Ashes and Affection
God’s affection burns for you, my friend! How do I know? The evidence is in the ashes!
Partial Shutdown
Truth is, always has been, and always will be, at odds with evil. Yes, you are called to stand for Truth. But what a beautiful and liberating reality that your unity with God and Truth does the opposite of make you enemies with your neighbor. In fact, your almighty God instructs that your love for Him be walked out through love for your neighbor (Matt. 22:34-40)!
These are divided times! But you, my friend, can be free of the division!
Strategic Withdrawal
Jesus would withdraw, pray, listen to His Father, and return to His Father’s work with renewed clarity.
You should withdraw, pray, listen to your Father, and return to your Father’s work with renewed clarity.
Olympic Glory
The distance from gold to devastated is exceedingly thin (Vonn said it was five inches in her race this week). The gulf between your sin nature and God’s holiness is vast and impassable save the cross. The amazing news of amazing grace is that the cross made the way plain—you must only believe in and surrender to the One who died on it.
Super Bowl LX
When was the last time you left an entertainment event feeling lighter? I can almost guarantee it was because the content of that event was some combination of true, noble, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, or praiseworthy!
A New Summit
You and I are foolish when we “free solo” in life. This endeavor of following Jesus was never meant to be taken on without the support and encouragement of fellow believers. Galatians 6:2 instructs us to, “Carry each other’s burdens,” and Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 reminds us that, “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.”
Burdens in life are meant to be shared. So are significant accomplishments—new summits reached, so to speak. We are to, “Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn” (Rom. 12:15).
All is lost . . . or is it?
We are on this journey right alongside you, and there are plenty of situations (maybe even a majority of them) that feel overwhelming to us. But we are committed to serving you as we together seek to be more like Jesus. Our prayer is that this publication will leave you better equipped to make Him famous as you engage with the world.
Winter Storm Fern
More than a dozen states made emergency declarations as Winter Storm Fern pummeled a huge portion of the United States over the weekend. A significant snowstorm was followed by sleet, freezing rain, and frigid temperatures, causing hundreds of thousands to be without power. More than half the U.S. population was impacted by the storm, and many areas remain under freezing temperatures, school closures, and limited mobility.
A Second ICE Shooting in Minnesota
There is essentially no common ground from which to start unless we start from neither of the two prevailing narratives. As we have before, we will defer to the ongoing legal process to sort these narratives out, and we will intentionally put on a different lens altogether and seek to breathe life into a story so consumed by death and destruction.
One thing is clear: The current approach is clearly not working.
Let’s you and I model the better way outlined above. It will be peculiar, and it is desperately needed.
The Peculiar Way
Nearly every story or happening in your world is immediately accompanied by two competing narratives, and each of them are rooted in some truth and an absolute prohibition on giving any quarter whatsoever to any portion of the other narrative. This is the vicious cycle that is clearly not working, and my friend, it is not working because it is not intended to work. The unstated goal of the entrenched and opposing narratives is to perpetually fuel the outrage industry.
Your approach is different, because it is not only intended to work, it also has the power to work! Your approach is not to disengage and it is not to perpetuate the chaos. It is to break through the chaos with the approach Jesus modeled by engaging cultural in a way that aims for eternal impact rather than temporary conquest.
Hoosiers
As a Jesus follower, you might have been for the Hoosiers or you might have been pulling for the Hurricanes (or perhaps, like me, you were for the Illini—another basketball-first school). No matter your rooting preference, this story lends a prescient reminder about our not-so-glittery past. To put it gently, each of us has a history that is less than stellar. Every one of us has sinned and fallen short of God’s magnificent glory (Rom. 3:23).
But that past doesn’t mark or determine your destiny! No matter how bleak your past, you are only one decision of surrender to Jesus away from the promise of being a child of God!
Icy in Greenland
The eyes of the world are on the icy terrain of Greenland this week, as a bevy of newscentered on U.S. President Donald Trump’s push to obtain U.S. control of the giant island nation. As part of the effort, President Trump announced planned tariffs on European countries that do not back his acquisition proposal. President Trump also wrote to Norway Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre that the decision to award someone else the Nobel Peace Prize is causing him to no longer have “an obligation to think only of Peace.” The prize was awarded to Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, but Machado gave the award to President Trump last week.
Fed Chair Investigation
Interest rate policy is important. Truthfulness before Congress is important. Limitations on governing power is important.
The Plan
We refer to the primary mission of Jesus as a “finished work” because there is nothing you or I can do to enhance or diminish the magnitude of it. We have life and the promise of eternity with God not because of anything we have done, but because of the perfection of what Jesus has already done.
Even so, in His abounding and everlasting love and grace, the One true and triune God chose to incorporate you into the earthly stewardship of that finished work. He established the Church—His followers—as the mechanism by which He would be made known.
In other words, He could have chosen any plan or no plan at all, but He chose you as the plan because He wanted you as the plan!
Tinderbox in Iran
The human heart longs to be free because it was created to be free (Gal. 5:1). You were created to be free, and you are designed to stand in the gap for those who are not (Gal. 5:13, Ps. 82:3).
Protestors Disrupt Church Service
Protesters interrupted a worship service at the Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, this week. The disruption was livestreamed by Black Lives Matter Minnesota and caused the service to be canceled. The protestors were objecting to the ongoing operations being conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and are believed to have targeted Cities Church because one of its pastors works in a local ICE office. The incident is the latest in an ongoing string of clashes over ICE’s enforcement operations.
Deadly Protest in Minneapolis
Americans should be thankful to live in a place with due process and where competing legal arguments are heard. A byproduct of this system is that the modern-day desire for immediate resolution and vindication cannot be satiated. Knowing this, let’s lead the way in using this interim space to pray for all those involved
On Mission
No matter your resolution—it could be anything from exercising to eating healthier to getting enough sleep—I invite you to pursue it with the following question always in mind:
“Are you on mission?”
Birthday Kickoffs
It is a major birthday year for the United States of America, as the dawn of 2026 brings with it the kickoff of a celebration (complete with newly minted coins) commemorating 250 years since the formal establishment of the nation. The year-long event will crescendo on July 4, 2026 on the 250th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, but the entire 2026 calendar will be full of commemorations marking both the lead up to and the aftermath of that day.
Unrest in Iran
There is significant unrest in the streets of Iran, and dozens of demonstrators have reportedly been killed in recent days, including during a reported raid on a civilian hospital. Demonstrations in Iran have been frequent in recent years and have often centered on the lack of human rights, especially for women in the country. Numerous world leaders have spoken out in defense of the Iranian people and U.S. President Donald Trump said that if peaceful protestors continue to be attacked, the U.S. will come to their aid.