Category: Religion

  • Trust Falls with Strangers

    What is a leap of faith? And what is it not?

  • #TTWBATS EP Review

    The boys behind Tenth Avenue North have been busy. In May, lifelong drummer Jason Jamison stepped down to pursue a career with the band’s ministry partner Compassion International. In June, frontman Mike Donehey announced the band had launched a record label called ReMade Records (no doubt a nod to their song You Are More off their…

  • Couch Churches: Confronting Trauma, Friendship, and Tomorrow

    Part Three: The Couch My thoughts drift again to communion, and then to worship, the kind that brings you to your knees and throws your arms in the air without prompting. The kind of worship that leads you to speak in tongues. The kind that makes a fool out of you. The kind of childhood.…

  • Couch Churches: Confronting Trauma, Friendship, and Tomorrow

    Part Two: Buildings and Bodies Sitting on a couch, legs tucked under me and sipping on milk and kahlúa, I’m thinking about holy communion. I’m thinking about it so much I move towards interrupting my friend to ask if he has any salted crackers downstairs, and a bit of wine to rinse. But I don’t.…

  • Couch Churches: Confronting Trauma, Friendship, and Tomorrow

    Part One: Trauma I have a complicated relationship with church, both as a building and as a body. As the son of a church worker, I suppose some of that is to be expected. Long days spent at the church instead of daycare, hearing typical workplace drama about your pastoral staff, and the like make…

  • True Strength and Courage

    Read Joshua Chapter 1 On Your Own It begins with the death of a father. In a valley, they bury a 120 year old man. For 30 long and bitter days, a nation weeps. And then, out of the chaos and longing, a call is heard: Pick up your stuff and go, no harm will…

  • Your mysteries are madness

      I would like to read the sentence “do you remember so and so” without feeling an immediate sense of dread. I would likewise appreciate texting out “Did you ever know so and so” without having to follow-up with “they’re not dead, I just have a story.” As a social scientist, I rather enjoy statistics…

  • Exile not Isle

    If you’re coming at this Christian thing from a Western culture framework, you might have heard a little voice calling out to you from Jeremiah: For I know the plans I have for you. We in the West like to tattoo scriptures on our wrists, encircle them in floral print, and pin them to our mirrors on…

  • The Sting

    On a rocky hill, the crowds have dissipated. A Roman commander sits on this bed, head in his hands, nauseous and thankful for solid ground. The brown, perfumed body of a carpenter is sealed behind a boulder. Two women sit in stunned silence across the rock. They are cried out; their faces dry and stoic.…