I’ve had some stressful rehearsals as a worship leader in my church, but last Sunday took the cake. While my wife and I were on the stage practicing with the band, my daughters were running around the sanctuary pretending they were queens in Narnia. I noticed they were up in the balcony at one point, but I didn’t pay much attention to them. But then over the sound of the music, I thought I heard someone screaming.
I am conversationally fluent in Spanish, but under the right circumstances, speaking Spanish can be scary for me.
Well, I learned my lesson: If you want to tick off a bunch of people and lose some subscribers of your personal blog, write a post that encourages readers to appreciate the positives in a church like Hillsong NYC.
I didn’t expect an article from GQ magazine about a megachurch to get me choked up, but recently, it did.
Last week, a series of minor, negative events happened throughout the morning. It started with a bit of unexpected, disappointing news, and the dominos just kept falling from there. By mid-afternoon, my chest felt tight with anxiety, and my breathing was slightly more shallow than normal. When I got home, I made dinner for my daughters and tried to distract myself from the heaviness inside by checking my email and social media. It didn’t work.
This morning, I got down on the floor and played with Lincoln Logs for the first time my life. We got them for our daughters for Christmas, and my youngest daughter wanted me to show her how to put them together. In no time, I got lost in the process of building the perfect log cabin with her. I think there’s something beautiful that was going on with that.
Last week, I wrote an op-ed for Fox News Opinion called, “How to Know the Moment When You Really Got Saved.” I have never written something that provoked so many comments, personal emails, or Facebook messages. Fortunately, most of the responses were filled with awe at how completely God saved us through the blood of His Son, Jesus. And one of those messages, in particular, touched me.
I grew up in the Deep South, an area heavily influenced by the evangelical Christian faith. For many of us southern believers, the best articulation of our theology of salvation was the phrase, “Once saved, always saved.” The idea basically boils down to this: Jesus died on the cross for your sins, and once you say the “sinner’s prayer,” you are forever saved, and it can’t be undone, no matter what you do.
Be careful what you name yourself; and be careful what you allow others to name you. Clown. Dumb blonde.
My hair isn’t that complicated. So when I sat down in the chair to get it cut this week, I assumed it would be a relatively quick and easy experience. I was wrong, dead wrong.
Last weekend, I got out our trusty, old fake Christmas tree and put it together. But when I plugged it in, I discovered that half of the lights in the middle section were dead.
I know this was stupid, but last weekend, I did two hours of yard work, despite the fact that I had a severe sinus infection. It all happened because my wife was outside planting bulbs, and I just couldn’t handle the fact that she was laboring in the yard while I sat inside and rested (which was exactly what I needed to be doing).
When I was in seventh grade, I wrote in my journal that I wanted to be an attorney when I grew up, because “attorneys get to do my three favorite things: argue, be dramatic and be right.” In that same journal entry, I also sheepishly acknowledged that being an attorney probably wasn’t a reality for me.
Ten years ago, I had an email exchange with my friend Bethany Greenoe, in which she offered some marital advice to me. I wasn’t even dating anyone seriously at the time, but her words were so meaningful that I saved the message in my “Memorable Emails” folder.
Last week in Chicago, a man found a newborn baby girl lying on the ground outside his apartment. Her umbilical cord was still attached and she was barely alive after suffering blunt force trauma. She died shortly thereafter, and police later discovered that she had been thrown from a ninth story window by her mother.
Joshua Rogers 