An Open Letter To The Church

The following is an open letter to the Church in general and those who call themselves Christians, not one specific body, congregation, person, or pastor. While the following statements and critiques may not be true for everyone, I’ve seen (or heard) them hold true for enough people that I feel it necessary to address. There are times I fall into some of these categories. read more

What Happens When God Doesn’t Heal?

Riding the train to school this week, I found myself reading the blog of one of my favorite people: Rae Lewis-Thorton. (If you’re not familiar with her, check out her blog and follow her on Twitter.) HIV positive for over 22 years, Rae is an Emmy Award winning AIDS activist, as well as a minister who uses her story to encourage others. On this particular day, she wrote an incredible post about Christians would approach her and give her a variety of reasons why she’s not healed, and remedies to become healed. Clearly, God is more than able to heal someone of HIV/AIDS, (He’s done it for my friend Danny Wallace. I know Danny is not the sole case of a person being healed from HIV/AIDS, but he’s the one that I know personally.) but sometimes, perhaps, it’s not in His plan. read more

Twitter Church — April 10

The other night, after having a great brunch with a friend, and doing some homework, I got a little overwhelmed with life, even to the point of becoming a tad depressed. Then I talked to my dad. Both of them. My dad called me on the phone and we had a wonderful conversation just about all that’s going on in both our lives. It was nice to know that we were struggling with some of the same things. We were open, honest, and vulnerable about our lives. And it felt great.

Then we prayed and talked to our Heavenly Father. It was just what we both needed. I don’t know about him, but I was crying so hard by the time we finished — I mean that ugly cry too — that I couldn’t even breathe out of my nose. But I felt so much better. Like a weight had been lifted off my shoulder. There was little doubt in my mind that my Twitter family needed to hear what I had just received. Below is what I shared. (If you’d like the high-res photo, click here)

And because this is Twitter, you’ll have to read from the bottom up, unless someone would like to take the time to reverse all the tweets.

Transforming Communities: An Interview with Joshua Yarbrough: Part 2

Yesterday, we talked about a fundraising event for Josh Yarbrough, coming up on Saturday, November 7th, as well as Josh’s personal experiences and how he began walking down this particular path in ministry.

Now, Josh, in yesterday’s post, you mentioned that there were other experiences that also shaped your thinking in regards to community development.  Can you elaborate on that? Tell us about one of those experiences and why you feel, especially for those who are Christians, why the work of transforming communities is so important?

JOSHUA: Like I mentioned yesterday, my experience in Belize exposed me to poverty for the first time and it had a profound impact on me.  However, even after coming to Christ it took me a little time to realize the seriousness of our responsibility as Christians to the poor and how much of Scripture is dedicated to them.  I have found that our personal experiences can cause us to discover themes in the Bible we didn’t see before.  I think that is what happened to me on a mission trip I took to Peru five years ago. read more

Transforming Communities: An Interview with Joshua Yarbrough: Part 1

Joshua sharing the Gospel in Rwanda

For those of you who don’t know, my friend Joshua Yarbrough is a great friend of mine and a very cool guy. He’s also committed to transforming communities for the glory of God and making a tangible and positive impact there. As some of you may have heard, he and his wife, Monique, are hosting an event on Saturday, November 7th. From what I’ve heard, this is going to be an incredible event with live jazz, food (which you know I love), and plenty of cool people. There’s been a lot of talk circulating about it that I thought it would be a good idea to have Joshua share with us what this event is all about, so, I have asked him to do three posts over the next three days.  I’ll be asking him some questions that I thought people would be curious about.

Having said that, Josh, what can you tell us about the purpose of this event on November 7th?

JOSHUA: First, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to share with your readers what we are doing.  My wife and I have been working hard since March of this year preparing to launch a global initiative for an organization called e3 Partners (www.e3partners.org).  They are a church planting organization that is currently operating in 44 countries and in hundreds of cities.  I will be serving as their Director of Community Development Strategies which means its my job to build this new division that will empower thousands of churches to address issues such as poverty, education, healthcare, justice, and reconciliation.  The event on November 7th is a celebration of this new initiative to transform communities all over the world for God’s glory.  And, as you can imagine, a vision this large will require an army of people doing all kinds of things to get this moving forward.  We will share a little how people can get involved as well. read more