Currently reading: Stella Maris by Cormac McCarthy 📚

Currently reading: The History of Theological Education by Justo L. González 📚

This year I’m changing my approach to reading Scripture devotionally. Instead of long swaths and multiple passages, I’m slowing down with brief gospel readings each day. After reading a passage several times, I write a responsive prayer-poem. It’s been so good for me thus far.

So glad to be back at Western Theological Seminary @westernsem this week for another DMin cohort gathering with @WinnCollier @TrygveJohnson @MandySmithHopes and company. it is such a privilege and joy to learn in a community like this.

This weekend at @EastbrookChurch we begin a sermon series from Genesis, chapters 1-11, that leads through Lent and up to Easter. As I prepare, I find myself increasingly excited and daunted by this preaching project. Thankful for wise voices to learn from.

In the next hour: practicing my sermon for Christmas Eve services (Saturday at 1, 2:30, 4, and 5:30 PM) and then rehearsing as part of the worship team for our Christmas Day service (Sunday at 10 AM) for @EastbrookChurch. It’s a fun change of roles from one day to the next!

A highlight from this past weekend was enjoying a performance of Handel’s Messiah with our family at the MIlwaukee Symphony Orchestra. The conductor, orchestra, soloists, and chorus did not disappoint! @MilwSymphOrch

“Whatever else the Christian faith is, and whatever Christian life is all about, it finds its central focus ever and always on Christ” - Gordon Fee in his commentary on Philippians, page 227.

Looks like a blizzard is on its way here in Wisconsin in the midst of travel and preparing for Christmas services. These moments always make planning and preparation feel uncertain…but the potential of snow at Christmas still brings some excitement.

“‘Surrender’ might be the most powerful word in the lexicon…I am persuaded by the thought that the only way to be victorious is to surrender…The moment of surrender is the moment you choose to lose control of your life, the split second of powerlessness where you trust that some kind of ‘higher power’ better be in charge, because you certainly aren’t.” - from his memoir Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story

Currently reading: Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading Of The Bible by Ellen F. Davis 📚

Currently reading: Agrarian Spirit by Norman Wirzba 📚

Took this photo while out on a hike near the Ice Age Trail. I love all the colors framing two “windows” in these old, broken down cement structures lost in the wilderness.

Meditating on this powerful verse today:  “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.” (Isaiah 9:2)

A photo from hiking at Scuppernong Springs on Friday. Beautiful cloudy skies canopy the land’s fine layer of snow as Autumn bends toward Winter.

A picture from last Friday’s hike with Kelly at Milwaukee’s Grant Park. After hiking the ridge trail we ended up at the beachfront on a cool, stormy day.

Currently reading: Surrender by Bono 📚

Currently reading: How to Inhabit Time by James K. A. Smith 📚

Currently reading: The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy 📚

Beginning to work on some teaching about anxiety for a retreat I’m speaking at in 2023. Friends, what are your best resources or advice for addressing this important topic in our lives?

A photo from Friday’s hike near Butler Lake on the Ice Age Trail. I love this time of year.

Currently reading: Evangelical Anxiety by Charles Marsh 📚

Another striking forest photo from this past weekend while hiking the Ice Age Trail, just south of Loew Lake near Erin, Wisconsin.

Beautiful trees on the Ice Age Trail, just south of Loew Lake near Erin, Wisconsin, while on a hike this past weekend.

I am continually amazed by this verse, and I hope that never wears off: “His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness” (2 Peter 1:3).