imagining how the church can reorient around mission

Gallop just published it most recent poll of religion and American life. They discovered that almost 40% of Americans go to church. WHAT? Where? 

  read more

Walk at least 10 minutes a day

I intend on walking more than this, but at least 10 minutes everyday. Just so you know, I do other excercises, but I want to walk for emotional health as much as physical.

Just for fun…check it out.

read more

Perhaps the title of this blog is a bit too provocative, but I want to write a public apology.

There has been quite a bit of blogging done recently about women in leadership of the church. I don’t want to comment much on that except to say that I am sad to have been one late to the party of affirming full equality for women in the church. read more

Last Spring, in preparation to watching the new Star Trek movie, Trey and I watched all of the Star Trek movies. Generally it was quite enjoyable and humorous at times with some of the dated special effects and over the top acting (mostly from the Priceline King).

We watched the new movie and loved it, but we felt like we just did not get enough so we started watching episodes of “The Next Generation.” A little known fact: The original Start Trek ran a relatively short time, but The Next Generation ran a whopping 7 seasons with something 27 episodes per. Well, to make a long story shorter, we got sucked in and have been watching them ever since. We are presently mid-way through season 6. Ok, here is the ridiculous math – roughly 150 episodes so far equaling about 100 hours of viewing. It’s ok, you can say it, “Have you lost your mind?” Answer: Just maybe, but know this…we have fallen in love with the character, Jean Luc Picard (AKA Professor Xavier). read more

You might think I’m late at this, but I thought that after the turkey has settled and the games are over, I’d list some of the things I’m thankful for this last year. Here ya go!

I am thankful for… read more

Here is a talk a gave a month or so ago at Life Center, here in Spokane. Immanuel is partnering with LC in our new church plant. The text for the talk is taken from Ephesians 2.

I wanted to put this out before it moved from the front of my thinking. A few of us have been very concerned about the increase in violent activity in our city (here is a different recent post about this). The question I have been grappling with is what is the church’s response to such issues. To be honest, the complexity of urban violence is beyond me. What can be done? What can I do? I am not sure.

One thing we (Eric Blauer and Liv Larson Andrews) arrived at was we did not want to become desensitized to how these brutal acts fractured shalom. I believe many Americans are becoming fatigued by the constant cascade
of news of this kind; that they are in a way de-selecting it for their possible choices of issues to be concerned about. read more

A Personal Invite!

If you would be interested in finding out more about Immanuel
Church, we will be hosting an informational meeting this Thursday evening at
708 W. Nora here in Spokane (where we will be meeting). It will start at 7 pm and will run for
just over an hour. I’d love to see you!

Honestly, it seems like there are a millions things on the minds of Americans right now and the potential of entering into another war seems like a strange little (and inconvenient) “gnat” only mildly clouding our attentions. We have been in international conflict for so long, for some it just seems like a “same old, same old” thing.  I can remember not long ago that when our country was on the precipice of a international conflict (war) people would freak out.

Have we become that desensitized? Are we that callous? Does it not alarm you that our country is about to drop more bombs…on a different country? read more