My dad baptized me on March 4, 1987. A few minutes later, he scribbled out a baptism certificate and handed it to me in his church office.

This is the date of my baptism.

But the day I was “born again” was a date that I can’t figure.

I know it was sometime in January or February of 1998. It was early on a weekday morning and I was vacuuming one of the wide hallways in the Jim Bill McInteer Bible Building at Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas.

I was in my fourth year of college. I earned spending money by vacuuming the Bible building every morning before the sun came up.

That morning, I was in deep distress.

A few days earlier, my mom and I had an argument about something in the Bible. I don’t remember exactly what, but it was one of those things that the Bible does not spell out in black and white. It was one of those things that people who read the Bible can read a lot of...

Jesus of Nazareth was a victim of politics.

Here are the facts:

He stood trial before a provincial political body that heard political charges against him.

He then stood trial before an imperial politician who heard the same political charges. When that politician hesitated to condemn Jesus, the provincial leaders found a way to push a political hot button that fired up a mass political demonstration. The imperial politician gave in to the political threats from the mob and provincial leaders and signed the execution order.

The imperial government executed Jesus of Nazareth for political crimes (insurrection and/or treason).

What some accounts mention is that political enemies conspired together to bring about Jesus’s execution.

The imperial politicians had contempt for the provincial politicians.

The provincial politicians hated and resented the imperial politicians.

Two...

The two years after I graduated from college turned my world upside down.

College was a magical time for me. I spent five years at two private Christian colleges. During those five years, I actually started to enjoy being me. I came into my own among the most gracious, kind, loving people I have ever known to this day. And I finally found that the Gospel of Jesus Christ really is good news. For the first time in my life, I started to believe that God loves me. Really loves me.

When graduation finally came, I didn’t want to leave!

But I took a job with a Fortune 500 company that immediately transferred me to Chicago.

Chicago and that Fortune 500 company were shocks to my system.

I grew up in a small town in Ohio. I spent the last three years of college in a small town in Arkansas. Up to that point, I had few experiences with big cities and all of them scared me somewhat. Chicago...

Can you remember the last time someone fixed their eyes on your eyes, grasped your hand, pulled you in a little closer, and…thanked you?

I mean the kind of thanks you could feel coming through like a current.

As if life force was flowing from them to you through their thanks.

I…can’t.

I can’t remember the last time anyone thanked me that way.

I have to wonder if I ever did anything worthy of that kind of thanks.

Have I?

Have you?

Let’s come back to that in a minute.

Here in the United States, today is Veteran’s Day.

It’s a day to give thanks from the bottom of our hearts to 17.4 million living citizens who risked their lives to protect our country around the world.

Jesus Christ said that the greatest show of love is when a person lays down her or his life for others (Gospel of John 15:13).

Who among us has shown greater love than those who signed over their lives to be...

The last time my wife, son, and I “went to church” was back in mid-March.

When the pandemic landed in our city, we made the choice to stay home.

Our church started meeting again in late summer, but we chose to stay away longer.

This eight-month exile is the longest I have ever been away from church.

I miss some things so much it feels like my body is becoming anemic from the missing.

But some things I don’t miss at all.

And being away from church for so long is also showing me some things I missed by being in church all those years.

I hope that makes sense.

If you don’t mind, I’ll expand on each of the things I miss, don’t miss, and found out that I was missing. Stay with me. I want to find out if any of this hits home for you, too.

The three things I miss about “going to church” are (in order): 1) The people, 2) Taking my son and his friends to children’s activities, and 3)...

Would you do me a favor before you read this post?

Would you go read a snippet from the ancient letter to the church of Christ in Galatia? I linked it for you here: Galatians 6:1-10.

The writer of the letter, the old apostle Paul, might as well be writing these instructions to the church of Christ in America today.

The one part of that snippet that I want you to repeat to yourself now is this: “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”

The law of Christ.

The Church of Christ, the branch of the Christian family tree on which my little leaf grows, is a bit obsessive with rules.

Growing up into young adulthood in the Church of Christ, if you asked me what Christianity is all about, I would tell you: “Obeying God’s rules.”

We studied the Bible under a microscope in search of those rules.

I have to be honest: It was not a happy thing. The God...

It’s the morning after Election Day.

I woke up this morning and didn’t find the answer to the question that kept me tossing and turning all night: Did I win?

You see, I ran as a write-in candidate for school board.

I ran hard. I had ads, a door-to-door campaign, a social media presence all day every day, a website, yard signs. I had the whole “campaign thing.”

The polls closed in my town at 8 o'clock. Less than an hour later, friends started texting me: “Do you know if you won?”

When I got home from collecting my yard signs from the polling places, my wife asked: “Do you know if you won?”

The questions and the texts kept on coming as I tried to enjoy watching The Great British Baking Show.

Finally, at around 11 o'clock, I texted the mayor: “How do I find out if I’m going to get any sleep tonight?”

She called me back within two minutes.

The mayor explained that write-in votes...

A better marriage than it was at the start.

When we started this family more than 200 years ago, it was not a partnership between equals. It was the (white) man making all of the decisions for everyone.

If you weren’t a white man with a deed, you had to hope that one of them was making decisions that you liked.

It was not a marriage of love; it was an arranged marriage that someone made to enrich those with the most power in the relationship. If you were not one of those who had the power, you might get lucky and enjoy some benefits that fell like crumbs from the table.

Note: America started as an idea, not an established fact.

How does it sit with you that, for almost 100 years, white men and only white men made the decisions for everyone in the United States?

Does that fit with what you believe America is or is supposed to be?

I doubt it.

Let’s look at these two facts:

We belong to a group of about 20 friends who, before the pandemic, got together for a meal almost every week.

About twice a month, we met in someone’s home.

The rest of the time, we met at a restaurant.

How hard is it for 20 people to decide where to go out to eat?

You know this puzzle.

It is a hard puzzle even for a family of three!

Sometimes, I think my wife, eight-year old son, and I take more time deciding where to get takeout than the time it takes to go pick up the food and eat it.

In our home, it’s a hard mix: One person (me) wants comfort food, one person (my wife) has IBS, and one person (my son) has the palate of a second grader who wants a McDonald’s Happy Meal every single time.

There have been days when our takeout negotiation broke down and we ended eating carrot sticks and crackers with peanut butter.

Does this ever happen in your family?

So, back to 20...

The most important vote you cast is not a vote you cast around Election Day; it is the vote you cast every day as you go about your life as a citizen.

The two questions that should mean the most to each one of us are:

1. How am I presiding for my own life?

2. How am I presiding for my family, friends, and neighbors?

How am I doing as a president?

Am I worthy of a vote of affirmation and confidence from the people and places in my own life?

I think presidential politics often becomes a distraction and an excuse.

We can let presidential politics distract us from the work we need to be doing for ourselves and for the people and places in our lives. It is so easy to be put off doing what we need to do while we put on a show about how a person in Washington, D.C., is not doing what he should be doing.

Frankly, politics may be one area where Christians feel like they can ignore their...