesus and how he lived to find out what this kingdom is all about. Jesus’ good news, his gospel, was not, “Here are the minimum entrance requirements to get into heaven...” his good news is that living in God’s kingdom is available to you and to me right here and now. Jesus believed that people would do anything to be a part of the kingdom of God once they figured out what it was. To illustrate this, he told stories about it, earthly stories that people in his time might understand. In Matthew 13 is just such a story. Jesus said the Kingdom of God is like a man who found a treasure in a field. In his ex...