I did not grow up observing Lent, and my first impressions of the observance came mostly from people who seemed to care more about abstaining from chocolate and TV than seeking God. I figured that Lent was either a colossal waste of spiritual time or there was something more behind the curtain of this often misunderstood Christian practice.

I know I need a primer for Lent. Maybe you do too. Read more

One night after dinner recently, my wife Julie told Emily (our 8th grade daughter) to go shower, get ready for school and go to bed.  As Emily turned to heed her mother's instructionRead more

  One day a number of years ago, I watched my son drag out rope and a piece of wood from the garage. I knew he had begun yet another inventive project. Thank goodness this one was more simple than the 6 foot catapult we still have in the driveway. (It’s good to know that should a medieval-style battle break out, we are prepared.) In a jiffy, he was proudly displaying a classic tree swing in the front yard. The single, thick slat was noosed at each end by a white rope. Each side of the tether stretched up over a tall pine limb and out to anchor on a nearby crepe myrtle. It was perfect. You know what happened next, it wasn’t long before the neighborhood kids were pumping and flying right outside my window. Read more

A couple of weeks ago, my five-year-old son Joshua got to pick a toy out of the “treasure box” at his school. The “treasure box” was filled with all kinds of novelties and toys from the dollar store. After much deliberation he make his choice: Grow Dinosaur. Grow Dinosaur was a three-inch long hard foam dinosaur that looked like a regular toy animal. However, there was something that made grow dinosaur special. If you soaked the dinosaur in water it would grow 600%. A three-inch toy would transform into a dinosaur that was almost a foot long.Read more

Like i said two weeks ago, no one has more fun than Mark Driscoll.

 My impression is that faithful readers of Common Grounds Online do not suffer from any want of critique from the more fundamentalistic strains of evangelicalism still dominating the religious experience of so many in America today. For most of us, the pendulum is still swinging quite in the opposite direction without too much help, thank you very much. Yet a recent Saturday morning children’s devotional I attended warrants some comment.

Halftime at my 9-year-old daughter’s basketball league is given to “devotional time,” due to the fact, I assume, that she plays in a church league. The speaker opened his message by holding a pen out in the palm of his hand. “Who would like to have this pen? It’s a free pen and anyone who wants it this morning can have it.” It took a minute or so before someone mercifully played along and walked up to take the free pen.

“You see,” he explained, “that’s exactly what the Gospel is. It’s free and it’s available. But you don’t have it until you receive it. And once you’ve received it, you need to use it.”

Again, my intention is not to nitpick what was likely a kindly volunteer at a simply country church function. Rather, the comment revived my recent quest to identify the nature and practice of this most fundamental of Christian acts: believing. The message of the Gospel, we were told growing up, was not activated in the life until it was “received” and “believed.”

My question for the gentleman speaker last weekend is simply this: when presented in this way, how do you avoid making faith meritorious? The gift of the Gospel exists, as it were, outside of me prior to my conversion. What releases the effects of that gift into my life is the simple act of “receiving and believing.” So then how is faith not a condition of salvation? How is salvation “free” if it costs me an act of reception in order to enjoy its effects? Read more

Transitions are tough.Read more