Tag: Jesus

Calling on the Burnt-Out Pastor…

The email chimes at 11:32 PM.

Then again at 5:45 AM.

There is a budget gap to close, a sermon to craft that somehow needs to be both deeply theological and intensely practical, a marriage in the congregation falling apart, and a committee meeting about the color of the lobby chairs.

And somewhere in the middle of all that noise, a quiet, heavy question starts to whisper in the back of a pastor’s mind:

How much longer can I keep this up?

If you’ve asked that question recently, you aren’t alone. Not even close. We talk a lot about “the calling.” We talk about the joy of ministry, the beauty of transformation, the sacred privilege of standing with people in their highest highs and lowest lows. And all of that is real. It’s beautiful.

But there’s another reality we don’t talk about nearly enough. It’s the dry, hollow feeling of running on fumes. It’s pastoral burnout. And if we want to thrive—not just survive, but truly live into the life God has for us—we have to look this thing right in the face.

The Weight of the Invisible Backpack

Why does this happen? Why do so many gifted, deeply committed leaders find themselves stressed out, apathetic and possibly staring at the ceiling at 2:00 AM, wondering if they should just go manage a hardware store?

It usually boils down to a few hidden realities:

  • The Boundless Role: What is a pastor, exactly? A CEO? A therapist? A public speaker? A mediator? A spiritual guru? Because the job description is essentially infinite, the expectations become impossible. When you are expected to be everything to everyone, you end up feeling like nothing to anyone.
  • The Compounding Emotional Load: Pastors carry things. You sit with a family in a hospital room as they say goodbye, and then you walk down the hall, adjust your tie, and walk into a joyful baby dedication. That emotional whiplash takes a toll. If you don’t process that weight, it stores itself in your body, your mind, and your spirit.
  • The Illusion of the “24/7” Saint: There is this subtle, dangerous cultural myth that because you work for God, your boundaries don’t apply. So we look at a text message on a Saturday night and think, Well, shepherds don’t abandon the sheep. So we answer. And piece by piece, our private life is swallowed up by the public role.

The Ancient Pattern of the Desert

This isn’t a new problem. It’s a human problem.

Think about Elijah. In 1 Kings 18, he experiences this massive, spectacular spiritual victory on Mount Carmel. It’s the peak of his ministry. Fire from heaven. Total vindication.

And then, exactly one chapter later in 1 Kings 19, a threat comes from Jezebel, and what does Elijah do? He runs. He goes out into the wilderness, sits under a solitary broom tree, and basically tells God, “I’ve had enough. Take my life. I am no better than my ancestors.”

Look at that trajectory. From the mountain peak to total, crushing despair in a matter of verses.

What’s fascinating is how God responds to Elijah’s burnout. God doesn’t give him a theological lecture. He doesn’t tell him to pray harder or accuse him of a lack of faith.

God gives him a loaf of bread, some water, and tells him to take a nap. Twice.

God addresses Elijah’s humanity before He addresses his ministry. Because God remembers what we so easily forget: we are dust. We are creatures with limits.

Even Jesus—the literal embodiment of the Divine—constantly stepped away. The Gospels are filled with phrases like, “He withdrew to a lonely place.” Jesus looked at massive, hurting crowds with infinite needs, and sometimes he just got in a boat and rowed away. If Jesus needed to walk away from the crowd to preserve his connection to the Father, what makes us think we can just push through?

Creating Your Safeguards

So, how do we shift the rhythm? How do we build a life in ministry that is sustainable, vibrant, and deeply rooted? It requires intentional, sometimes radical, boundaries.

1. Reclaim the Gift of “No” Every time you say “yes” to something you don’t actually have the capacity for, you are saying a functional “no” to your health, your spouse, your kids, or your own spiritual life. “No” is not a failure of love; it is a declaration of stewardship over the finite life God gave you.

2. Separate the “Identity” from the “Function” You are a human being who happens to serve as a pastor. You are not “The Pastor” who happens to be a human being. Your worth, your belovedness, and your identity were completely secure before you ever picked up a microphone or sat in a board meeting. When the church becomes your identity, its failures become your existential crisis. Give yourself permission to just be Scott—a child of God, loved exactly as you are.

3. Practice Radical Sabbath Sabbath isn’t just a day off to catch up on errands. It’s a subversive theological act. It is a 24-hour period where you stop producing, stop managing, and stop fixing. You do things simply because they bring joy, rest, and life. Turn off the phone. Leave the email alone. Walk, read fiction, lift weights, work in the yard—do whatever makes your soul feel alive, and let the universe run without you for a day. Trust that God can handle the church while you sleep.

The Invitation

Ministry is a marathon, not a sprint. But it’s hard to run a marathon when you’re carrying a backpack full of rocks you were never meant to carry.

If you are feeling the burn today, hear this: it is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign that you are human. God is not disappointed in your exhaustion. He’s inviting you to the broom tree. He’s inviting you to rest, to eat, to breathe, and to remember that the weight of the world is on His shoulders—not yours.

Take a breath. Step back. The light is still shining, and you are deeply loved.

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A Kingdom of Equals: Reimagining Leadership in the Wake of the SBC Decision…

The landscape of American evangelicalism shifted noticeably when the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) voted overwhelmingly to advance a constitutional amendment—the “Truth and Unity” amendment—banning member churches from affirming, appointing, or endorsing women in any pastoral or preaching role. To many outside and inside the denomination, it felt like a door slamming shut. Frankly, I shouldn’t care about the SBC nor their decision to continue to contextualize scripture and follow erroneous convictions, but I just can’t stay out of commenting on this topic – so here goes:

It’s easy to react with anger or to write off the SBC as hopelessly out of touch (because I have). But if we want to change hearts, we have to approach this conversation with kindness, understanding why our brothers and sisters in the SBC made this choice, while firmly pointing to a more beautiful, expansive, and historically accurate biblical reality.

The SBC’s decision stems from a desire to remain faithful to what they believe the Bible teaches about “complementarianism”—the view that men and women have equal value but distinct, gender-defined roles, reserving church authority for men. While we can respect their desire for biblical fidelity, as egalitarian believers (which I am), we have to gently but clearly say: we believe they have fundamentally misread both the text and the heart of the New Testament.

The Freedom of Grace: A Wesleyan-Arminian Perspective

As those shaped by a Wesleyan-Arminian theological heritage, we view scripture through a lens of radical grace and spiritual transformation. John Wesley himself realized that when the Holy Spirit pours out gifts upon a person, human structures must get out of the way. Wesley famously gave space for women like Sarah Crosby and Mary Bosquet to preach because he recognized the “extraordinary call” of God on their lives.

In the Wesleyan tradition, salvation and ministry are governed by the Holy Spirit’s empowerment, not by rigid, structural determinism(aka legalism). If God, in His sovereign grace, chooses to equip and call a woman to preach, who are we to stand in the way of the harvest?

The New Testament is Teeming with Women Leaders

The argument that women shouldn’t lead or preach often relies on pulling a few complex verses from Paul’s letters—written to specific churches dealing with localized chaos—and turning them into universal, timeless laws. But when you look at the macro-narrative of the New Testament, a completely different picture emerges.

The early church wasn’t a boys’ club; it was an absolute explosion of co-ed leadership:

  • Phoebe was a deacon of the church in Cenchreae and trusted by Paul to deliver (and likely read and explain) the monumental Epistle to the Romans.
  • Junia is explicitly commended by Paul as “outstanding among the apostles.”
  • Priscilla worked alongside her husband Aquila as an equal partner, and together they corrected and taught the brilliant male evangelist Apollos.

To say the Bible forbids women from teaching men requires overlooking the very women Paul trusted to build the global church.

Ben Witherington III and the Greco-Roman Reality

As I write this, I have to quote one of my favorite modern biblical scholars Ben Witherington III when he said, ““A text without a context is just a pretext for whatever you want it to mean.”

To understand why a male-dominated church view is an incorrect reading of scripture, we can lean into the brilliant work of New Testament scholar Dr. Ben Witherington III. Dr. Witherington often reminds us that we must look at what the text meant to its original audience before deciding what it means for us today.

In the ancient Greco-Roman and Jewish worlds, women were largely treated as property, barred from education, and deemed legally untrustworthy. Into this intensely patriarchal culture stepped Jesus, who shattered every social norm. He allowed women to sit at His feet as official disciples (a radical act at the time), and He chose women to be the very first witnesses and heralds of the Resurrection.

As Dr. Witherington brilliantly points out, gender roles might shape our biological families, but in the church—the family of faith—our roles are determined by the spiritual gifts given by the Holy Spirit. The New Testament was never meant to baptize ancient patriarchal structures; it was meant to subvert them. When modern denominations enshrine male-only leadership, they aren’t protecting ancient biblical truth—they are accidentally protecting ancient cultural biases.

Moving Forward in Love

A male-dominated view of the church diminishes the body of Christ. It effectively benches half of the workforce, half of its servant leaders at a time when the world desperately needs to hear the Gospel. We can disagree with the SBC deeply and passionately, but let’s do so by embodying the very grace and mutuality we read about in the text.

The Holy Spirit cannot be institutionalized, and the call of God on a woman’s life cannot be voted away by a committee. The things that man organize and establish without the guidance and leadership of the Holy Spirit will never last, nor thrive. So again, let me say this clearly again for the ones in the back: “The Holy Spirit cannot be institutionalized, and the call of God on a woman’s life CANNOT be voted away by a committee.

The future of the global church belongs to every single believer who answers the call to say, “Here am I, Lord. Send me.”

Questions for Reflection:

  1. If the first person commissioned by Jesus to preach the news of the Resurrection was a woman (Mary Magdalene), how does that shape our understanding of who is allowed to proclaim the Gospel today?
  2. In our own local church communities, are we structuring leadership based on institutional tradition, or are we actively identifying and unleashing the spiritual gifts of all believers, regardless of gender?

To dive deeper into the historical and cultural realities of the first-century church, you can watch Ben Witherington III’s lecture on Women and Their Roles in the New Testament, which provides an incredible, faith-affirming look at how radically inclusive Jesus and the early church truly were.

Something more to ponder,
Grace & Peace
-Pastor Scott.

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Running on Lukewarm Coffee: Grace for the Long Middle

Hey everyone, let’s talk about something we all go through but rarely enjoy: the middle.

You know exactly what I mean. The middle is that awkward, sometimes exhausting space between starting a journey and actually arriving. It’s the long stretch of highway where the adrenaline of the departure has completely worn off, but the destination is still nowhere in sight.

Think about the start of any grand adventure. The beginning is always fueled by vision, fresh energy, and an upbeat playlist. You are running on the sheer, intoxicating excitement of stepping out in faith. The end of the journey is just as compelling, fueled by pure anticipation. You can finally see the finish line, the relief is palpable, and the promise of rest gives you a sudden, miraculous second wind.

But the middle? The middle is mile 400 of an 800-mile road trip. The coffee is lukewarm, the scenery has blurred into a monotonous gray, and the silence in the car is no longer peaceful—it’s just heavy. The beginning simply requires a leap of faith, and the finish line just asks for a final sprint. But the middle requires grit. It demands relentless endurance and a stubborn refusal to quit when the excitement fades.

This “middle space” isn’t just about road trips, though. It creeps into every significant aspect of our daily lives and our spiritual walks. It’s month three of trying to build a new habit, where the initial motivation is completely gone but the life-changing results haven’t shown up yet. It’s the second year of launching a ministry or a business, where the launch-day applause has faded and you are left staring at the unglamorous, daily grind. We feel it in the hard, sanctifying work of marriage or parenting when the honeymoon phase is a distant memory, but the deep, quiet comfort of a fifty-year anniversary is still decades away.

And we certainly feel it in our faith. It’s that agonizing silence between praying a desperate, tear-soaked prayer and actually seeing God’s hand move in our lives.

It is right here, in this messy middle, where the enemy of our souls loves to pull up a chair and plant seeds of doubt. The middle is incredibly vulnerable. Without the hype of the start or the reward of the finish, our minds start to wander. This is the exact spot where we start asking dangerous, anxiety-ridden questions. We wonder if we actually heard God correctly, or if we just made the whole thing up in our heads. We start agonizing over whether taking that leap of faith was a massive mistake, and we question if it’s even worth it to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

If you are feeling the heavy, unglamorous weight of the middle today, I want you to know that your exhaustion is entirely valid. Feeling tired here doesn’t mean your faith is broken, and it certainly doesn’t mean you’ve taken a wrong turn or that God has abandoned you. It simply means you are in the crucible of endurance—the exact place where your spiritual muscle is built.

In our spiritual lives, the middle is often where we do the most growing, but let’s be honest—it’s also where we do the most groaning. Think about the Israelites for a second. The parting of the Red Sea was a miraculous, thrilling beginning, and the Promised Land was a glorious finish line. But the wilderness? That was a long, dusty, frustrating middle.

Maybe you’re in a “middle” season right now. You’re praying for a breakthrough in your health, your family, your career, or your peace of mind. You know God is faithful, but frankly, you’re just really tired of sitting in the waiting room.

Here is the encouragement I want to leave you with today: God does some of His most profound, beautiful work in the messy middle. The waiting isn’t a waste; it’s a workshop. He is actively shaping your character, deepening your reliance on His strength, and preparing your heart to carry the weight of the blessing that’s coming.

When the middle gets overwhelming, remember that you don’t have to have it all figured out. You just have to stay tethered to the One who holds it all together. Take a deep breath today. He hasn’t forgotten you, and He isn’t finished yet. I hope that you find encouragement in this truth today!

Before you close this tab and step back into your day, I’d love for you to grapple with these two questions:

  1. Where in your life are you currently rushing the process instead of trusting the Maker?
  2. If you viewed your current waiting season as a “workshop” rather than a “delay,” how would that change the way you walk through it today?

Something more to ponder today.
-Grace & Peace
Pastor Scott.

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A Micah 6:8 Kind of Life

“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” — Micah 6:8

So.

Here we are.

We wake up, we scroll, we see the headlines, and we feel it. That tightness in the chest. That sense that the floor is just a little bit shaky. We live in a world that seems to be obsessed with the “us” versus the “them.” A world that is fragmented, loud, and—if we’re being honest—pretty exhausted.

And in the middle of all that noise, there’s this ancient vibration. This whisper from a minor prophet named Micah that somehow feels more “now” than tomorrow’s news cycle.

He asks this question: What does the Lord require of you?

It’s such a massive question. We want to answer it with complex systems, or 500-page manuals, or exhaustive lists of who is “in” and who is “out.” But Micah doesn’t go there. He gives us three movements. Three ways of being human in a world that has forgotten how.

1. Do Justice.

Notice the verb. It’s not “think about” justice. It’s not “post a meme about” justice. It’s do.

Justice is the social expression of love. It’s looking at the broken systems and the lopsided tables and saying, “This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.” Being an ambassador for justice today means we stop asking, “What is best for me?” and start asking, “Who is being left out of the conversation?” It’s the gritty work of making things right, one interaction at a time.

2. Love Kindness.

The word here is Hesed. It’s a deep, sticky, “I’ve got your back” kind of loyalty.

In a divisive world, kindness is often seen as a weakness. A “nice” accessory. But Hesed is a revolutionary act. It’s choosing to see the image of God in the person whose logic you can’t stand. It’s the refusal to dehumanize. When we love kindness, we become people who are more interested in connection than in “winning” the argument.

3. Walk Humbly.

This might be the hardest one.

Walking humbly isn’t about thinking less of yourself; it’s about thinking of yourself less. It’s the recognition that you don’t have the full picture. It’s the posture of a learner.

What if, instead of entering every room with our minds already made up, we entered with a question?

“Tell me more about how you see things.”

Humility is the oxygen that allows grace to breathe. Without it, the world suffocates.

So, what does it mean to be an ambassador for God’s grace in a broken world?

It means we realize that we aren’t the ones saving the world—that’s already been handled. We are simply the ones invited to point to the light.

Today, you’ll have a dozen chances to be “right.”

You’ll have a dozen chances to be angry.

You’ll have a dozen chances to retreat.

But what if, instead, you chose to walk?

Just walk.

With justice in your hands, kindness in your heart, and a humble rhythm in your step.

Maybe the world isn’t waiting for more experts.

Maybe it’s just waiting for more neighbors.
Maybe that neighbor is YOU.

Grace & Peace to you on the journey today.
-Pastor Scott.

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The Sacred Art of Being Right Here

(and avoiding the trappings of this fast-paced life)

You’re probably busy right now.

Maybe you’re reading this on your phone while waiting in line at the grocery store.

Or maybe you’ve got a dozen tabs open on your browser, and this is just one of them.

We live a lot of our lives on the way to somewhere else.

The next meeting.

The next weekend.

The next phase of life.

“Once the kids are finally in school…”
“Once I get through this busy season at work…”
“Once things just settle down…”

We have a tendency to treat the present moment like it’s a waiting room.

Just a beige, sterile lobby we have to sit in until the real thing happens. Until our name is called.

But here’s the thing.

When you read through the ancient stories of Jesus, you notice something striking.

He never seems to be in a hurry.

He’s constantly walking from one town to another, sure. He has places to go.

But he is always, always getting interrupted.

By a woman reaching out in a crowded street.

By a blind man calling out from the dusty side of the road.

By people lowering their friend through a roof right in the middle of his teaching.

And for Jesus, the interruption isn’t a distraction from the work.

The interruption is the work.

He understood something that we so often forget in our hyper-connected, deeply exhausted world.

The divine isn’t just found at the destination.

It’s found in the dust of the journey.

What if we’re missing the profound because we’re too focused on waiting for the spectacular?

We look for God in the earthquake, the wind, and the fire. We look for Him in the grand milestones and the mountaintop experiences.

But God is remarkably comfortable in the ordinary.

In the quiet whisper.

In the breaking of bread around a messy table.

In the face of the person sitting across from you right now.

Grace isn’t something you have to sprint to catch up with.

It’s the air you’re already breathing.

So, take a breath.

Look around.

You don’t have to be anywhere else, or anyone else, to encounter the holy today.

It’s right here.

Three Questions to Ponder:

  1. Where in your life are you currently treating the present moment like a waiting room for the future?
  2. If you truly believed the mundane ground you are standing on right now is holy, what would change about how you move through your day today?
  3. Who or what is “interrupting” you lately, and how might God be gently inviting you to see that very interruption as the actual work you are called to?

Grace & Peace,
-Pastor Scott.

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What Happens When Nothing Happens

We hate waiting.

We just do.

We have apps to skip the line. We have shipping that gets it to our front door by tomorrow morning. We want the answer, the fix, the breakthrough, the clarity, the open door.

And we want it right now.

Because to us, waiting feels like a glitch in the system. We tend to think of waiting as a gap. A void. An empty, useless space between where we are and where we actually want to be.

Like a waiting room. You just sit there. Staring at a five-year-old magazine. Doing absolutely nothing.

But what if spiritual waiting isn’t passive?

What if waiting on the Lord isn’t a delay in your story… what if it’s a crucial chapter of your story?

What if it is the most profoundly active thing you could possibly do?

See, when the scriptures talk about waiting on the Lord, it’s not about twiddling your thumbs. It’s not about spiritual resignation. It’s about tension.

Think of a seed buried deep in the dark, heavy dirt. From the outside, it looks like nothing is happening. It looks abandoned. It feels like the gardener forgot all about it.

But beneath the surface? Everything is happening.

The shell is breaking. Roots are desperately reaching and digging deep into the soil. True, sustainable growth is occurring. You cannot get the massive, unshakeable oak tree without the dark, quiet, excruciatingly slow work of the seed in the dirt.

It’s in the waiting that our false idols are slowly stripped away. It’s in the waiting that we realize we aren’t actually in control. (And man, we love pretending we are in control, don’t we?) It’s in the waiting that our faith stops being a neat little transaction with the Divine—”I do this for you, God, so you give me that”—and starts becoming a real, breathing relationship.

We finally discover that God isn’t a vending machine. He is a presence.

And sometimes, the greatest, most profound gift He can possibly give us is the uncomfortable silence that forces us to stop talking, stop rushing, and start listening for His heartbeat.

The discipline of waiting isn’t about ignoring reality; it’s about anchoring yourself so deeply in the goodness of God that the rushing world around you loses its grip on your soul. It’s active trust. It’s rebellious hope.

So, if you find yourself in the waiting room right now—frustrated, tired, wondering if God lost your file—I want to invite you to stop trying to escape the wait, and start leaning into it.

Because the soil is doing its work.

As you go about your week, I want to leave you with three questions to chew on. Let these sit with you. Ponder them:

1. In your moments of profound discouragement: When you’re exhausted and ready to throw in the towel, what if this divine delay isn’t a punishment, but a deliberate setup to build a deeper, more resilient reliance on His strength rather than your own?

2. In your season of endless searching: When you are desperately looking for the next right answer, are you willing to sit in the uncomfortable, quiet mystery of “I don’t know yet” and trust that God’s presence is enough for today?

3. In your messy time of transition: In that terrifying, beautiful space between what was and what will be, how can you actively tend to the soil of your soul today, instead of just frantically rushing toward tomorrow?

Something more to ponder today.

-Grace & Peace,
Pastor Scott.

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The Danger of Comfort and the Need to Lean In.

Picture a classroom.

Maybe you’re in seventh grade. Maybe you’re in a crowded seminary lecture hall. The teacher is talking. The fluorescent lights are buzzing. And you are… somewhere else.

You’re doodling in the margins of your notebook. You’re thinking about lunch. You’re staring out the window, watching the clouds drift by. The words washing over you are just noise. It’s a comfortable, predictable, safe drone.

And then. It happens.

The teacher says your name.

What happens to your body in that exact fraction of a second? Your spine stiffens. Your eyes snap to the front of the room. You literally, physically, shift your weight.

You lean in.

Because suddenly, the lecture isn’t abstract anymore. It isn’t just noise. It’s highly personal, and it demands your immediate attention.

That comfortable drone? That slow, subtle lulling to sleep? That’s exactly what happens to us in ministry.

You’ve been doing this for a while. You know how the meetings run. You know which songs get the congregation moving, which sermon structures get the nods, how to balance the budget, and how to keep the machine humming.

The machine is safe. The machine is predictable. And let’s be honest: the machine is incredibly comfortable.

But here’s the thing about the machine. It doesn’t have a pulse.

We start out in ministry completely leaned in. We are wide awake to the calling. But over time, the wear and tear of the job takes its toll. People are messy. People are unpredictable. People will break your heart, and they will exhaust you, and they will ask questions you don’t have the answers to.

So, what do we do?

We build structures. We retreat to our offices. We dive into the thick theology books. We spend hours tweaking the graphics for the new sermon series. We step back into the spaces we are used to, the spaces where we are the experts, where we are insulated and in control.

Because leaning out is easy. Leaning back is safe.

But out there in the mess, our name is being called.

God is speaking through the unraveling marriage in your congregation. He is speaking through the doubting young adult sitting in the back row. He is calling your name through the marginalized family in your neighborhood who just needs someone to show up.

When we retreat to the comfortable spaces, we stop hearing our name. We start managing instead of ministering. We start preserving instead of pioneering.

Think about the life of Jesus. He didn’t spend a lot of time in the comfortable, predictable spaces. He didn’t build a machine and manage it from a corner office.

John 1:14 says, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” He didn’t shout instructions from the safety of the heavens. He moved into the neighborhood. He got dirt under his fingernails. He crashed dinner parties with the wrong kind of people (Mark 2:15).

And he was constantly calling names. He didn’t just wave at Zacchaeus in the tree; he stopped, called him by name, and invited himself into the mess of a despised tax collector’s home (Luke 19:5). He saw Mary weeping at the tomb, blinded by her grief, and the thing that finally broke through the noise wasn’t a theological explanation. It was him, simply saying her name: “Mary” (John 20:16).

He leaned in. And he asks us to do the same.

The heart of ministry isn’t found in the green room. It isn’t found in the flawless, down-to-the-minute execution of a Sunday morning service.

It’s found in the living room. It’s found in the hospital waiting area. It’s found in the quiet, desperate, heavy moments where all you have to offer is your presence.

When we get comfortable, we miss the miracle. We miss the moment the lights finally come on in someone’s eyes. We miss the raw, beautiful redemption of a shattered life being put back together. We miss the very heartbeat of the Divine.

So, here is the invitation.

Listen closely. Through the hum of the church machinery, your name is being called.

How will you respond?

Questions to Consider:

  • Where are your “safe spaces”? What are the tasks, rooms, or routines you retreat to when the messy reality of people becomes too overwhelming?
  • Who is currently “calling your name”? Is there a specific person or situation in your church or community that you have been actively avoiding because it requires you to step out of your comfort zone?
  • When was the last time you felt the “jolt”? Think back to a recent moment in ministry where you were suddenly, acutely aware that God was using you in a raw, unscripted way. How can you posture yourself to experience that more often?
  • Are you managing a machine, or ministering to a movement? If you stripped away the lights, the budget, and the Sunday morning production, what would be left of your ministry?

Step out of the office. Leave the safety of the well-worn path.

Will it be hard? Yes. Will it break your heart? Almost certainly.

But hear your name. Shift your weight. Lean in.

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From the Basin to the Bread and Wine: The Beautiful Heart of Maunday Thursday

Hello friends, and welcome back to the blog.

As we journey through Holy Week together, we land on a day with a rather unusual name: Maundy Thursday. If you’ve ever wondered where the word “Maundy” comes from, it’s actually derived from the Latin word mandatum, which means “command.” It refers to the new commandment Jesus gave His disciples on this very night: “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13:34).

But before Jesus ever spoke those words, He gave the disciples—and us—a living, breathing, shocking demonstration of exactly what that kind of love looks like.

If you have a few minutes today, I want to invite you to step into the Upper Room with me. I want us to look at two powerful moments from that evening: the washing of the feet, and the breaking of the bread. Because when we put them side by side, they paint the most beautiful picture of our Savior’s heart.

The Shock of the Basin

Imagine the scene. It’s the Passover feast. Jesus and His closest friends are gathered in a private room. In the ancient Middle East, walking in sandals on unpaved, dusty, animal-trodden roads meant your feet got utterly filthy. It was customary for a servant to wash the guests’ feet as they arrived.

But there was no servant in the Upper Room. And none of the disciples volunteered for the job.

So, in the middle of the meal, Jesus stands up. He takes off His outer clothing, wraps a rough linen towel around His waist, pours water into a basin, and kneels down.

Can you imagine the pin-drop silence in that room? The Creator of the universe, the Messiah, on His knees, washing the grime from the calloused feet of fishermen, tax collectors, and even the man who was about to betray Him. Peter, in classic Peter fashion, tries to put a stop to it: “You shall never wash my feet!” It just felt too wrong, too backward. Kings don’t wash the feet of peasants.

But Jesus was showing them a different kind of kingdom. He was physically acting out the very nature of the Gospel: God coming down, taking the posture of a servant, to cleanse us from the dirt we could never wash off ourselves.

The Bread and the “Remembrance”

With the towel put away and the basin set aside, Jesus returns to the table. And here is where He transitions from the water to the wine.

He takes a loaf of bread, gives thanks, breaks it, and hands it out to those same men whose feet He just washed. He says, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19). Then He takes the cup, explaining that it represents His blood, poured out for the forgiveness of sins.

We say those words so often in church—“do this in remembrance of me”—that sometimes they can lose their weight. We often think Jesus was just setting up a church ritual for us to follow. And while Communion is a beautiful, sacred sacrament, I think Jesus was asking for something even deeper.

How the Basin Explains the Bread

Why did Jesus wash their feet right before breaking the bread? Because the basin explains the bread.

The foot washing was the prequel to the cross. By kneeling with the towel, Jesus was saying, “Pay attention. What I am doing for your feet tonight, I am about to do for your souls tomorrow.”

When Jesus says, “Do this in remembrance of me,” He isn’t just saying, “Eat this bread and drink this juice so you don’t forget my name.” He is saying, “Remember the basin. Remember the towel. Remember how my body was broken and my blood was poured out to serve you and save you. Now, live your life in that exact same way.”

To “remember” Jesus at the Communion table is to embrace His servant heart. We remember His sacrifice by becoming living sacrifices ourselves. We remember the bread He broke for us by breaking our own pride to serve others. When we forgive an offense, when we show radical hospitality, when we stoop down to help someone who can offer us nothing in return—we are remembering Him. We are passing the bread, and we are picking up the towel.

A Word of Encouragement

Friends, as you step into the heavy, holy reality of Good Friday and the joyous triumph of Easter Sunday, I want to encourage you to linger in the Upper Room for just a moment today.

Before you go out and try to serve the world, let Jesus wash your feet. Let Him love you. Let Him cleanse the guilt, the shame, and the spiritual dust you’ve picked up along the road this week. You don’t have to clean yourself up before you come to His table; He is the one who does the washing.

Accept His profound, humble, beautiful love today. Take the bread. Drink the cup. And then, fueled by His incredible grace, let’s go out and find some feet to wash.

Grace and peace to you this Holy Week,
-Pastor Scott.

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A Pondering on Palms and a Path to the Cross.

Hello friends,

As I sit here looking at the calendar, I realize we are standing right on the threshold of Palm Sunday. It’s hard to believe we are already nearing the end of our Lenten journey, isn’t it?

Whenever this time of year rolls around, I find myself thinking deeply about the stark contrast of the days ahead. Palm Sunday is a day of high energy. We love the waving of the palm branches, the upbeat hymns, and the shouts of “Hosanna!” It feels like a long-awaited victory parade. But as we prepare our hearts for this coming Sunday, I want to invite you to look a little closer at the man riding in on the donkey.

The crowds that day were thrilled. They were throwing their cloaks on the road and cheering for a conquering king. Luke 19:37-38 paints the picture perfectly: “The whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen: ‘Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!’”

They wanted a political savior. They wanted someone to kick out the Romans and make their lives easier. But Jesus wasn’t riding into Jerusalem to make them comfortable; He was riding in to save their souls. Just a few verses later, as He approaches the city and hears the cheers, Jesus actually begins to weep over Jerusalem. He knew that the very same voices shouting “Hosanna” on Sunday would be shouting “Crucify Him” by Friday.

This brings a profound thought to mind from C.S. Lewis. In his classic The Chronicles of Narnia, Mr. Beaver famously describes Aslan—the Christ figure of the story—by saying:

“Safe? … Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

The crowds on Palm Sunday wanted a “safe” king—a tame lion who would do their bidding and fit neatly into their worldly agendas. But Jesus is not a tame lion. The path He was walking didn’t lead to an earthly throne; it led straight to the agonizing wood of the cross. Lewis reminds us that following Christ isn’t about God improving our current circumstances; it’s about a total, reverent surrender of our very lives.

Here is my challenge to you this week:

Do not rush the journey. It is so tempting for us, in our modern, fast-paced world, to show up for the parade on Palm Sunday, check out for the week, and then show up again for the empty tomb on Easter morning. We love the triumph, but we shrink back from the tragedy.

This Holy Week, I challenge you to sit in the uncomfortable, quiet reverence of the season:

  • Pause and reflect: Spend time reading through the events of Maundy Thursday.
  • Sit in the shadows: Allow yourself to feel the heavy, somber reality of Good Friday.
  • Embrace the silence: Recognize the profound stillness of Holy Saturday.

You cannot fully appreciate the blinding, glorious light of Resurrection Sunday until you have spent time contemplating the deep darkness of Friday. Let’s not reduce Jesus to a tame lion this week. Let’s approach the cross with awe, repentance, and a quiet, contemplative reverence for the sheer magnitude of what it cost to save us.

Grace and peace to you all on the journey ahead.

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The Grace Expert & The Eight Year Secret.

The news about Philip Yancey is the kind of thing that makes you set your coffee down and just stare out the window for a while.

If you’ve spent any time in the “thinking” corners of the church, Yancey has probably been a companion of yours. His books—What’s So Amazing About Grace? and The Jesus I Never Knew—weren’t just bestsellers; they were lifelines. He was the guy who gave us permission to admit that faith is often a mess of doubt and shadow. He made grace feel like something sturdy enough to hold our weight.

And now, we’re processing this: an eight-year affair. With a married woman. All while he was the face of modern Christian grace, writing the books and speaking at the conferences. He came forward himself, stepped down, and admitted he had “disqualified” himself.

It’s a gut-punch. Not because we’re naive enough to think Christian leaders don’t fail—we know better by now—but because of the specific nature of this failure. It forces a terrifying question: How does someone spend nearly a decade describing the heart of God while their own heart is miles away?

The Art of the Split Life

History is littered with this kind of thing. King David wrote the most beautiful poetry in the Bible while his hands were literally stained with the blood of a man he had murdered to cover an affair. Peter preached the gospel after denying he even knew Jesus.

But Yancey’s situation feels like a very modern, very quiet tragedy. Eight years isn’t a “moment of weakness” or a one-time lapse in judgment. It’s thousands of small, daily choices to live a double life. It’s a sustained effort to keep the “Public Grace Expert” and the “Private Transgressor” from ever meeting in the same room.

It makes you wonder about the words he wrote during those eight years. Were they hollow? Or were they something more tragic—a cry for help from a man who knew the truth of grace but felt he had drifted too far out to actually touch it?

The Myth of Compartmentalization

We like to think we can keep our lives in separate boxes. We tell ourselves, “This secret part of me doesn’t affect my work for God.” But the soul doesn’t work that way. When we live in contradiction, something begins to atrophie.

In church circles, we talk about accountability and integrity so much that the words have lost their teeth. We’ve turned accountability into a polite “how are you doing?” over lunch. But real integrity isn’t about being perfect; it’s about alignment. It’s making sure the person people see on the stage is the same person sitting alone in a hotel room.

When that alignment snaps, we start performing. We use the right “Christianese,” we hit the right emotional notes in our prayers, and we learn how to fake the glow of a spiritual life that has actually gone cold on the inside.

The Quiet Creep of Atrophy

Spiritual decay doesn’t usually happen overnight. It’s a slow, subtle erosion.

  • It starts when you’re “too busy” for your own soul because you’re doing “the Lord’s work.”
  • It grows when you justify a small compromise because, hey, look at all the good you’re doing.
  • It solidifies when you realize you’re good at pretending—and that everyone believes the act.

Eventually, you aren’t living a faith; you’re managing a brand. You become a professional at describing a God you no longer talk to in private. That is the real danger of ministry: you can become so familiar with the language of God that you lose the fear of Him.

Where Does This Leave Us?

The “good” news—if we can call it that—is that Yancey chose to stop the clock. He chose to step into the light, however late, and own the wreckage. That is an act of integrity, even if it’s the final, painful act of a career.

But his story should be a mirror for the rest of us. It’s a warning not to wait for the “big fall.” It’s a call to look at the gaps in our own lives—the places where we are pretending, the secrets we’re guarding, and the ways we’ve let our public persona outpace our private character.

Grace is big enough for Philip Yancey. It’s big enough for the woman involved. And it’s big enough for us. But grace is never an excuse to stay in the dark; it’s the power that allows us to finally come clean.

Let’s stop posing and start being honest. Because a broken person who is honest is much more useful to God than a “godly” person who is lying.

Grace, Peace & Accountability
-Pastor Scott.

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