Welcome to my blog. I spend half my life in coffee shops having honest conversations about how following Jesus works in real life. So, let’s learn together, grab a cup and – join the conversation.
How this site works:
I’ll post every Monday and invite you to weigh in.
Quick Bio
I’m a businessman, elder in one of the more conservative mega churches in Grand Rapids, Michigan and for over 25 years a full time spiritual mentor of men. I love introducing people to Jesus and truth from God’s perspective. I’m also an NPR listener and student of our culture because I want to understand how the world and a younger generation think, so I’m prepared to engage in conversations which are true to the Bible, intellectually honest and gracious.
Following Jesus is the only hope I have of living this life with purpose, energy and expectation. I hope to end my days on earth still meeting young men at Starbucks who have no interest in God, being the patriarch of my family, cheering them on to godliness, making sad people smile and the lonely – laugh, giving the poor hope, pointing wayward men back to their families, teaching the whole counsel of God and keeping myself unstained – God’s reputation and mine intact.
I spend half my life in coffee shops having honest conversations about how following Jesus works in real life. So, let’s learn together, grab a cup and join the conversation.
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“You believe God will meet all your needs, but you’re not sure he’ll provide all your wants and that’s what really frightens you, doesn’t it?”
I asked this question at a special evangelistic gathering of men in January 2009, right in the middle of the great financial meltdown. None of these men were worried about being homeless or hungry. But, to a man they admitted to periods of fear and sleepless nights, even the Christians present. It was humbling for me to admit to them that I too had been afraid. That set me on a journey to figure out why.
Today, 2020, the whole world is re-living that fear, plus the fear of death.
Three times in the last few weeks I’ve been asked by good Christians to help them explain to their teenage and college age children what happens after Christians and non-Christians die. I think most of us grew up hearing a Sunday School explanation and many Christians still believe that, but there’s so much more.
To each person, I sent these edited excerpts from the book, One Minute After You Die, by Dr. Erwin Lutzer, the pastor of Moody Church in Chicago. He does a wonderful job of clarifying what the Bible teaches on this important subject.
A few years ago I was in Paris with four college seniors finishing up ten days of travel, teaching them history and how to think about current social and ethical issues, in light of a biblical worldview. “My guys” were some of the most gifted, leadership young men I’ve ever spent time with and the products of fine Christian families.
One of our discussions was on what it meant to “be filled with the Holy Spirit”. I told them that one of the reasons that concept might feel foreign and theological to them, could be because they’ve never been spiritually drunk.
A few months back, I was listening to a podcast of a pastor I very much respect. He was teaching on The Prodigal Son, Luke 15:11-32. When he got to the part when the younger brother was living in a “far country” and earned a living feeding pigs, all of a sudden that became the story. Here was the “new angle.”
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