Join Rick for the 2nd episode of the new series PRESENT CONCERNS—we’ll be exploring the issues and challenges we’re facing in this strangest of seasons, connecting them directly to how Jesus dealt with similar issues. In this episode, we’ll explore—“Fear.” It’s our everyday fears, not the spectacular supernatural fears of Halloween or horror movies, that are most compelling and most relevant to our relationship with Jesus.…
Join Rick for the 1st episode of the new series PRESENT CONCERNS—we’ll be exploring the issues and challenges that make up the wallpaper of our life today, connecting them directly back to how Jesus dealt with similar issues. In this kickoff episode we’ll explore—“Division.”…
Join Rick for the 12th and final episode of the series IN HIS IMAGE. The tough, marginal, and challenging conditions that produce rare wine from stressed vines also produce martyrs and saints and “beautiful messes” like you and me. Paul tells us we are “struck down, but not destroyed… so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.”…
Join Rick for the 11th episode of the series IN HIS IMAGE. When you hear the cares and concerns of others, do you enter into their reality, or do you keep your distance (however subtly)? When a conniving Pharisee asks Jesus about the “most important” commandment, Jesus tells him what he already knows—“Love the Lord your God with all your heart…”—but then adds a second “equally important” commandment: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”…
Join Rick for the 10th episode of the series IN HIS IMAGE. We all long to be noticed and enjoyed and appreciated for who we really are—to be pursued by a Lover who will sacrifice to be with us. Today we explore the way Jesus moves toward us in our life, captured best by the word “Pursuit.”…
Yes, like sheep, we are a needy people. But we don’t really want to live under the shadow of desperate circumstances as a prerequisite for our intimate dependence on Jesus. It’s hard to live that way. But there is an “alternative fuel source” that those who are living a dependent life with Jesus have discovered.…
To win in a game of Simon Says, we have to radically obey what we’re told. And we’re living in one big challenging game of Simon Says in our culture right now… The tension that exists as we’re “opening up” is real and widespread, because our obedience to “Simon”—government leaders and scientists—is in tension with our determination to choose what we think is right and good.…
More than three decades ago I showed up for my first day of work at Group Publishing, a 26-year-old amateur theologian and journalist trained in investigative reporting, about to mount the lowest rung on my career ladder. Six months later Thom Schultz, founder and CEO of Group, asked to meet with me… I remember the nervous, intimidated feeling I had as I walked the hallway to his office.…
Ever had a friend recommend something, so you try it, and then you realized… you hate it? How can something be “truly good” if not everyone agrees that it is truly good? John Krasinski’s online pandemic show Some Good News brought us a weekly dose of “good”—but how does his good compare to the way Jesus defines good? …
(EDITOR’S NOTE: I led this conversation with Jeffrey Wallace and Brent Crowe several years ago, but it’s more pertinent now than ever. Racial tensions, like embers in a forest, have been whipped into a flames by controversial (and deadly) confrontations between white police officers and young black men.…
 In His Image: Passion){kind=link}
 Foundations: Jesus the Disobedient){kind=link}
 Foundations: Some Good News){kind=link}
