pastor || writer || speaker
What if the church was ‘more like a way station than a destination’? When I first became a Christian, I read an article by J. I. Packer that introduced me to the idea of the church as a hospital. The gist of Packer’s thought, as I recall, was that church is a community where we …
Continue reading "What I Learned from ‘Leaving Church’ (pt 3)"
Recovering the mysterious fear of the Lord There is a phrase throughout the Bible that we tend not to talk about a lot these days in church: “the fear of the Lord.” In many ways, it is understandable. The word ‘fear’ does not offer a lot of positive connotations for us. Who wants to connect …
Continue reading "What I Learned from ‘Leaving Church’ (pt 2)"
When a friend recommended a book to me called Leaving Church, I was surprised by two things. My first surprise was that the book was written by one of the best preachers I have ever heard, Barbara Brown Taylor. But the second fact surprised me even more: she had left vocational ministry after a considerable …
Continue reading "What I Learned from ‘Leaving Church’ (pt 1)"
On November 29, I kicked off our new series at Brooklife Church called "What Happened to Christmas?" The sermon was focused on how we prepare for Christmas in a world that, although it prepares in many ways, often gets it wrong. I suggest that we can prepare for Christmas rightly be doing three things: Looking …
I came across these wise words from Henri Nouwen while reading today: One of the tragedies of our life is that we keep forgetting who we are and waste a lot of time and energy to prove what doesn't need to be proved...voices keep pulling us away from that soft gentle voice that speaks in …
Matthew Erickson 